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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 433, September 2, 2007 "Government itself consists of nothing but brute force and fraud"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Recently in a letter to TLE I recommended that we make advocating lowering total taxes paid by a person on their income to 25% of their income a condition for endorsing candidates for Federal office. A major reason for stopping at 25% instead of 0% is that I am including all taxes, State and local as well as Federal. Strangely enough, one of the states rights not lost in the War of Yankee Aggression was the right to levy taxes. Of course, since the States have become dependent on Federal largesse this could create a problem. How do they replace this valuta with raising taxes to a point triggering rebellion. As of the First of September, 2008, Texans will be legally allowed to keep concealed handguns in their vehicles while going about their legal affairs even if they do not have concealed carry licenses. This could lead to Texas going to "Vermont Carry" in a few years, that is no license required by people to carry handguns in public as long as they act appropriately. If (Big if) this happens it could lead to holders of CCL's feeling they'd been gypped. So what if Texas (and other states for that matter) go into the business of selling guns and ammo to replace their lost Federal funds and/or reduce their own taxes? And what if holders of CCL's were allowed to use their licenses as discount cards to buy state made munitions? And what if they continued to sell licenses as discount cards? Hell what if Texas and other states go into the gun business even if they don't adopt Vermont Carry? Lower taxes. An increased supply of guns for honest people. State governments having a vested interest in supporting gun rights (and maybe even the Fed. Remember DCM guns for sale in the American Rifleman? OK there were hoops but still. . .). Hoplophobes going into conniption fits. What's not to love about this. State legislators need ideas to run on same same Congresscritters. A.X. Perez
Dear Ken— I seem to have hit an agreeable chord with "A New Approach to Social Darwinism", which appeared in last week's The Libertarian Enterprise, so I thought I'd tell our readers a little more about it. The Darwinism essay is actually fairly old. It began as a series of articles in my wife Cathy's little pre-Internet magazine APAlogia. I've always been an ardent student of evolution; it's one of two things (the other being the Zero Aggression Principle) past which I run any new idea I hear or think of. You can see from the essay that I have come to rather different conclusions about the ultimate meaning of evolution than other people have. I plan to do a follow-up someday taking issue with some of the things the late Stephen Jay Gould, among others, had to say on the subject. A while later, it became a speech I delivered to the Boulder County (Colorado) Libertarian Party at the University of Colorado in Boulder one evening. Eventually it became the philosophical basis for my big novel Forge of the Elders. The present version may also be found in my book of essays, Lever Action (to which I someday hope to do a post-9/11 sequel.) I'm very glad people are noticing these ideas this time around. I think there may be some potential there for making the world a better place by giving people another good reason to leave each other alone. L. Neil Smith
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