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145

L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 145, October 29, 2001
War and Death

Bill [Westmiller],

Your missive makes an interesting proposition. Allow me to toss a rock into the pot of potatoes that you are about to mash: If everyone dressed, acted, and made themselves out to be Arabs, then what good would profiling do? You would then have to resort to harassing only the most Arab looking of the lot. But, that begs the question: Just what does an Arab look like?

The point I am making is that the hijackers of 911 apparently did exactly that -- in order to 'fit in'.

Essentially, they spoofed the system.

And then, you miss the boat with what should be a more important consideration: Surrogates. What of those who are not Arab, but hold the same political sympathies as the target suspects? What then?

So, you are now back to square one, and you are willing to continue a process which has now been shown to have failed miserably -- in light of the more recent past.

The only reason that profiling is even partially successful is that this being the relatively unfree place that it is, allows us to make distinctions that are mostly corrupt in their premises. You've even point[ed] that out. The flowchart for such endeavors must make for some very interesting reading.

If one gets rid of all of the ill distinctions, then you are left with nothing to make any real decisions, which if you consider that, is where we really should be.

I'm surprised, however, that you bypassed the more obvious solution:

If this nation of ours were to mind its own damned business, and not allow the whore of commerce to seduce the power elite into subjecting foreign peoples to merciless wars of attrition, and for which said whore subjugates, corrupts and violates said foreign lands while touting the threat of unrestrained military act, why then the only thing we'd have to worry about would be the local idiots. But then, if everybody was allowed to pack heat, the idiots wouldn't be of much concern either. (Sorry for that run-on sentence!)

I don't look forward to the future with much hope for anything good, and I see the essence of foreboding. Because, every time we make bad distinctions, others make the same bad distinctions of us. Hate equals hate, no matter how you calculate it.

Kind regards,

E.J. Totty [[email protected]]

[To: Sean Gruber]

Hate to point this out, but your article is terminaly flawed. In it you state that you consider all of the following to be "wrong" on the behalf of police:
1) Enforcing a law that is unjust.
2) Standing by while someone else enforces a law that is unjust.
3) Enforcing a law that IS just, but then forces a person to go before trial (which you claim is no longer a real trial by jury and thus unjust).
4) Accepting tax money (money from theft) as their paycheck.

You also imply that a police officer killing someone, in the process of enforcing a just law, would also be unjust.

Setting those forth as the ground rules, you have created a set of rules that cannot be followed. I doubt that anyone would say that there is no way a person could be a "good cop", even if they were willing to arrest their superiors and fight to the death to prevent any violations of your civil rights from their first shift on. Yet that is exactly the accusation you have made. Even when you remove the tax money issue, the rules you define are impossible to follow.

Lets look at a hypothetical "1st day":

Officer John Doe has graduated the academy. He just walked into the station to start his first shift. 10 seconds after he started his first shift, officer Darth Vader walks a suspect in for booking. He states that he found an unlicensed .38 in the suspects pocket when he stopped him for questioning regarding a murder he was a suspect in. What is officer Jon Doe to do?

If he attempts to release the suspect, officer Darth Vader will refuse. Forcing officer John Doe to either arrest him, or kill him.

If he arrests him, he violates your definition of a "good cop" because he is forcing him to stand trial in front of an unlawfuly stacked jury.

If he kills him, he violates your definition of a "good cop" because he denies officer Darth Vader a trial by jury (as guarenteed by the 5th Amendment).

On top of which, he will release a suspected murderer back on the street without even verifying whether the gun he had was the one used in the murder. Even if he knew the murderer was guilty, he couldn't hold him without forcing him to go before an unjust jury.

The arguement doesn't work. Its not a police officers job to make the decision on whether or not a suspect will face an unbiased, informed jury or a sham trial. Even in the case you mention, that of someone who resisted a cop attempting to enforce an unjust law, other officers have every duty to arrest them and hold them for trial. It is the courts place to throw out the law the cop was trying to enforce and to declare the person not guilty on the basis of self defense, not the officer who has been handed a warrant to arrest the person.

Jeff Colonnesi [[email protected]]

This Web page by Steve Kirsch descibes the use of several technologies: 'brain fingerprinting', Iris Scans, and an ANONYMOUS database, to detect terrorists and clear others with a high degree of reliability and minimal invasion of privacy. Links to lengthy descriptions of 'brain fingerprinting and Iris scanning are included.

http://www.skirsch.com/politics/plane/ultimate.htm

Sam Grove
[email protected]

John,

I would like to propose that this "war" which so far has no proper and descriptive moniker be refereed to as the "Pipeline War".

Simple descriptive and to the point. After all its what it is really all about - piping oil and gas through Afghanistan.

John Sebastian [[email protected]]

Dear friends of Liberty,

On September 28 I sent out a humorous email about Willy Star's Pork-Based Anti-Terrorist Spray. I wrote it just as a joke but the response was so immediate and positive that I decided to go ahead and actually make and market the stuff. I call it ABOMINATION. Catchy name, huh? It kinda says it all.

Anyway, I made a TV commercial for it, which is [...] available in QuickTime on my website http://www.abomination.tv
NOTE: .tv is a new domain name, it's NOT .com!

Please check out the website, especially the product page, disclaimer and links. There are some interesting articles about what to do if you are hijacked, for instance.

And of course, please order a bottle or more if you are inclined. It is a lovely and thoughtful gift for a wedding, birthday, graduation, anniversary, Christmas, Hannukah, etc.

Oh, and if you like this ad and/or website PLEASE FORWARD this email (with the asf file attached) to your friends, especially to those you forwarded the initial email about it.

Don't fear terrorists... Send them to HELL!

In Liberty,

Willy Star Marshall
POB 410207
Big Water, UT 84741-2207
www.abomination.tv

Dear Editor:

Thanks again for all your work on The Libertarian Enterprise. Neil Smith's essay is very good, as always.

His figure of 620,000 dead for the socialist Lincoln's War to Prevent Confederate Independence is accurate, as far as it goes. For myself, I prefer the equally accurate figure of one million and twenty thousand battlefield casualties, which includes men wounded in action. Since a very great many of these wounds were body-mutilating, in an era before antibiotics or widely used anesthetic, and prior to advances in prosthetics, the loss of an arm or a leg to shrapnel or gunfire was serious and life-changing. That was also an era when few made their living behind a keyboard, and many worked behind a mule plowing fields or doing other manual labor. So, in terms of the lives affected, radically, I think the larger figure is more reflective of the significance of that conflict.

Even so, this larger number doesn't reflect on the loss of civilian life and property. Any account of the Red River expedition or Sherman's march to the sea would give you an idea of how vicious, violent, barbaric, and excessive Union soldiers were in carrying out orders to lay waste to Southern property. No war crimes tribunals for those boyz in blue, no sirree.

That tradition of barbarity continued in numerous wars against Native American Indian nations, in the war for American Empire in Cuba and the Philippines, and in numerous wars in Latin America. Having settled the hash of those Johnny Rebs with their ridiculous notion of a constitutionally limited government, the bullies of the Potomac went spreading joy worldwide.

Fortunately, conditions change. The technologies of the 1800 to 1950 period favored projection of force to a great extent. Technologies in the time since have been much more favorable to defense. When a rifleman with a $40 rocket propelled grenade can bring down a multi-million dollar Blackhawk helicopter, projection of force is way too costly to be workable.

So, while I am convinced that Thomas Paine's America is dead, the constitution having been used for toilet paper the last 15 decades and more, and have no willingness to waste more time attempting to reform a system which is actually unfit to govern a free people, I'm very optimistic about the future. The future won't include as many large imperialistic socialist empires, and will include many smaller countries with much less in the way of control over your life.

Not because we vote people out of office, write your Congresscritters, or do anything of the sort, but because individuals fight for their liberty, bring down centers of brutality, and safeguard their liberty in the good old fashioned ways of yore.

It isn't molasses and feathers. The proper material to use is tar, heated until runny. If you have extra left over, pouring it down the throats of the traitors wouldn't bother me a bit. The blood of tyrants must be shed. Whenever you're ready...

Free yourself,

Jim Davidson [[email protected]]

Dear TLE:

Not that long ago, while attending a Toastmasters meeting, I stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn't speak it; I haven't spoken it for a long time. And, as occasionally happened, I had someone ask why. I didn't really have a lot of time at the time to answer them, so I put my reasons into a speech.

I realized that most people don't want five to seven minutes of explanation for a simple question, so I started trying to distill my reasons. Eventually, I came to a realize that, without some basis for comparison, most people wouldn't understand my reasons.

If someone asked why I don't recite the pledge, I would usually just say 'Non Serviam', explain what that means, and see if they clue in. Obviously, this would take some time.

I pondered, while still working out a 'short form' of my reasons - that wouldn't result in even longer question/answer sessions - and eventually developed the system I use now.

Then I came up with my own Pledge. Instead of the current pledge, I recite this one. Then, if someone asked me what I was saying, I could compare the two. The comparison helps them understand.

My Pledge:

I pledge my support to the Constitution of these United States, and to the republic which it defines, sovereign states, united in common cause of Liberty and Justice.

Explaining to them that 'allegiance' means fealty and loyalty - which cannot be given to a symbol, except as a shortcut to a person or group of people - helps them understand why I pledge my 'support'. I contrast the Constitution, which is defined and understandable, against 'the Flag', which means whatever the government chooses it to mean.

The one that gets most people, though, is sovereign states. I usually contrast that with the 'indivisible' section of the current pledge, reminding them that the states are sovereign, and - by the Constitution - can leave at any time.

Now, being well on the road to anarchy now, I would never presume to command anyone, but I think that if the readers of this publication were to begin using this pledge - or something like it, for all I care, write your own - we might get more people asking about the differences. Being able to contrast and compare will, I believe, help others to see the difference between what the government was supposed to be and what it is.

Stuart Sanders [[email protected]]

There have been many attempts in recent days to render the phrase "Office of Homeland Security" in what is surely its native language, that of the original National Socialists, or Nazis, as opposed to that of Reichsfuerher Georg Busch's interNational Socialists, or (remember you read it here first) iNazis.

Homeland has been translated as Heimat or Heimatland.

Security has been translated as Sicherheit, although Securitaet works just as well. The second E stands for an umlaut over the A that I can't reproduce here.

Office is correctly translated as Amt or Buro -- but I greatly prefer the word Dienst. That word, in German, means "service" and I believe its is uniquely appropriate to the edifice being erected against us today. I mean, think of it: Immigration and Naturalization Service or, even more to the point, Internal Revenue Service.

Heimatlandsicherheitsdienst.

It's a barnyard term, of course.

Bring your own Vaseline.

L. Neil Smith [[email protected]]

FYI:

A new issue has come up regarding PayPal which has caused me to stop doing business with them -- they apparently consider themselves in competition with e-Gold and are refusing to do business with anyone in the business of selling e-gold. In addition, they appear to be having some financial difficulties and any deposits on account with them are NOT secure.

I got this from FreedomHound, which is the service I had previously used to convert PayPal dollars to e-gold grams. For details, see: www.freedomhound.com/servlet/echannel?Request=Render&ID=2283509

On advice from FreedomHound I am now using Yahoo!PayDirect as my fiat-cash service.

Scott Bieser [[email protected]]
Liberty Artworx http://www.libertyartworx.com

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