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60
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 60, November 30, 1999
Post-Turkey Stress Disorder
Letters to the Editor
by Our Readers
Send Letters to [email protected]
Letter from Barbara Cunningham
Letter from Nicholas Weininger[re: "The Good Joe"]
> I've seen a lot of folks trying to figure out how to get
> some of the gov. free money and stuff. But, I have
> seen no complaints or even commie
> style allegations of 'price gouging'.
> . . .
> I expect better than this from you guys.Bub, I live about 2.5 miles away from the state legislature in Raleigh (and less than a mile from the Hayes Barton Baptist Church, where Jesse Helms goes to pray), and "price-gouging" was on the lips of every editorialist weasel and elected dirtbag in town for at least two weeks after Floyd. How many column-inches of newsprint or feet of videotape would you like to see?
--
Laissez FirearmLetter from Barbara Cunningham
Vin Suprynowicz advocates passage of the "Asset Forfeiture Reform Bill". I understand his reasoning, but I believe it is flawed.
While asset forfeiture may, in part, be related to the English custom of seizing abandoned smuggler's craft, it is most directly related to the grand old English monarch's practice of declaring Bills of Attainder against individuals. In a Bill of Attainder, an individual is declared an outlaw whose property is forfeit to the government. Under asset forfeiture, an individual is declared an outlaw (i.e., someone who has broken a law) whose property is forfeit to the government. Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution expressly forbids the federal government from passing bills of attainder. Article 1, Section 10 applies the same prohibition to the various and several states.
Reforming an unconstitutional and illegal government action merely gives it legitimacy. Once legitimate, the abuse will, inevitably, grow even more exponentially than it does now. Is this what we really want?
Barbara Cunningham <[email protected]>
I'm writing to tell you about a website devoted to gun control and 2nd amendment issues. It makes for excellent reading.
http://www.guncite.com/index.html
I sent a message to paxusa with information from the guncite website that refutes paxusa's "facts" section. I am in no way affiliated with guncite. I don't even know who runs the website.
Regards,
Eric Madsen <[email protected]>
>It seems very odd to me that the ferals would ever let
>themselves get boxed in on something like Waco.Of course not. And the drama is just too satisfying, too simple to be real. Wow, Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. 'threatens' to hold the justice department in contempt of court. After they turned the documents over, the judge 'decided' not to do so, after all.
Waco politics is a poor facsimile of pro wrestling. We may not know the precise motives, but it's easy to see that it's all fake.
Dwayne Childers <[email protected]>
Thought you'd be interested in my response to the Levi's on-line gun-control petition. I left the following remarks in their talk-back area:
-------------------
Given your support of gun control as expressed in your on-line petition, I have a few comments to make.1) I will never again purchase any Levi's jeans or any product manufactured by your company.
2) Those Levi's I do own will never again be worn.
3) Since I hate to see anything go to waste, I will try to use those Levi's in an appropriate manner (cleaning rags for my firearms springs to mind as an appropriate use).
-------------------James S. Rustad <[email protected]>
Regarding TLE 59 Editor's Notes:
It's not that the government is trying to push a few buttons. I cannot give politicians as a whole enough credit to orchestrate a planned release of evidence as is occurring with waco.
It's not a government conspiracy. It is merely the result of an 'us against them' mentality in government workers that results in cases of brutality or unnecessary force.
It's cowboy law enforcement where police academy trainees are no longer screened by the townsfolk ... psychos are welcome to apply as we have SWAT Sniper positions open.
It's a 'that could have been me' attitude that causes one government employee to cover up for another's lapse in judgement. And in a nation of 275m people, how many are in law enforcement? And what are the odds on any given day that one of them will make a mistake that gets to the press? And if enough of them cover it up, even the repeat offenders that comprise walking timebombs with badges are going to cause damage before they get ejected.
It's a 'them against us' attitude amongst the civilians that don't understand how a stupid policy can result in the confiscation of their home because their child was a friend of a drug-dealing teen who spent the night and did some business.
So what is happening with the Waco evidence and trial is not a case of the government provoking us, it's something even more sinister and dangerous. It's a lack of attention to the details that would get lots of people fired and jailed in recent years. And the lack of attention can only be attributed to the police-state mentality already present among LEOs who believe they are above the law.
After all, what are you going to do about it?
Nothing?
Thought so.
Scott Sullivan <[email protected]>
Letter from Nicholas Weininger
To the Editor of TLE:
I recently read a novel I thought would be of considerable interest to TLE readers. The novel is Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. It's an enormous, epic SF-historical-mathematical-whatever novel. It's great fun. Highly recommended.
It's also the most explicitly libertarian novel I've seen in a long time from an SF writer not generally thought to be affiliated with "the movement." A large part of the plot centers around an attempt to create a data haven where people can exchange information and electronic cash safe from the prying eyes of tax collectors; one of the sympathetic characters is a collector of automatic weapons; and a cryptographic algorithm is demonstrated in the novel (and explained in the Appendix) which is specifically designed for secure communications without a computer, the description containing numerous references to how to prevent secret police agents from getting hold of your keys.
But the most interesting libertarian idea in the book is the "Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod." This is a set of historical and practical information that one of the book's main characters, an Orthodox Jew, plans to put together and distribute over the Internet as a means of increasing people's ability to resist tyranny. A significant part of the HEAP is apparently devoted to instructions for making your own guns in a basement workshop, and there are some fairly detailed discussions about the design of the "HEAP gun" (which I unfortunately don't know enough about gunsmithing to comment upon). This seems to me to be not only a Really Good Idea, but also the sort of thing that Messrs. Smith, Zelman, et al. would have the knowledge and desire to turn into reality.
In Liberty,
Nicholas Weininger <[email protected]>>>
MOTHER-DAUGHTER FANTASY
or
TWO GENERATIONS BOUND FOR THE CATTLE CARS"Sometimes, innocent people have to be punished so something like Columbine doesn't happen again." -- 17-year-old student Sonya Golden, on her suspension for having a pocketknife ... in a first aid kit ... in her car ... on school grounds.
"What the school did was right. I would rather have her be suspended for three days than have her go to school and get shot in the face because they did not check anyone." -- Tamara Golden, the girl's mother, on the illegal search and seizure.
---
Source: http://insidedenver.com/johnson/1124billj.shtml
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