 |
|
|
L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 270, May 9, 2004 Hi Mom!
Send Letters to mr-ed@webleyweb.com
New article by L. Neil Smith "Some Thoughts on Concealed Carry" http://www.doingfreedom.com/gen/0202/ht.concealedcarry.html L. Neil Smith
Mr Ed & El Neil, Just a note to say that this is one of the best editions of TLE ever, in my humble; a counter-attack on conscription and more discussion of the FSP. I'm particularly proud to be on board, this issue. Let the empire bleed. Peace and Liberty, Manuel
PS Congrats on the good work you are doing, Mr Ed. Re: "Is Everybody Lying?", by Lady Liberty
Hey, There; You wrote,
Then you went on for several paragraphs to answer your own question. When you know your prospective correspondent is a lying sack of eagle dung, who would never, ever tell you the truth about anything, even by accident, why bother dropping a dime on him? I don't argue with your actions, which I gather were largely done for a rhetorical purpose. They served that purpose rather well, I think. But in light of that, your question to your readers is perplexing. Respectfully, Joel Simon
Dear Joel, Thanks for writing. On Sunday, May 2, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Joel C Simon wrote:
First of all, if you've never written or called your Congressional Representative of Senators before, you don't necessarily KNOW your prospective correspondent is a "lying sack of eagle dung who would never, ever tell you the truth about anything, even by accident." Secondly, politicians change over the course of the years (due, unfortunately, more to retirement or managing to obtain an even higher office rather than by losing elections), and so you sometimes have NEW potentially "lying sacks of eagle dung" to write and/or call. And finally, even the worst of the representatives keep statistical information and some of them CAN be pressured into changing a position on something if they get enough calls and letters (along with being "lying sacks..." most politicians in DC are also devout vote whores). And dont' forget to add the not entirely useless reason to write: Getting the evasions, lies, transparent rationales, and other such twisted nonsense on paper can be quite revealing to those who haven't yet truly grasped the fact that their own political representatives really ARE "lying sacks..." > I don't argue with your actions, which I gather were largely done
In this case, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. Although my particular representative is socialist in all but name, s/he has been known as a real defender of free speech. While I still call and write on issues I know s/he's immovable on (see "vote whore" above), I don't spend much time stating any more than my position. When I think there's a snowball's chance, though, it's still worth spending 15 minutes on a letter, and so I do. This was one of the latter. Thanks again for writing! Oh, yes. And thanks for the "lying sack..." description. You probably couldn't tell, but I liked it quite a bit. :-) Yours for freedom,
RE: "You Go First: The Peace Amendment", by L. Neil Smith
Dear Mr. Ed/Editor, WIth regards to the above ref'd, I concur wholeheartedly. However, the chances of the idea taking anything of consequential shape is—realistically speaking, probably nil. There's a reason for that, and although one could well say there are several dozen reasons, I'll stick to just the one: Self-interest. While there are a few aphorisms and their associated cliches that could be employed here, I'll stick to just this: The gross lot of mankind has a dinner plate filled with his/her own worries. If you don't feel pain, you ain't interested. What pains you the most is what gets your greatest attention; everything else is peripheral, and that's why tyrants succeed, liars breed, and politicians wax philosophical. As long as the present 'enemy' is dying in greater numbers than either the 'volunteers' or conscripts, then most 'Americans' are gung ho. Witness every military action the US has been involved in, and the responses at home. Vietnam is a really good example of what happens when the parity in deaths for both sides is close at hand. When that 'military action' got going in a serious way, not much was shown of the homecoming dead ones, principally I believe, because the younger men were raised on WWII movies, with their fathers were too afraid to speak of past terrors. And heaven help the person who dared to speak the truth about the body in the coffin. Burials were a family matter, and you might see a few friends there as well. But mass media attention? "The boy next door got buried yesterday? Gee, that's too bad. Where's the TV remote?" For—what I perceive to be—most Americans, if our 'boys' are 'over there' killing, maiming, and screwing with what's left, it's got to be okay, because it's our boys doing it. Allow me to digress for just a moment. My first memory of approach to a foreign land was accompanied with the term 'gook.' That is, every time another sailor had anything to say about a foreign national, that term was the most explicit in reference to those citizens, and it didn't matter which nation either, although as I recall it was hardly used to describe the French citizens, or Germans. No ship I was stationed on ever got to the North Atlantic nations, so I have no idea as to what term(s) would have applied there. There's a reason for that mode of thinking: They were raised to be just that way. American boys are raised to look down their snoots at the people of all other nations. "We're the greatest nation on the face of the earth!" Yessiree! Of course we are, and that gives us the bloody damned right to invade anyplace we like, because we said so. All we need is a good lie, a false premise, some really good propaganda, and away we go! There's no need to cogitate at length, no need to wonder at the sources of the lie, no need to do anything but follow the orders—because anything else would be unAmerican. With that mode of thinking, there's no way in Hell that an amendment expressing disgust with war is ever going to see the light of day. I honestly don't know where this all started, but I do know this: It'll take a really strong, determined, and relentless enemy to put this nation back in its place of just minding its own business— once again. It won't be the American people who do that either, because the vast majority are just too satisfied with life. Their 'dinner plates' are full with their own domestic cares. They ain't the ones dodging bullets, bombs, or truncheons. There're no daily explosions, no soldiers driving by in tanks, Hummvees' or APCs. No nightly roundup of citizens suspected of something, and seemingly disappear from the face of the earth. No missiles landing haphazardly in a close-by neighborhood murdering the innocent. No dead bodies—or miscellaneous body parts—rotting in the street. Amendments are just another piece of paper having no voice; all the present ones are mute witness to just that. If the current constitution isn't obeyed now, adding something else would be counterproductive, because it would readily be willfully misinterpreted by a Supreme court to mean something entirely different. History is my witness—numerous times. The Commerce Clause would be used to counter anything anyway. I'm surprised it hasn't been used to validate the current 'Operation Desert whatever' fiasco! It was a nice thought, L. Neil, but I'm afraid I've come to terms with this matter. The only thing a bully understands is force—focused in his direction. The time for more laws has long passed. Clare Wolf penned some words that would fit nicely here. In closing, let me say this: The movie "Red Dawn" just might get a chance to 'play' here, only it won't be the "Reds" who do the dirty deed. Once Americans get a taste—first hand, of what their darling sons and daughters do to people in other lands ... Well, call it the 'eagles coming home to roost.' in Liberty, e.j.totty
Re: "Thumbs Up (their arses)", by Carl Bussjaeger
To the Editor, In response to Carl Bussjager's article on the state of support for Jeff "Hunter" Jordan, I was the person who did contact the NRA. Everyone in NRA-ILA I talked to directed me to the NRA General Counsel's Office, where they said that their whole PR machine is geared to operate under the orders of the Counsel's office when it comes to cases like this. They then said that legally they had to receive a copy of Jeff's case from his attorney to start the machine into gear. I have relayed this fact to a number of people, but as of yet I have not heard of anybody, including Jeff's attorney, sending his case file to the NRA. The ball is in Jeff's court on this, and it's been several months since I relayed this information. The NRA said they would definitely be interested in this case, but hopefully its PR value has not faded. Mike Lorrey
Voting Systems Orgs and Companies Here's a link to all sorts of companies and organizations involved with electronic voting {and vote fraud} around the world. What do you know? Many of them turn out to be related to Republicans and defense contractors: http://ecotalk.org/VotingMachineCompanies.htm James J Odle
Repeal the 17th amendment http://miller.senate.gov/press/2004/04-28-04%2017th%20amendment.html I respectfully invite you to review, and join, Senator Miller's efforts regarding the repeal of the 17th amendment and perhaps add a link. As you know, state legislators have the power under Article V of the United States Constitution to alter the policies and laws of the United States government. At one time during the history of our country, state legislators had a more direct influence over the United States government as the state legislature had the power to select U.S. Senators. The 17th amendment, calling for popular election of Senators, was passed because of the procedural problems, ie., the deadlocked state legislature, in the original procedure. However, popular election inappropriately altered the balance of power. Instead, the amendment should have fixed the procedural problems. At http://www.articlev.com/repeal17.htm an amendment is proposed to repeal the 17th amendment, reinstate the original balance of power, and fix the procedural problems. You are respectfully invited to read it. Please let me know if you have any questions. John MacMullin
TLE AFFILIATE Help Support TLE by patronizing our advertisers and affiliates. We cheerfully accept donations!
|
|
|
|
