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L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 320, May 22, 2005 "The British are Coming!"
NPN NooseWire
Exclusive to TLE Little Rock AR: In a move that caught the liberty industry by surprise, Lazy Fair Books today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing a complete collapse in sales as a direct result of a purge of their entire inventory. Spokesperson Colleen Atzerodt announced the surprise filing through an anonymous e-mail service, stating that she had to preserve anonymity due to "fear of being penetrated by a turgid, throbbing wet black shaft, thrust upon me by an unknown and masked assailant". Atzerodt stated that Lazy Fair's troubles began when she revisited a copy of Ayn Rand's 1964 Playboy interview, in which Rand repeatedly referred to "sex maniacs" and described sex as "good" and "important". Atzerodt stated that such licentiousness did not belong in the offerings of Lazy Fair, and therefore was removed from inventory. Afraid that there might be more offensive items in Lazy Fair's catalog, Atzerodt began scrutinizing each and every offering and discovered, to her horror and revulsion, that "free thinkers seem to believe that sex and drugs and rock and roll are all their brain and body need". After stripping all 'prurient' items from the inventory, she discovered that Lazy Fair had "absolutely nothing" to offer its customers. "I felt that it was more important to our customers to protect them from libertine impurities than it was to turn a profit", stated Atzerodt. "The downside of our principled decision was that there was nothing left to sell. We note, with some regret, that a total lack of sales seems to be somehow tied to financial insolvency." Lazy Fair's closing went largely unnoticed for several weeks. Chicago, IL and Atlanta, GA and elsewhere throughout this great nation of ours: The Department of Homeland Security announced today that "due to an elevated threat level against the judiciary by domestic terrorists, necessary steps will be taken in key jurisdictions to ensure the safety of judges and the American system of jurisprudence". District judge Joan Lefkow, whose husband and mother were allegedly "murdered by a man enraged by the courts and her rulings" stated that "... [the] gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings." Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, said Lefkow's story should help move forward the idea that judges are public servants and not "obstacles who stand between those politicians and their partisan agendas." [Source] In Atlanta, a man accused of murdering a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy, and a US Customs agent, faced with a 54-count indictment in the four killings, pleaded not guilty to all charges. [Source] In Montana, county commissioners passed an ordinance stating that "only law enforcement officers can carry a weapon [sic] into the" Hill County Courthouse. [Source] The DHS announced that in order to support and protect our fine judges and their assistants, "certain steps will be necessary—steps that, while they may impose some slight inconvenience on the general public, will be a good first step on providing for the safety of government officials everywhere." Among the steps listed: banning the sale, distribution and reporting on "written materials that directly or indirectly threaten the judicial infrastructure", including works of speculative fiction, radical fiction, or non-fiction. "To the extent we can do so," a DHS spokesperson stated, "we intend to make discussion of such radical ideas as killing judges impossible without our knowing about it." One way the DHS hopes to reduce such thought crime is to apply pressure to book sellers to remove from inventory "works of a seditious, salacious, and subversive nature", the spokesperson added. Washington, DC: Democrats in the Senate have decided that the filibuster, whose use they repeatedly decried as "obstructionist" during the period of time when they held all majorities, is an honorable and moral means of thwarting a president from packing the bench with his ideological supporters. Sen. Ted Dunkem (D-MA) in a four-hour speech delivered yesterday on the Senate floor, pronounced that "the very notion of packing a court with activists whose agenda reflects the personal bias of the President is a concept so despicable, so foreign to the principles of our democracy, that to even suggest that it be done borders on treason, heresy, and wanton disregard for children everywhere." Democrats are particularly outraged at the repeated nomination of judicial candidates whose political agenda includes "the further erosion of our individual liberties, our rights, and our freedoms", stated Dunkem. "Clearly the opposition cannot be trusted with such awesome power, as they have demonstrated repeatedly over the last four years. We, as Democrats, must jealously guard such important responsibilities, and administer them ourselves, as I feel the American people want us to do." Republicans counter that judges must be appointed who will "uphold the Constitution, as it is understood by the party of Lincoln", asserted Sen. Rich Sanctimony (R-PA). His fellow Pennsylvania senator, Artless Spectacle, agreed: "The filibuster is no magic bullet for preventing judicial appointments. These nominees have had their character assassinated repeatedly on the Senate floor; they deserve to be approved without any further questioning of their views or opinions, just as we have repeatedly and willingly approved Democratic nominees in the past." Sen. Bull Fit (R-TN) added, "We need to appoint judges who will be more in tune with the wishes of the American people. Judicial safety is a big issue these days, primarily because liberal judges are issuing unpopular opinions. The solution is clearly to appoint conservative judges—judges who are not afraid to make the hard decisions regarding our rights... judges who will protect our children from dangerous thoughts, words, and deeds." Democrats have threatened to slow the Senate's business to a stop if Republicans eliminate the filibuster, and demonstrated their ability to do so this week by invoking a rule that prevented some committee meetings. Across the nation, the Senate slowdown went largely unnoticed.
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