Have you heard this?

Save America -- Enforce the Bill of Rights

By L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.com


The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution -- commonly known as the Bill of Rights -- are the highest law of the land.

Over the 200 years it's been in force, certain people -- usually politicians and bureaucrats who wanted more power and found the Bill of Rights an inconvenient obstacle (exactly as it was intended to be) -- have argued over its proper interpretation.

During the Lincoln, Wilson, and second Roosevelt Administrations, the Bill of Rights was openly violated and even set aside, using an ongoing war as a handy excuse. As a result, the size and power of government grew at the expense of individual liberties which, for the most part, were never given back even when the war was over. Similar violations have been committed in the name of the War on Drugs.

However no legal provision exists for the suspension of the Bill of Rights, in time of war or any other emergency. Any government employee, elected or appointed, from policeman to President, who violates it, no matter what justification he offers, is a criminal.

This claim may appear strange or trivial, until we count the cost of such violations, and realize that the events of September 11, 2001 could never have happened if the rule of law -- the highest law of the land -- had been fully enforced as the nation's Founders intended.

If Constitutional limits on the power of government -- on the President and Congress -- had been properly enforced, the kind of interference typical of American foreign policy that has made people overseas hate us and want to kill us would have been impossible.

And if the Second Amendment had been enforced, the September 11 killers would have faced aircraft containing armed passengers and would probably never have thought of trying to hijack those planes.

So far, the government's response to its own terrible failures of September 11 has been to imitate Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt, and do its best to limit the freedom of Americans even further, passing laws and creating regulations that violate nearly every one of the first ten amendments and transform America into a police state.

And in a transparent and pathetic effort to look better in its blundering, the government cites polls taken of a populace who have been indoctrinated all their lives by establishment mass media and the public schools -- and haven't the vaguest clue what their rights are, or what's been done to them in war after war.

The fact is, crime of any kind, whether it kills six people or six thousand, represents a diffuse threat, and can only be countered with a diffuse defense. Individuals must be free to act -- as individuals -- against it. Only the most stringent, energetic, and enthusiastic Bill of Rights enforcement can guarantee that freedom to act.

Those Founding Founders who wrote the Bill of Rights made sure it was written clearly, in plain language. They meant it to be understood by everybody, not just lawyers and judges -- working for politicians and bureaucrats -- attempting to "explain" it all away.

There is only one correct way to interpret the Bill of Rights. Put yourself in the Founding Fathers' place: if you had just finished a long, bloody shooting war against the biggest, most violently ruthless empire on the planet -- and surprised yourself and everybody else by winning it -- and the last thing you wanted was to find yourself, your children, or their children under the heel of tyranny again, exactly what would you have intended the Bill of Rights to mean?

Is it possible you would have given government -- which the Founders saw as the natural enemy of human freedom, dignity, and hope -- the power to suspend the Bill of Rights? Or would you have wanted those vital, life-giving rights protected by a new kind of government whose only excuse for existing was to enforce them?

The Bill of Rights is what America is all about. Without it, we'd be just like any other country with too much government. We'd be like China, or Russia, or Germany without the Bill of Rights. As somebody said, we'd be the world's biggest banana republic.

Every problem America ever had could have been solved by enforcing the Bill of Rights. Every problem America has now could be solved by enforcing the Bill of Rights. Every problem America will ever have will be solved by enforcing the Bill of Rights.

Or else it won't be America any more.

Here is a variation of the theme.

A message from Sharon Harris

President of the Advocates for Self-Government:

Dear friends,

A very important American civic holiday is coming up -- one that far too
many Americans are not aware of.

Perhaps you can help bring it to their attention.

December 15 is "Bill of Rights Day" -- a day to celebrate, honor and renew
support for our precious Bill of Rights.

It was on December 15, 1791 that the Bill of Rights the first ten
amendments to the United States Constitution -- went into effect.

One hundred and fifty years later, in 1941, "Bill of Rights Day" was
officially recognized as a national civic holiday, and has been ever since.

The Bill of Rights is, of course, the great protector of American liberties.
It boldly declares that people have certain inalienable rights that
government cannot abridge -- fundamental rights like freedom of speech,
freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, and more. It also
provides procedures for defending those rights -- such as fair trials and
limits on federal power.

The Bill of Rights doesn't just belong to America. It has inspired freedom
fighters around the world. The Founders viewed their Revolution as the first
blow in a struggle to win liberty for *all* the people of the world -- so
the Bill of Rights is truly a document for everyone.

That's why I hope libertarians and other freedom lovers will use this
upcoming Bill of Rights Day as an opportunity to teach their families,
friends, neighbors and others about our precious heritage.

It's a *great* time for a letter to the editor of your local newspaper,
discussing the vital importance of our Bill of Rights freedoms and calling
for reflection on our heritage -- and urging citizens to speak out against
current calls to sacrifice liberty for (alleged) security.

To help with that, here's a short summary of the Bill of Rights, prepared by
students at Liberty Middle School in Ashley, Virginia. (I've added just a
few words.) While this condensed version doesn't have the majesty, depth and
detail of the entire document, it is short and easy to understand, and may
be useful to you in discussions and letters:

THE BILL OF RIGHTS: First Ten Amendments to the Constitution

1. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to
assemble peaceably, right to petition the government about grievances.

2. Right to keep and bear arms.

3. Do not have to quarter soldiers during peacetime.

4. No unreasonable searches and seizures.

5. Rights of the accused.

6. Right to a fair trial.

7. Right to a trial by jury in civil cases also.

8. No cruel and unusual punishments.

9. Unenumerated rights go to the people.

10. Reserves all powers not given to the national government to the states
or the people.

All Americans should be familiar with their Bill of Rights freedoms. Sadly,
numerous surveys indicate most are not.

Those of us who love liberty should do our best to correct that.

Happy Bill of Rights Day!

We now return to your regular, scheduled problems.

I can't believe I missed these articles from FFF!

Corporatism and Socialism in America
by Anthony Gregory, Posted February 23, 2005

The introductory graphs are great:

Principled advocacy of the free market requires an understanding of the differences between genuine free enterprise and "state capitalism." Although the Left frequently exaggerates and overemphasizes the evils of corporate America, proponents of the free market often find themselves in the awkward position of defending the status quo of state capitalism, which is in fact a common adversary of the free marketer and the anti-corporate leftist, even if the latter misdiagnoses the problem and proposes the wrong solutions.

Indeed, corporatism, implemented by the state - whether through direct handouts, corporate bailouts, eminent domain, licensing laws, antitrust regulations, or environmental edicts - inflicts great harm on the modern American economy. Although leftists often misunderstand the fundamental problem plaguing the economy, they at least recognize its symptoms.

Conservatives and many libertarians, on the other hand, frequently dismiss many ills such as poverty as fabricated by the left-liberal imagination, when in fact it does a disservice to the cause of liberty and free markets to defend the current system and ignore very real and serious problems, which are often caused by government intervention in the economy. We should recognize that state corporatism is a form of socialism, and it is nearly inevitable in a mixed economy that the introduction of more socialism will cartelize industry and consolidate wealth in the hands of the few.

There's a great rundown of American history, including a section, "Corporatism versus liberty in the 19th century," explaining why I bristle when people think my moniker refers to the American Whig Party. (Without mentioning me personally. An oversight, I'm sure.)

And, just to whet your appetite, see why Gregory recommends the works of New Leftist Gabriel Kolko, who absolutely hates the way Libertarians use his books:

Gabriel Kolko's groundbreaking book The Triumph of Conservatism best advances this thesis of how the government expanded to accommodate, rather than curb, the interests of big business. Though a New Leftist, Kolko shows how political capitalists in every industry - from meatpacking to coal, from railroads to insurance - embraced the expanding regulatory state for their own gain - to push competitors out of the market and give government legitimacy to their companies.

The other article is

Once Again, Democracy Is Not Freedom
(and We Are Not the Government)
by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 28, 2005

Let me quote the three paragraphs I pretty much agree with:

It's not difficult to see how our American ancestors felt about democracy. They considered it so bad that they enacted the Bill of Rights to protect us from it.

After all, carefully read the Bill of Rights. You'll notice something interesting: It doesn't give people rights at all. Instead, it protects us from democracy.

The popular refrain, "We are the government," is false too. After all, if we are the government, then why does the Bill of Rights protect those of us in the private sector from those in the government sector?

Sadly, I don't think the rest of the article well supports the title. I wish it did. I'm sure Hornberger has written something better on this subject.

The citation of the Bill of Rights is essential to understanding what he's getting at here. Let's see if I can summarize it for you.

The Bill of Rights proclaims that the U. S. Government will actively defend your right to

Speak against the government and prevailing opinion
Print such thoughts
Assemble to discuss them
Petition the government about them
Practice orthodox or heretical religious beliefs (provided they don't breach the equal rights of others to the same)
Bear arms for self and communal defense
Maintain private property (many provisions - I'll elaborate later; protection of "persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures" gets a long way into it)
Trial by jury
The right to remain silent in the face of the authorities
And
Things the Founders didn't think of, but that Nature is later found to require
Things your state thought of that other states didn't.

Hornberger spends too much space attacking Bush. Liberals will agree with the attacks, conservatives won't - except for the Buchananites.

Update: FEE (unapologetic FEElosophers, to use Kirkpatrick Sale's smart-assed term) to the rescue! From

Democracy's Road to Tyranny
Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - May 1988
by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Pondering the question of "Who should rule," the democrat gives his answer: "the majority of politically equal citizens, either in person or through their representatives." In other words, equality and majority rule are the two fundamental principles of democracy. A democracy may be either liberal or illiberal.

Genuine liberalism is the answer to an entirely different question: How should government be exercised? The answer it provides is: regardless of who rules, government must be carried out in such a way that each person enjoys the greatest amount of freedom, compatible with the common good. This means that an absolute monarchy could be liberal (but hardly democratic) and a democracy could be totalitarian, illiberal, and tyrannical, with a majority brutally persecuting minorities. (We are, of course, using the term "liberal" in the globally accepted version and not in the American sense, which since the New Deal has been totally perverted.)

Kuehnelt-Leddihn holds not merely the honorific "von" but also the title "Ritter," or Knight. Take that as you wish.

Sheldon Richman, whose blog I've now linked

rather high up on my side-bar, wrote an essay a couple weeks ago... Ah, if I don't find it, I'm not going to be able to say anything intelligent...

Go check out William Penn here. The only thing I really knew about him before was what Macauley said. Apparently Macauley's been refuted. Penn was a hero! A true libertarian icon!

And check this out from Quaker.org.

Anyway, TF was talking about the foundation of rights the other day. I wanted to see what he thinks of de Jasay's piece, which says, basically (as they intro it there):

Nineteenth-century utilitarians introduced into liberalism ideas incompatible with its essence, thus giving rise to a contemporary “liberalism” that discounts the value of liberty. For genuine liberalism to resist the penetration of alien elements, it must affirm vigorously two basic principles: the presumption of freedom, and the rejection of the rules of submission to political authority.

He also says that rights are crap and should be replaced by those principles.

Richman says, after quoting Jasay's paragraph, which says approximately what I just said:

When some Americans in the late eighteenth century demanded that a bill of rights be added to the newly proposed Constitution (in fact the second U.S. constitution), defenders of the Constitutional Convention's handiwork responded that a list of rights, although necessarily incomplete, would be taken to be exhaustive. Advocates of a bill of rights countered by proposing what became the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That seemed to solve the problem. Except that it didn't. The courts have not used the amendment to defend unenumerated rights. Conservative legal scholars claim not to know what it means. Robert Bork famously said it was as if the framers had obscured the text with an ink blot. So despite that language, the Bill of Rights has been regarded as exhaustive. Conservatives glibly parry privacy claims by noting that the word privacy appears nowhere in the list.

Things, then, have worked out pretty much as Mr. de Jasay suggests. Rights are seen as a few islands in a sea of prohibitions. But pushing for recognition of the Ninth Amendment has its risks. Once people start excavating that mine, they are liable to dig up all sorts of "rights" no libertarian would like. Most Americans already think they have a right to a minimum wage, health care, and education. Be careful what you ask for.

For this reason, I am drawn to Mr. de Jasay's simpler approach, although it will be hard to kick the rights habit. Instead of defensively proving that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, let's start demanding that those who would interfere with freedom prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Let them be on the defensive for a change.

It's one of those articles I have a hard top not quoting all of. [Yeah, yeah...grammar...preposition...mutter...] Right at the moment, I'm having trouble summarizing the rest. Probably too much sugar.

Richman's disappointed, however in de Jasay's prescription for action, "It is worth the effort, however, constantly to challenge the state's legitimacy. The pious lie of a social contract must not be allowed to let the state complacently take its subjects' obedience too much for granted.... The best that strict liberalism can do is to combat this [democratic] state intrusion step by step at the margins, where some private ground may yet be preserved and where perhaps some ground may even be regained."

Richman's response, "Observing today's dismal political-economic landscape, it is easy to think that this modest, though by no means easily achieved, agenda is all that strict liberals can hope to win. But if that's all we aim for, we'll never know if we could have gotten more."

Maybe he'd be heartened by Paul Goodman's assertion that anarchy works whenever it's tried, and [I think it's in The Black Flag of Anarchism] he shows examples.

BTW: Anarchy links.

L. Neil Smith has some ideas

on how to celebrate Bill of Rights Day, coming up in one week:

Don't love money. Love the idea of your business. Love the good that it does. Love the fact that in some way your products meet the needs or wants of your customers. See money for what it is - a neutral indicator of how good you are at doing what you do. If the value you provide is worth the money you get for it, people will buy what you're selling. The better the value you give, the more money you will get.

Oops! Well, look what I have on my clipboard! That's Michael Masterson from his Early to Rise article today.

Back to El Neil:

The Bill of Rights is the property of the people, not of lawyers, judges, or academics bent on weasel-wording it out of existence. It is also the highest law of the land, superceding all lesser statutes and ordinances, treaties, and the body of the Constitution itself. Judges who consistently rule against the Bill of Rights should face continual efforts to remove them from office. Wherever it is possible, the 14th Amendment should be used to prevent such creatures from ever holding office again. Avoid trivialities (like semen on a White House intern's blue dress) and focus, instead, on crimes against the people and the Constitution.

He's advocating

The National Recall Coordinating Committees must be guided solely by the Bill of Rights and—since it's the creation of libertarians—the Zero Aggression Principle. I detest having to write these words, but it should avoid those areas of controversy that legitimate members of the freedom movement are divided on, such as abortion and immigration. I have strong opinions on these issues, myself, and it is distasteful not to pursue them, but if the Founding Fathers hadn't followed a similar course with regard to slavery (something they're often criticized for), we'd all be speaking with British accents today.

Once we have the free country the Founders intended, we can settle all our old arguments with coffee and pistols at dawn, if absolutely necessary.

...

Above all, we must always act with complete openness. We must never lie. Nor must we ever soft-pedal our principles or eventual goals.

First among these must be the placement of a stringent—no, let's make that Draconian—penalty clause within the Bill of Rights.

We must also repeal that section of the Constitution which gives legal immunity to legislators for whatever crimes they commit in office, and with it, all laws and findings that give similar immunity to those—like hired FBI assassins—who commit crimes for the government.

He has other practical suggestions for the operation of these Committees of Correspondence, as they were called in the days of the Revolution.

Stewart Rhodes provokes a thought

in the Liberty Committee's More Liberty blog. In his article Government Supremicists, he argues:

The left and right differ only on what part of the federal government gets to decide when we are stripped of our constitutional protections. Certainly, many liberals disagree about particular policies, such as some of the provisions of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, rendition for torture, and the manner of confinement and treatment at abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. But we are concerned here with the constitutional law claim that we the people can be treated like the enemy at all. The right insists the president can do it entirely on his own, while the left insists that he must have the blessings of Congress and/or the courts before he spies on us, interns us in military brigs or concentration camps, tortures us for information (or renders us to a foreign nation to do that) or have us tried by a hand-picked military tribunal in a show trial before having us shot (if we get a trial).

These accusations of unconstitutionality need to be tried. It's not gonna happen in a government court, and an ad hoc court wouldn't have subpoena power, but I highly recommend that somebody hire a real, impartial judge who'd do it because he was interested in the questions (interested, as in "curious", not as in 'having a financial, or political, stake in the outcome'--here's a WOD for you: disinterested is a synonym of impartial, not uninterested--what I'd like the judge to be uninterested in is political-correctness, left, right, neo-con or anarchist; i.e. I want a disinterested judge). And real attorneys for the defense and prosecution.

And, of course, real procedures for handling evidence, testimony and whatever.

LibertyBob could summon an All-Thing.

It is these last procedural protections of the Bill of Rights (along with the First and Second Amendments) that the neo-conservative government supremacists now seek to destroy to attain their dream of unrestrained, unlimited "war" power in a loosely defined war on terror; a war that will likely never end. And the loyal opposition only insists on a role for politicians and willful judges in this murder of the Bill of Rights, trusting only in the god of democracy and the high priests on the federal bench to secure our lives and liberty. Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights have been largely abandoned by both the Republicans and the Democrats.

In the short-run, I'd say he's exaggerating, but I see his point for the long-run.

War is problematic for libertarians. It's a break-down of the rules of civilization--or, for those who hate civilization to start with (yeah, I've read some of your crap, I don't see that your version of anarch will help my daughters live long, healthy, happy lives), it's a break-down of Love and Respect and an outbreak of Hate and Violence.

I'm afraid that sometimes the Lovers and Respecters have to band together to suppress the Haters and Violators. It'd be nice if governments embodied love and respect, but they never will. They should be the embodiment of rules and procedures to protect individuals who practice those values.

Bill of Rights Day, December 15th

Bone up over here. And I kind of like this Wikipedia page too. I got to the first link from Wikipedia via their link from here to the article "What in the Constitution Cannot be Amended?" I looked up the Corwin Amendment because of a Mises.org article about Lincoln.

To answer Linder's question, I'd say that if we can't amend anything in the Constitution, we are not truly free. I'm glad it's a pain in the butt to do it, though.

Of course, now, instead of going through the prescribed amendment process, our leaders - in our name - just reinterpret it to suit their fancies.

Oh, yeah! The Bill of Rights:

First Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment – A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment – No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment – The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment – No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment – In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment – In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment – Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment – The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

I'm tempted to put this first paragraph up on top

of the blog. L. Neil Smith says:

[I]t should be a major objective of any popular reform movement to abolish Sovereign Immunity, that ancient and highly evil custom under which "the King can do no wrong" and a supposedly democratic government has to give its permission to be sued.

Along with this reform, two others are called for. First, any law—including a portion of the Constitution—that shields politicians from crimes they commit in office must be struck down. And to those holdouts who maintain that if these things were done, the government would be buried in lawsuits and unable to "get anything done" (and this is bad because ... ?), you have but to adopt the "loser pays" rule in civil court, to diminish the number of "nuisance" suits that are filed.

There also needs to be a Penalty Clause written into the Bill of Rights.

The corporate equivalent of Sovereign Immunity is called "Limited Liability", a so-called "legal fiction" (English translation: a highly profitable lie, courtesy of the splendid legal profession) under which corporations are viewed and dealt with as individuals, the debts of their owners are limited to whatever they have invested in the corporation (this is exactly like fining a murderer only whatever he paid for the knife, skillet, monkey-wrench, or gun he used to kill somebody with), and the owners of corporations evade responsibility for the evil committed by, say, a Halliburton or a Blackwater USA. Without this change, while the politicians face war crimes trials, the directors and stockholders can sit back and watch the whole thing on TV.

Here's another fun quote, from Michael Rozeff at LewRockwell.com:

The notion of "We the People" hides a critical weakness in this political theory of Government, which otherwise is extremely attractive in its affirmation of a person’s rights and in its view of the derivative rights (or powers) of a Government. The theory leaves unanswered two questions. First, how do good People become a People? Second, how does a People provide its consent to a Government?

Shouldn’t they logically become a People in such a way as to maintain their primary rights? Shouldn’t they logically provide their consent to a Government while maintaining their primary rights? They should. Otherwise, the foundations of the theory are being contradicted.

And another, from Vin Suprynowicz:

[Y]our public school teacher had a fatal conflict of interest when he or she taught you "why we need to have a central state, with the power to shoot or jail people who don't pay up." I'll bet he or she never mentioned, as one of the reasons, "Because otherwise my paychecks would stop coming."

Be deeply suspicious therefore of most of the reasons you've been given for "why we need a central state." When stop signs are removed and speed limits raised or eliminated -- when people stop depending on the false assurance that such "rules" will bind the drunk and disorderly -- accident rates go down, not up (see John Staddon, in this month's Atlantic.) When more potential crime victims are "allowed" to carry concealed handguns, violent crime rates go down, not up (See John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime.")

Feel free to extend this premise to most of the other reasons you've been told we "need" a powerful government regulating everything, most especially the notion that we "need" the guvgoons to jail hundreds of thousands of drug users. Nobody jailed them before 1914, and America was so safe that hardly anyone locked their doors.

I fear I've been neglecting John Rogers

to whom I'll have to relinquish my title Old Whig, if I don't shape up soon. I once said that I haven't found anybody that I completely agree with, but this guy... He handles the news better than I do (though that's not entirely my gig), and I especially like what he says here about Cuba and the nature of government:
Once again, we find that economic "rights" are more important than the Bill of Rights in the hard left's thinking. If it means rewriting history and ignoring modern events to get that belief across, so be it.

The hard left is composed of fanatical devotees to the false religion that Marxism has become. It's got its myths, like the belief that wealth can be created by a confiscatory state that seizes wealth and uses it for the public's benefit. Or the idea that my neighbor's riches must have been taken from my pocket. The Marxist religion has saints who have done no wrong: Castro, Che Guevara, and Trotsky come to mind. And, of course, it calls for the subversion of the individual to the struggle, and it has a promised land of a socialist utopia.

Of course, Marxism has proven unworkable every time it has been tried throughout history and in every region of the world. This does not sway the believers: Marxist economic theory just needs some tinkering to work. The dismal data of the experiments? They can just be written away, as liberal journalists are attempting to do with Cuba.

But Marxism is unworkable because it is the concentration of power in the hands of a centralized state. History is clear that the dilution of power, to more people and to more types of people, is more successful in improving human rights and standards of living.

So, I've added him to my blogroll.
I've also added the titles Whiggarchy (rule by Whigs, which I define as those who seek to minimize the use of force on innocent people), Isonomy ((n.) Equal law or right; equal distribution of rights and privileges; similarity. BrainyDictionary) - under which I've placed SCOTUSBlog (SCOTUS stands for Supreme Court of the United States for those new to wonkdom) and the Volokh Conspiracy; and Fraternity. And, in case you don't get my use of those terms, the first two replace Liberty and Equality in the French Revolutionary slogan "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" I can't think of anything wrong with "fraternity". The other two terms are too vague to base a political program on.

Hey! It's Constitution Day!

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, secure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

I won't quote the whole thing, just section 1 of each article.

Article I, section 1: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 8 holds the enumerated powers of the government. Well worth your time to study.

Article II, section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows.

The rest of that thought is completed in the next article. Good thing none of my English teachers never saw that.

Article III, section 1: The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Article IV, section 1: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State; And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Article V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI, section 1: All debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

Article VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.

Next up, Bill of Rights Day on the 15th of December.

It's my blog and I'll quote LvMI if I want to.

In Time for Another Revolution, Frank Chodorov said:

But regardless of their argument and regardless of their intent, the Constitutional shackles did in fact, though perhaps inadvertently, protect the people in the enjoyment of their cherished rights.

From this we learn a little heeded lesson in social science, namely, that the real struggle that disturbs the enjoyment of life is not between economic classes but between Society as a whole and the political power which imposes itself on Society. The class-struggle theory is a blind alley. True, people of like economic interests will gang up for the purpose of taking advantage of others. But within these classes there is as much rivalry as there is between the classes.

When, however, you examine the advantage which one class obtains over another you find that the basis of it is political power. It is impossible for one person to exploit another, for one class to exploit another, without the aid of law and the force to back up the law. Examine any monopoly and you will find it resting on the State. So that the economic and social injustices we complain of are not due to economic inequalities, but to the political means that bring about these inequalities.

If peace is to be brought into the social order it is not by accentuating a class struggle, but by restraining the basic cause of it; that is, the political power. To bring about a condition of equal rights, which is a condition of justice, the hands of the politician must be so tied that he cannot extend his activities beyond the simple duty of protecting life and property, his only competence.

"His only competence." No form of redistribution works better than protecting life and property for creating a peaceful, happy society. The authorities don't do that perfectly either, but if they focused on it, they might improve.

And, if all that seems too tame, Chodorov goes on:

For about a century and a half the American citizen enjoyed, in the main, three immunities against the State: in respect to his property; in respect to his person; in respect to his thought and expression. Pressure upon them was constant, for in the pursuit of power the State is relentless, but the dikes of the Constitution held firm and so did the immunities. Only within our time did the State effect a vital breach in the Constitution, and in short order the American, no matter what his classification, was reduced to the status of subject, as he was before 1776. His citizenship shriveled up when the Sixteenth Amendment replaced the Declaration of Independence.

The income tax completely destroys the immunity of property. It flatly declares a prior right of the State to all things produced. What it permits the individual to retain is a concession to expediency, not by any means a right; for the State retains the liberty to set rates and to fix exemptions from year to year, as its convenience dictates. Thus, the sacred right of private property is violated, and the fact that it is done pro forma makes the violation no less real than when it is done arbitrarily by an autocrat. The blanks we so dutifully fill out simply accentuate our degradation to subject status.

Demagoguery loves to emphasize a distinction between human rights and property rights. The distinction is without validity and only serves to arouse envy. The right to own is the mark of a free man. The slave is a slave simply because he is denied that right. And because the free man is secure in the possession and enjoyment of what he produces, and the slave is not, the spur to production is in one and not in the other. Men produce to satisfy their desires and if their gratifications are curbed they cease to produce beyond the point of limitation; on the other hand the only limit to their aspirations is the freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

BTW, I haven't had time to study this, but a guy named Bill Benson claims that the 16th Amendment hasn't really been ratified. The guys with the guns say otherwise, so use your own judgment about what to do about it.

Good reasons to vote against Bush

None of those namby-pamby socialist reasons for me.

Let's see if I can find the three articles I read today.

Here's one: Morlocks vs. Libertarians by Vin Suprynowicz from LewRockwell.com:

Yes, the foreign-policy deference of Mr. Kerry (and his collaborationist wing of the Democratic Party) to France and the U.N. is pathetic. Yes, left to their own devices (but there's a substantial caveat, given the relentless inertial guidance systems of the Washington bureaucracy) the Kerry crew would probably accelerate job-destroying business and "environmental" regulation and freedom-destroying gun bans, while "taxing the rich" in ways unseen since Leningrad, 1921.

Whereas Mr. Bush - freed to be as bold as he likes by Republican control of both houses of Congress - had worked over the past four years to restore our limited, constitutional government ... how?

....

Have the Republicans even gotten around to keeping Ronald Reagan's 1980 promise to close down the federal Departments of Energy and Education - let alone Agriculture, Health and Human Services?

Are they waiting till they control the White House and every seat in Congress? Do you really think they'd do it, even then?

Have they shut down the redistributionist Roosevelt-Johnson Ponzi schemes known as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Repealed the crushing slavery of the income tax? Repealed a single one of the thousands of unconstitutional federal infringements of the 2nd Amendment?

....

Just the opposite. Bush lied to Congress about the astronomical cost of his new "free drugs for seniors" handout - "browbeating Congress into enacting the biggest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society," reports Jim Bovard in his fine new book "The Bush Betrayal." He "signed the most exorbitant farm bill in history in 2002, bilking taxpayers for $180 billion to rain benefits on millionaire landowners and other deserving mendicants."

Bush actually has the nerve to say he's fighting the War on Terror by further bloating the AmeriCorps "paid volunteer" program, under which "AmeriCorps members busy themselves putting on puppet shows to persuade three-year-olds of the value of smoke alarms." The No Child Left Behind Act? "Perhaps Bush's biggest domestic fraud," Mr. Bovard says, leading "many states to 'dumb down' academic standards, using bureaucratic racketeering to avoid harsh federal sanctions."

I won't quote it all, but there's this on tax reform:

Meantime, what of these other "conservatives" of the right? Their "tax reform" schemes reveal that all they really intend is to "improve the efficiencies of collection," in ways which are "revenue neutral" (not reducing Massa's total cotton crop), shifting the well-funded levers of state power into new hands (theirs) – usually in order to "make this a Christian nation" by more rigorously arresting and imprisoning those who exercise their God-given freedom to engage in self-medication, birth control (yes, there were places in this country where they tried to jail people for distributing birth control information to married couples, less than 50 years ago), and/or fornication.

Vin's writing is like an Air Cav assault on the Fourth of July. Keeps ya awake.

Here's a piece at The Future of Freedom Foundation that's kind of more-of-the-same (minus the fireworks):
How Conservative Is George W. Bush? by Anthony Gregory

Bush has expanded the welfare state and increased discretionary spending at a faster rate than any president since Lyndon Johnson. His Medicare bill alone should have disgusted enough conservatives sufficiently to refuse to vote for him. The fact that the Bush administration deliberately misled fellow Republicans in Congress about the cost of the bill - a misdeed that would have surely, and justifiably, yielded scorn and wrath from conservatives had Clinton been the perpetrator - should alone convince Americans that this administration is neither politically honest nor fiscally responsible.

Bush's trade policies have been quite protectionist by modern standards. Moreover, farm subsidies under Bush have made Clinton look like a Scrooge with tax dollars.

Bush signed the horrid McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, admitting that some of the provisions were unconstitutional. Now he complains that the law doesn't go far enough in restricting the political speech of independent political organizations.

Though the assault-weapons ban has expired, it is no credit to the administration. Bush expressed willingness to revive the ban - whereas he has shown nothing but contempt in his stonewalling of efforts to arm airline pilots.

And now he's calling for free government health clinics in every town, free health care for all disadvantaged youth, and massive welfare to Americans to help them purchase homes.

Of course, this doesn’t even get into Bush's war policies, both at home and abroad, that many conservatives have had the good sense to question. But even if we assume Bush to be an angel as far as the war on terror is concerned - even if we assume his role as a strong war president compensates for all the socialism he has pushed through - we see just how much big government and spending some Republicans are ultimately willing to tolerate: any amount. No matter how much Bush increases spending, panders to voters, assaults the free market - as long as there's a war on, and as long as a Republican is in charge, we must open the floodgates to infinite government spending.

...
And the money quote, "Would conservatives feel the same way if Al Gore had become president? If Gore, who unlike most Democrats voted in favor of Gulf War I, had gone to war with both Afghanistan and Iraq, would his war leadership automatically exempt him from criticism for his domestic welfare spending, the way it appears to have done in the case of Bush?"

And Capitalism Magazine has analysis of the faulty thinking of the Administration:
Opposing Platonic Conservatism: A Matter of Values by John Lewis, Ph.D.

Objectivism recognizes that the meaning of an idea is the facts it refers to in reality. A value is a fact that is understood in relation to human life. "A value," said Ayn Rand, "is that which one acts to gain and/or keep"--it is not an idea divorced from action. For example, men are free when the government protects their rights; this is what freedom means....

But this view of values contrasts utterly with the views of the neoconservative team behind Mr. Bush. They see values as ideas from a higher reality, whether religious or secular, and then applied imperfectly to this world.... "Freedom" becomes an idea from intuition, or a dictate of the almighty, that can be applied only imperfectly in the real world. This is not necessarily religious faith, but also "common sense"--stuff that all of us just know, as I was once told by a conservative atheist.

The chasm is not between their values and their actions to preserve them, but rather between their values and reality.

The neoconservative movement is the explicit inculcation of Platonism into American politics. The main figure here is Leo Strauss (1899-1973), the intellectual force behind the neoconservatives and founder of the only serious conservative academic movement. Straussians include Paul Wolfowitz, William Bennett, Allan Bloom, Irving Kristol, Richard Perle, and Abram Shulsky, Director of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans....

The neoconservatives have become the philosophical alternative to the religious right in the Republican Party. This is precisely the danger that support for Mr. Bush represents. His re-election will strenthen their attempts to fill the void created by the nihilistic left. This will hasten the spread of ideas antithetical to a rational world-view....

Followers of Strauss are united by the notion that ideas--especially political principles--are in essence pure theory, and cannot be directly applied in reality. As Strauss wrote in his book Natural Right and History, "Prudence ["practical" reasoning, how you deal with the world of men] and 'this lower world' cannot be seen without some knowledge of 'the higher world'--without genuine theorie." Theorie is the abstract idea, of which the real world in which we live is at best a shadowy reflection.

According to Strauss, ancient philosophical texts, such as Plato and Aristotle--the source of political wisdom--have esoteric and exoteric meanings. The former is a hidden dimension or code reserved for academics (or a Pentagon clique); the latter is what average people understand and act on in this world. Every theory, idea and principle includes the proviso that its use in the world cannot be perfect; it must be negotiated. To compromise a principle, in this view, is not an error; it is inherent in principles as such. Conflicts between theory and practice are in the nature of reality.

The ancient answer to Plato was Aristotle, the philosopher who explicitly denied such a higher reality; he said that there was only one world for us to understand.
....
I am indeed among those who, to cite one writer's criticism, "have even concluded that the effect [of repeatedly affirming a "correct idea" while acting against it] is to destroy the meaning of the good principle." This occurs because the concrete referents to the principle change, and the false alternative replaces the true.

So, then, it's better to vote for the candidate who states socialist beliefs and acts on them than one who destroys the People's understanding of - or belief in the sincerity of - the concepts underpinning Western Civilization by espousing them while acting to restrict speech (McCain-Feingold), habeas corpus, property rights (primarily via Drug War seizures), the right to self-defense (as mentioned above, the useless "assault-weapons" ban expired, no thanks to Bush--haven't seen any carnage yet, BTW).

This is a reaction to the things that weren't said in the debates. You won't hear a "liberal" bitching about them. But wait 'til they get their hands on the reins of the Leviathan Bush has created. Why don't all these big-government lovers ever consider that electoral victory is a fleeting thing in a democracy, and one day your political enemies are going to get their shot?

DECEMBER 15: BILL OF RIGHTS DAY!

So, I don't know... Read the Bill of Rights aloud to someone you love.

Addendum: Things To Do Today

1. Worship, speak, publish, assemble as you wish. Petition the government.

2. Bear arms. (A sword or knife would be fine, if you hate guns. Or bare arms.)

3. Refuse to quarter a soldier in your home.

4. Rebuff an unwaranted search.

5. Don't let anyone execute you, especially not twice, and for God's sake, don't help them do it by testifying against yourself! Insist on a trial. Get payment for that car they seized.

6. Make sure your arrest and trial follows all the prescriptions of the 6th Amendment.

7. Insist on a jury trial of your civil case.

8. Watch out for that excessive bail and fine, and make sure you're not cruelly nor unusually punished.

9. Assert other rights you retain.

10. Take back your power from the government.

"An it harm none, do what thou wilt," as Aleister Crowley is reputed to have said. I hear that, beyond that statement, the guy was quite an authoritarian. Actually, if you think about it, there's a loophole in that big enough to drive a Wabco through.

Source of picture.
All right, a Euclid.

Hey, kids! It's Bill of Rights Day!

Prob'ly shoulda said somethin' this mornin'.  (That's closer to how I really talk.  You could take out the 'th's too, actually, but I didn't 'cause I figured the words needed to be somewhat recognizable.)
I did some thinking about the First Amendment today.  It pretty much says that you can think anything you want about anything and say whatever you want by any means you want and the government can't stop you.  The Federal government, anyway.  The Constitution wasn't supposed to stop the states from stopping you, though most, if not all, of the states have adopted the Bill of Rights in their own constitutions.  At the least, it's a good moral principle and a good moral example of how speech and expression should be handled.

Some of us have difficulty understanding where the line is between expressing views on political or conscientious matter and the incitement of mayhem.  Not a big problem for those of us who hold The Non-Aggression Principle as the basic social standard and try to apply it to all of our actions, but most people have never heard of it.

So, anyway...  Hey, if the government is quartering any troops in your home at your expense, tell 'em to knock it off.

And, in regard to Free Speech, think about this: http://www.datacell.com/news.php.

Rerun time: December 15th, 2004

BILL OF RIGHTS DAY!

So, I don't know... Read the Bill of Rights aloud to someone you love.

Addendum: Things To Do Today

1. Worship, speak, publish, assemble as you wish. Petition the government.

2. Bear arms. (A sword or knife would be fine, if you hate guns. Or bare arms.)

3. Refuse to quarter a soldier in your home.

4. Rebuff an unwaranted search.

5. Don't let anyone execute you, especially not twice, and for God's sake, don't help them do it by testifying against yourself! Insist on a trial. Get payment for that car they seized.

6. Make sure your arrest and trial follows all the prescriptions of the 6th Amendment.

7. Insist on a jury trial of your civil case.

8. Watch out for that excessive bail and fine, and make sure you're not cruelly nor unusually punished.

9. Assert other rights you retain.

10. Take back your power from the government.

Probably my best original work.

We Americans need to celebrate the Bill of Rights once a month

I'm thinking we should have First Amendment Day in January, Second Amendment Day in February, Third in March and so on through October - in which we discuss the history and meaning - the original and ongoing debates - of each of the first ten amendments. If I'm not mistaken, Constitution Day is December 15... and I believe the Bill of Rights was ratified in January. Or was it March?

If it was March, it's a good time to bring up the idea.

Tomorrow's the 26th, let's celebrate the Third Amendment. We can work on it all week.

What's the Third Amendment? Thou shalt not quarter soldiers in thy neighbor's house, I think.

Oh, here's my Constitution, "Amendment III: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of War, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

The Founders had great faith in democratically elected legislators, I see. I think I like my joke version better. America has probably adhered to this one pretty well, though I don't know what the laws are on it.

I've just been mentally ruminating this idea for a while, I haven't done much research for it yet. I felt like throwing it out for discussion tonight.

Anybody?

Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) - FACT OF THE WEEK

Did you know that Minnesota's proposed Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR)
will use revenue surpluses to construct a tax reform account and make
permanent changes to Minnesota's tax rates?

8. Quote of the Week!

"Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives
a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening
to him." - T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of IRS, May 25, 1956 in U.S.
News & World Report

From the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

What the heck was that clever title I thought of?

I gotta start writing things down.

I was reading the articles in this month's Liberty magazine, each recommending a different candidate for liberty friendly reasons. The first is on Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr:

But already in spring 2000, back in the period of our naivete about the threats to our country from international crime, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction, Barr was there testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Besides explaining the need to update our laws so as to reflect changing technologies and threats, the former Central Intelligence Agency analyst offered leadership and clear guidance about protecting our liberties as well as our lives. His words are worth quoting at length:

While Americans remain solidly in support of a strong foreign intelligence gathering capability, they are not willing to do so at the expense of their domestic civil liberties. Any blurring of the heretofore bright line between gathering of true, foreign intelligence, and surreptitious gathering of evidence of criminal wrongdoing by our citizens, must be brought into sharp focus, and eliminated. Failure to take the steps to do so will erode the public confidence in our intelligence agencies that is a hallmark of their success. Failure to take steps to do so is a serious breach of our public duty to ensure the Bill of Rights is respected even as our nation defends itself against foreign adversaries and enemies.

The importance of effective foreign intelligence gathering, and of constitutional domestic law enforcement — both of which must respect U.S. citizens’ right to privacy — demands more than stock answers and boilerplate explanations. What is required is a thorough and sifting examination of authorities, jurisdiction, actions, and remedies. This is especially true, given that an entire generation has come and gone since the last time such important steps were taken.

Still further back, in 1998, Barr alone stood with Ron Paul in explaining to their fellow House members why a proposed national ID system would violate our privacy and civil liberties without making us safer. Imagine how much better off we would have been had a Barr Administration responded to the tragedies of September 11.

Bob Barr has a long record working with broad coalitions to make policy. Although a drug warrior in Congress, he often worked with drug war opponents in coalitions to protect privacy and other civil liberties. There is no other choice for those who value our rights and liberties — and our desire to work together to achieve legitimate goals.

And he has lot's more ammo in his magazine in favor of Barr.

The next two recommendations are rather less enthusiastic, focussing on the fact that only a Demopublican can win an American election. Bruce Ramsey gives The Case for Obama, the strongest part of which, to my mind, is a quote of Gene Healy:

Gene Healy, a vice president at Cato, author of “The Cult of the Presidency” (2008) and a contributing editor of Liberty, gave this answer:

...After our recent experience with a “conservative” president who launched the greatest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ, I find it hard to take seriously the notion that libertarians need to line up behind another Republican in order to save the country from looming socialism. Particularly when that Republican is a bellicose TR-worshiper and the dream candidate for the National Greatness Conservatives who’ve done so much damage to the country over the last seven years. . . . Obama’s public positions on war and executive power — even after the recent flip-flop on wiretapping — are preferable to McCain’s from a libertarian perspective. But Bush’s positions on spending and nation building were better than Gore’s in 2000, so who can predict?

And Ramsey's own thoughts:

In any coalition, if the weaker party is to have influence, it has to be willing to leave. Most of the time it will not do that; it will support people it doesn’t totally agree with, in exchange for their support on some things, and the hope of greater influence in the long run. But it always has to be willing to walk out. If it won’t, then it is nothing more than the majority’s poodle.
...
If libertarians are to have any influence on the Right, the neocon-led coalition (and not all Bush voters are neocons) has to be defeated. This already started to happen in the midterm elections of 2006, when the Republicans lost the Senate and the House. But the party hasn’t gotten the message that war is an election-loser. The party still has the White House, and it has nominated a neocon-backed military man to keep it. If McCain wins, the neocons win and the “War on Terror” continues under a leader who promises victory at all costs. On foreign policy, Republicans need to rethink what they think. And for that to happen, the Republican nominee has to lose.

The McCain supporter, Stephen Cox, editor of Liberty, writes:

This year, it’s conceivable that Obama may gain a state, and thus win the election, if there’s an outpouring of antiwar conservative and libertarian votes for Barr. I doubt that will happen, because my humble opinion is that most voters agree with me and vote for one of the major-party candidates, trying to exclude the worse one from the presidency. But now we’ve returned to the only real political issue: Would you rather exclude Obama or McCain? That’s what the presidential election will decide. To say “I’d rather exclude them both” is like answering a survey question, “Would you rather (A) have lower taxes; or (B) have higher taxes,” by saying, “Not applicable: I’d rather have no taxes.” Of course you would. So would I. But that isn’t the question. The question in the 2008 election is simply: Which candidate will be excluded, Obama or McCain?

I say, exclude Obama.
...
And the list of reasons goes on and on: Obama’s glad embrace of black nationalist “liberation” (i.e., neocommunist) theology, until the nature of his church was miraculously revealed; his willingness to lie about his background and associations, many of which can be justified by his followers only on the basis of his cynical willingness to cadge support from nuts and demagogues; his life (and the life of his influential spouse), spent in the service of racial preferences; his slanderous description of people who vote against him as bitter folk who cling like mollusks to their guns and their religion and their “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”; his amorphous political positions, each one dedicated to the proposition that he must be president, for whatever reasons he wants to dream up (if he’s an antiwar candidate, God help the cause of pacifism); and finally, and most egregiously, the pompous condescension that he manifests in every moment of his public being.

He elaborates on that last point quite a bit. Well, for instance:

...[T]he greatest problem about voting Democratic, even when the Democratic candidate isn’t a little Napoleon, is always that Democratic presidencies bring to Washington tens of thousands of counselors, bureaucrats, judges, and social action profiteers, an invading force that is always even farther to the big-government left than their boss, who at least had to be elected by the nation as a whole. The greatest problem with voting Republican is that Republican presidencies bring to Washington tens of thousands of stumblebums who haven’t a clue about how to reduce the size of government, or even to govern intelligently. Is there a clearer political choice? The worst you can say about the Republicans — and this is very bad indeed — is that they behave like Democrats. The best you can say — and it’s not very good, but it is important — is that they are not Democrats. Occasionally they nominate a Justice Thomas. Occasionally they lower taxes. Occasionally they raise speed limits, abolish conscription, or defend the 2nd Amendment. And they never nominate a Messiah.

Doug Casey gives a pretty good case for NOTA (none of the above). I particularly like his points four and five:

4. Voting just encourages them. I’m convinced that most people don’t actually vote for a candidate; they vote against the other candidate. But that’s not how the guy who gets the vote sees it; he thinks it’s a mandate for him to rule. It’s ridiculous to justify voting by endorsing the lesser of two evils.

Incidentally, I got as far as this point in 1980 when, as luck would have it, I did an hour alone on the Phil Donahue Show on the very day before the election. The audience had been very much on my side up to the point at which Phil accused me of voting for Mr. Reagan, and I had to explain why I wasn’t. Unfortunately, telling them they shouldn’t vote was just more than they could handle. The prospect of their stoning me precluded my explaining the fifth and possibly most practical point.

5. Your vote doesn’t count. Politicians and political hacks like to say that every vote counts because it gets everybody into busybody mode. But statistically, one vote in scores of millions makes no more difference than a single grain of sand on the beach. That’s completely apart from the fact that, as voters in Chicago in 1960 and Florida in 2000 can tell you, when it actually is close, things can be rigged. And anyway, officials manifestly do what they want — not what you want — once they’re in office.

The only way your vote counts is to make you complicit in the crimes that will inevitably be committed by its recipient.

I kind of wish they'd have had somebody pushing Nader (Independent), McKinney (Green Party) and Baldwin (Constitution Party) as well. Of the four I see here, I have to say that the strongest case by far is the one for Barr (free bumper-sticker slogan for you, guys). I'm not really partial to Nader or McKinney overall, but I was very impressed by their speeches at the Third Party joint news conference organized by Ron Paul. The main point in Baldwin's favor is that he was working for Ron Paul when the Constitution Party tapped him to be their candidate, and - after Barr snubbed Paul's news conference - Paul endorsed Baldwin.

I'd like to join the snit, but Jansen's case for Barr is too strong.

Barr/Root 2008!

Oh, yeah: Nader, McKinney. Hey! I like this video on McKinney's site.

Where was I? Oh yeah!

Ken's got a post that I think people need to read

over at Oldsmoblogger. It's more clear if you follow the links as you come to them. They're all well worth reading and listening to.

The Patrick Henry player says, after his speech, "I'll do what I do! You do what you do!" The context makes clear that it's a powerful call to action. What can I do for the cause of Liberty?

Bill of Rights day is December 15. Insist on Bill of Rights enforcement.

It looks like the feds are starting to abuse the PATRIOT Act

I came across this by following Ayn Clouter around. I started with her post here, then went to their main page where I saw this. A little Googling brought me to this article in the Houston Chronicle:

Biological art raises specter of terrorism
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Steve Kurtz's artworks look more like science projects than museum pieces. They offer social commentary along with objects such as corn plants and bacteria-filled petri dishes.

"It's not pictures on the wall," said Adele Henderson, head of the art department at the University at Buffalo, where Kurtz teaches.

And it's certainly not terrorism, the artist's friends say.

Last month, agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force searched Kurtz's house after police who been called to his home to investigate his wife's death became alarmed when they found biological materials.

Kurtz says the material was for his art. But the stuff police found -- one of Kurtz's colleagues said it included lab equipment used for DNA extraction and amplification, as well as three types of bacteria -- was enough to trigger fears of bioterrorism.

Crews in protective suits spent two days removing materials from his Buffalo home. Testing for ricin, anthrax and plague turned up negative, according to the Erie County Health Department, which has since pronounced the home safe.

No charges were brought against Kurtz. Earlier this week, however, three of Kurtz's colleagues were subpoenaed to testify in front of a grand jury.

Kurtz has declined to comment. His attorney, Paul Cambria, did not return calls.

Officials with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo would not discuss the investigation.

Just so you know, here is a description of Kurtz's art (pictures available at that link):

Molecular Invasion

The current neo- and endocolonial initiatives by corporations attempting to consolidate the food chain and its markets from the molecular level on up presents anti-capitalist activists with a new biological front that requires a new set of tactical responses. Currently, activists are relying on traditional methods and means for slowing the corporate molecular invasion. While such activities are useful, they are also insufficient in and of themselves. Current radical practices, such as luddite oriented sabotage, seem to do more damage to the movement than to corporations. In our presentation, CAE will suggest new tactics and strategies that could be used to challenge corporate authority on the _molecular level_. CAE hopes to demonstrate that there is no place (physical, virtual, or molecular) that biotech corporations can act uncontested. By appropriating and reverse engineering corporate tools, resistant culture can effectively and efficiently fight the profit machine where ever it may reveal itself.

Now, I am not inclined to agree with Mr. Kurtz's politics and his fears - I think the Precautionary Principle is over-hyped - but I believe in the whole Bill of Rights, all ten Amendments, and it looks like the Feds are abusing the First in this case.

I got nothin' but this blog to offer for support, but if you can offer more check out http://www.caedefensefund.org/.