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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 460, March 16, 2008 "Collectivism is despicable"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Another Letter from Jim Davidson Letter from Kendrick McPeters with Reply from L. Neil Smith Killer robots wreak carnage for the government: on your nickel. "There Oughta be Three Laws" by L. Neil Smith
L. Neil Smith
Collectivism is despicable Dear Editor, Re: "Letter from Scott Graves" Scott Graves is a sick and twisted collectivist, seeking to divide the liberty movement by age in order to further his desire for rioting against the elderly. Or, perhaps he's just young and foolish. His accusation that Susan has voted for John Kerry or anyone else is demented. Clearly, he doesn't know a thing about her. Equally clear, he could care less who he offends. The world is full of angry old men and women who are sick of government garbage. Grouping them all into one category you can slam because a few of them voted for some politician or another is stupid. People cannot help the age they are — neither their youth and indiscretion nor their age and infirmity are chosen. Asserting that Susan Callaway bears any iota of responsibility for the actions of other people who were born within a few years of her is idiotic. Scott Graves believes in collective guilt. Perhaps he is ready to get a band of hoodlums together and burn out a few old folks homes, show how tough he is. Responsibility is individual. It is not collective. There are plenty of people, old, young, smart, foolish, courageous, timid, and otherwise who are willing to stand up for freedom. Asserting that Ron Paul, himself in his seventies, has no appeal to older people like Susan who have fought all their lives for greater individual liberty is idiotic. Raging against the elderly simply because some of them were around to vote for Lyndon Johnson makes no sense. Scott Graves makes no sense. The elderly are not the problem. The problem is the state, the collectivists, the socialists, and the vermin who promote those ideas of group responsibility. Rage like Scott's is what put millions of Jews in concentration camps in Germany, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in the USA during the 1940s. It has to stop. It has to be recognized for the evil it is. Attack other people in the liberty movement for the color of their skin, the age of their bodies, the extent of their disabilities, or the particular religious creed they espouse and you should be shunned. Ostracized. Social Security and other payroll taxes weren't voted in by Susan Callaway, nor by most other seniors. Blaming them for things they did not do is vicious. And dividing the liberty movement along age, race, or creed lines makes no sense. Individuals like Susan who have agreed not to initiate force are far more useful to the future of freedom than ranting jerks like Scott. Regards, Jim Davidson
Re: "Letter from Scott Graves" It sounds like Scott Graves has a bit of growing up to do himself. It wouldn't hurt if he had read a little history as well — or learned how to count. To Susan Callaway he says: "Yours is the generation that has whined and begged for every free lunch that they could get from the government. Saying you weren't one of the whiners or beggars is like saying "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry". So what." Stop whining Scott. It was the grandparents of the "baby boomers" (some of them) who actually were in favor of Socialist Security — and possibly some of the parents... possibly. My father, for example, wasn't able to vote in a national election until 1942, long after Socialist Security had been established. A great many of that pre-boomer generation were opposed to Socialism. As far as the boomers themselves are concerned, the earliest of them (us) weren't old enough to vote until 1967. It was their/our parents (a majority of them at least) who voted for those dreggers Kennedy and Johnson. So, the first national election in which boomers were old enough to vote in was Nixon versus Humphrey in 1968. And guess who won that election. Lyndon Johnson had already established his Medicare and "War on Poverty" Socialist programs before the earliest of us were even out of our teens! So, if you want to lump us all together, (not a terribly bright thing to do) you can include not only Susan Calloway, but L. Neil Smith... and me. In case it hasn't occurred to you as yet, it was people in this "boomer" generation who created the Libertarian Party. In conclusion, I have two things to say to you: 1. Don't stereotype, it makes you look like a fool. 2. When you get off of your high horse, do so very carefully — you might otherwise hurt yourself. (If you haven't already.) Ron Paul resonates with anyone who has at least some knowledge of economics, and a desire for individual freedom. As for me, all the Ron Paul supporters I know — and know of — are at least in their '50's. Ken Valentine
Re: "Letter from Scott Graves" Mr. Graves is dealing in a fundamentally specious premise; collective guilt. It subsumes the good and the bad together, and is, if not an immoral world view, certainly an amoral one. The failure is to assume that any one person can be made personally responsible for the autonomous choices and actions, in this case including the criminal actions, of others. That is, if Mr. Graves were part of a generation composed 99.999% of rapists and/or murderers, by his lights, we ought to judge (and hold responsible) the remaining .001% alongside the actual guilty parties. Whether the perhaps demanding moral standard imposed in not inflicting punishment on the innocent, even erring to release the guilty that the innocent go free, is "grow[n] up" or not, is hardly relevant. Miss Callaway is absolutely right to take the offense she does. I am not responsible for what my generation does. My "generation" is a pure abstraction. At best a conceptual tool to subsume a great deal of information into a single line of deductive inquiry. In Graves, at its worst, it becomes an act of conceptual realism, and the result is that the real, acting individuals are to blame for their apparent membership in an abstract category, and not for what they themselves have or have not done. Bigotry is inexcusable no matter who might peddle it, or why. Brian Nickerson
Re: "Letter from Jim Davidson" (above) It Seems I Hit a Nerve... Jim Davidson kindly CCed me on his reply to my letter so I was able to respond. First off Jim, I have to wonder if you read my letters before you decided to get pissed off and call me names. My first letter "Ron Paul Loses, well duh!" simply pointed out that a message of fiscal conservatism and constitutional government will not resonate with a party which is composed of so many Boomers who don't want to loose out on their government funded gravy train. Sure I lumped all the Boomers together in one unglamorous pile of greedy geezers who want to enslave their children but so what. We Gen X and Gen Y types are called all manner of unkind things by Boomers because we don't want to settle down and pony up a quarter of our pay to keep them in the lifestyle they demand. In my second letter, in response to Susan Calloway's letter, I did not accuse her of voting for Kerry or voting for the various taxes he mentioned. In fact I didn't accuse her of anything at all. I told her to get over it and pointed out that the majority of the Boomer generation has begged and pleaded for every government gimme they could get. I told her that even if she has voted against their interests the vast majority of her generation has voted for more government every time they got the chance. Was my second letter filled with a certain amount of "rage"? Of course it was. While the Boomers will likely get their government checks until they are too senile to vote my generation will have to face the consequences of their greed. So yeah, there's a bit of anger there. Being sold into slavery has that effect on me. So, after misreading my letters Jim decides to call me names. He starts of with "sick and twisted collectivist" and then claims I am out to "divide the liberty movement by age". In the same paragraph he wonders if perhaps I am "just young and foolish". That's a lot of rage directed at me in just one short paragraph. Pretty impressive. Scattered throughout the rest of his diatribe we see words like "demented", "idiotic", "stupid" and "ranting jerks". Pretty harsh words there Jimmy. Better go take your blood pressure medicine before you pop a vital artery. As for his attempts to defend the "Greediest Generation" you have to wonder how much individual guilt Jim is covering for. He says "Grouping them all into one category you can slam because a few of them voted for some politician or another is stupid." A few of them? Come on Jim, the vast majority of Boomers voted for either a Republican or a Democrat over their lives. As the Boomers have aged we have seen the Democrats abandon any pretence of free market sympathy and the Republican Party move from being a party about small government and constitutional limitations to becoming Democrat Lite. Coincidence? I doubt it. Jim then goes on to attack me some more, claiming that "rage like Scott's is what put millions of Jews in concentration camps in Germany, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in the USA during the 1940s." Gee, little old me could be responsible for the unlawful incarceration and deaths of millions of people. All because I don't like the idea of the Boomers selling my generation into slavery so they can keep them government goodies rolling in. Silly me, I guess I should accept the chains happily instead of complaining about the selfishness of my elders. Scott Graves
Dear Editor: Re: "Letter from Scott Graves" (above) Graves writes: "It Seems I Hit a Nerve..." Actually, he verbally attacked a friend of mine. I don't particularly appreciate bullies who beat up old ladies. Graves: "First off Jim, I have to wonder if you read my letters before you decided to get pissed off and call me names." I wonder if he read what Susan wrote. Graves: "...Boomers who don't want to loose out on their government funded gravy train." The term would be "lose out." But, of course, Susan isn't on that gravy train. So, Graves must smear her in his attempt to make all elderly persons evil. Graves: "Sure I lumped all the Boomers together in one unglamorous pile of greedy geezers who want to enslave their children but so what." But, that's the whole point. Maybe he also groups black Americans together in one pile of greedy welfare cheats who hate grammar. Maybe he also groups Jews together in one pile of internationalist socialist conspirators. Maybe he likes using stereotypes to bully and intimidate others. Doing so makes him evil. There is no such thing as a collective. The sons are not guilty of the sins of their fathers. The thirty persons who live in a town where three Nazi officers were slaughtered are not guilty of their deaths just because they live in the same town, even if the other Nazis put them to death for the alleged crime. By making all old folks out to be guilty of what a few of them have done is wrong. Graves: "We Gen X and Gen Y types are called all manner of unkind things by Boomers because we don't want to settle down and pony up a quarter of our pay to keep them in the lifestyle they demand." Again, Graves asserts that everyone not of his two chosen generations wants him to pay taxes. I do not. Susan Callaway does not. But Graves won't accept any alliance with those older than himself, because he is too smug to accept help from other people who have been down the road ahead of him. Graves: "I did not accuse her of voting for Kerry or voting for the various taxes he mentioned." So, if Susan didn't do those things, nor the equivalent, why did he say that her comments were their equivalent? Evidently he does not think that Susan has done anything wrong, but he uses nasty comments to attempt to discredit her, even so. So, he is insincere and hypocritical. Graves: "In fact I didn't accuse her of anything at all." In fact, he repeatedly accused her of wanting to enslave him simply by virtue of her advanced age. Graves: "I told her to get over it" How does one get over being older? By dying? It must be that what Graves wants is to see old folks turned out of their homes and brutally murdered by the men and women of his generation, because he cannot stand the fact that they are older. Possibly, he also does not understand reductio ad absurdum as a technique for persuasion. Graves: "pointed out that the majority of the Boomer generation has begged and pleaded for every government gimme they could get." But, of course, he offers no proof of this claim. In fact, most Boomers, like every other generation, are either not qualified to vote or are not registered to vote. Graves: "I told her that even if she has voted against their interests the vast majority of her generation has voted for more government every time they got the chance." A great many individualistic libertarians, such as Susan, do not vote for politicians. Some do not vote at all. Grouping non-voters in with voters is tarring with the collectivist brush that Graves insists on using. And, of course, since most people of every generation are either not qualified to vote or are not registered to vote, what he says is nonsense. He wants to blame old people for his problems because he doesn't want to have to work very hard to solve them. Rather, what he wants is to organize pogroms against the elderly, so he can personally eviscerate several thousand and watch while his followers do the same. Graves: "Was my second letter filled with a certain amount of 'rage?' Of course it was." Was the rage properly directed? Of course it was not. Like all evil, hateful bigots, Graves can only think of people as members of groups. If he does not call the elderly "greedy Boomers" he doesn't feel good. I wonder if he calls all black people "niggers" and gets a kick out of that? Graves: "While the Boomers will likely get their government checks until they are too senile to vote my generation will have to face the consequences of their greed." But, of course, "the Boomers" are evil, whether they are against government checks, whether they vote, or not. Only Graves is a victim, only him and his chosen generation. Older people cannot be victimized by government, in his world view, because they must be the problem. Rather than isolating the actual people who committed the crimes, the politicians and the bureau-rats, Graves must tar with a collectivist brush. He cannot have pogroms otherwise, and you can see him panting for the massacres of elderly. Graves: "Being sold into slavery has that effect on me." Yet his anger is misdirected. Neither Susan nor most of her generation have sold him into slavery. In fact, he does not have to pay payroll taxes if he is not on anyone's payroll. Nobody requires him to fill out a W-4 form, unless he wants a certain type of job. Many people have worked for decades without every doing so. Graves: "That's a lot of rage directed at me in just one short paragraph." I hate filthy bigots. I despise their collectivist ranting. I blame the bigots of the world for the acts of bigots — massacres, genocide, pogroms. Graves: "As for his attempts to defend the 'Greediest Generation' you have to wonder how much individual guilt Jim is covering for." I have no guilt to atone for. I'm not a bigot. And I'm not defending those who seek to enslave others. I am simply making the point that filthy bigots like Graves would do the world a favor by killing themselves. Graves: "A few of them?" Yes, a few of them. There is so much vote fraud in this country, you cannot prove that anyone ever voted for any of these politicians. You certainly cannot prove a majority. Graves: "Come on Jim, the vast majority of Boomers voted for either a Republican or a Democrat over their lives." No, they did not. The vast majority of Boomers did not vote. Even if a majority of sixty-one-year-old women did vote to enslave Graves, he has no call for being rude to anyone who did not. He should be grateful for any who support the idea of his liberty with their words and deeds. That he does not makes him "sharper than a serpent's tooth," to quote Shakespeare, who was talking about "an ungrateful child." Graves: 'rage like Scott's is what put millions of Jews in concentration camps in Germany, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in the USA during the 1940s.' Gee, little old me could be responsible for the unlawful incarceration and deaths of millions of people. Yes, it was bigots just like Graves who did those things. Filthy evil bigoted jerks who were "good Germans" put Jews and Slavs and Poles and Catholics and homosexuals and gypsies in concentration camps and tortured them to death. Graves: "All because I don't like the idea of the Boomers selling my generation into slavery so they can keep them government goodies rolling in." No, not liking that idea is fine. Not wanting to be a slave is common to the readers and writers of the Libertarian Enterprise. What is uncommon, what is unique to Graves is his evil dedication to the idea that all elderly people are his enemy just because of their age. Since none of them can help being older than him, his bigoted argument makes just as much sense as the argument that German Jews had to be massacred. Graves: "Silly me, I guess I should accept the chains happily instead of complaining about the selfishness of my elders." Silly is too pleasant a term for such deliberate and hateful bigotry. Bigots should be chastised for their words. If they then act on those words and attack people who have the characteristics they despise, the bigots should be killed. And, I think, not just killed quickly. Bigotry is an evil blight which should not be tolerated in the freedom movement. Scott Graves acts like a filthy cur who hates his parents. His bigotry should be reviled. Jim Davidson
Robert, Re.: "Letter from Robert Jackman" I have a question: Your remarks seem to indicate that E-85 (a derivative) which requires labor and energy intensive to produce, would seem to be a less than productive way to address the matter of energy production. Merely pumping crude out of the ground and refining it requires =way less= energy than to use the crude to:
All of those require an attendant expenditure of energy. If one presupposes to say, that one might derive a degree of energy from the land which the derived energy itself MUST be used as a source of energy, and which a portion of that energy MUST be returned in order to derive a sufficiency, then what you are remarking is a net negative. So, the question is: How could you remark of a positive effect, from a net negative effort? E.J. Totty
Another Possible Solution to the Avalanche of Law El Neil, Re: "The Last Test of Democracy: Part Four The Great Moratorium" by L. Neil Smith I love your idea of passing a moratorium on new law. If passed, it would certainly help things out a great deal! However, I'd like to suggest a slightly different approach, which might (a) offer greater inducement to repeal old laws, and (b) possibly draw a lot of support from the "Christian Right." Call my suggestion "reading the law" — every seven years, Congress would be adjourned, and the Speaker of the House would be required to read (in a normally modulated speaking voice) every word of every law on the books, starting with the oldest, then progressing chronologically to the newest. The Speaker would be limited to 40 hours of law reading per week, and Congress, being in recess, would be unable to pass any new laws while the old ones were being read. And if, after seven years of 40 hour per week lawreading, certain laws remained (ahem) unread, then these laws would be struck from the books, and anyone in jail for violating them would automatically be pardoned and set free. Sounds like fun... but why would I expect the "Christian Right" to support this plan? Simple — because I ripped off the basic idea from the Old Testament!
Hey, if reading the law aloud every seven years is good enough for The LORD thy God, then surely our congressional demigods should be thrilled to see their laws get the same respectful treatment! Let's try it! What have we got to lose... other than our chains? Kendrick McPeters
To Which L. Neil Smith Replied: Wow! I can hardly wait to see our readers' reactions to this. I like the idea very much. Thank you! L. Neil Smith
Grammar Lesson for Hillary It has become rather obvious that Senator Clinton is claiming participation in her husband's administration as experience that will give her an edge if she is elected President. More on that some other time. Unless the government and the Clinton Campaign are entirely staffed by morons (Okay, guys, don't laugh too hard) surely they have someone reading TLE to make sure what us wild eye libertarians is up to (besides mockingly using bad grammar.). So if one of you snoopies would please pass this on to the Senator from N'Yawk we can help her actually be less ignorant than her husband. Is — the third person present tense participle of the verb to be, indicating location or state or condition of existence. Often used to indicate future tense or passive voice. Equivalent of es and esta in Spanish and is and ta in Erse. A.X. Perez
Hi, Mr. Holder: Could you run just this following brief announcement... some of your readers may have known Ken Gregg: "For those of you who may have known Kenneth Roger Gregg: I received word from his wife, Debbie Gregg that Ken died in his sleep this morning, Friday, March 14, 2008. He had been ill for some time. Ken was a well known in certain libertarian intellectual circles, and was a very long-time friend of mine." Pam Maltzman
Please Link to Thiis Next Issue "Where the People Don't Rule", by Fred Reed
L. Neil Smith
[Highly recommended! — Editor] Alexander Solzhenitsyn's comment about how to react to a police state — good advice! "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: 'What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!'"
Marc V. Ridenour
Have y'all ever checked out vikingkittens.com? Good for major giggle ROTFL experience. A.X. Perez
[Well, I found it more silly than funny. But then I'd just watched a Marx Brothers movie.... — Editor]
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