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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 484, September 7, 2008 "Barry Obomber and Insane McCain"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Letter from Dr. Sean Gabb via L. Neil Smith Re: "The Imposed Surcharges We Shoulder" by Robert Jackman Regarding your article in the latest TLE, I wanted to raise a few issues... (1) I think you're belaboring the actions of the anti-corn-ethanol crowd. Regardless of whether corn ethanol is practical or not, it's silly to grow corn to turn into ethanol when there are better-suited crops, such as the beets you mentioned. Don't try to refute their arguments, but put your energy into promoting non-corn sources. (2) Ethanol is a very annoying molecule, it tends to attract water and bring it into your engine and it also eats up all but the most expensive gasket materials. Most vehicles on the road won't run on >10% ethanol without a major overhaul. If we're going to have to change our engine technology IMO it'd be much better to switch to a biodiesel-type fuel; from what I've read, oil-producing plants have higher yields than carbohydrate producers, and you don't have to use yeasts (with their own energy consumption) to process the material into a fuel. (3) In the article you mention "returning the manure from cattle fed". This can be very difficult in a macro-farming regime, and using raw manure for fertilizer can result in spreading disease. It's certainly the most efficient way to utilize the manure but we still need a good way to process and transport it. John Hoffman
A Little Thought Experiment I propose the following thought experiment. Please note that it is only a thought experiment as actually implementing it technically qualifies as torture and may cause severe psychological damage to the subject. Strap an advocate of victim disarmament to chair with an airsoft pistol within their reach. Using hypnosis, drugs, and computer simulation convince them that they are about to watch their four year old child be beaten to death. All they have to do to save the kid is shoot the assailant. Begin the simulation. The goal of this exercise in most instances is to see how fast they will reach for the gun. In a very few cases we will be learning if they are willing to let a child be beaten to death rather than back down on their principles. Be aware that a large percentage of otherwise pacifistic women will probably shoot before you finish explaining the procedure, and that shamans professing pacifism may be able to convince themselves that the child being killed will be taken into heaven as martyrs and that spiritual salvation trumps physical survival. I expect we'll learn that ninety plus percent of advocates of gun control will discover that their beliefs change when the survival of themselves and their loved ones is at stake. As I mentioned earlier, this experiment qualifies as torture. One of the many reasons I oppose tyranny and advocate the right of private citizens to own the tools to defend liberty is that if I can think of this I am inclined to think there is an evil version of me who is capable of actually carrying out such an extreme test of people's belief, only using real kids, not hypnosis and computer simulation. A.X. Perez
RE: "Will We Let the Real America Die?" by L. Neil Smith "All of my life I have wanted nothing more than simply to be proud of my country. Understand that—believe it—or nothing else you read here will make sense. All of my life—and it's dismaying how long it took me to realize this—I've been ashamed of my country, instead." I'm just fine with the country—purple mountains' majesties, amber waves of grain, fruited plains, etc. etc. etc. It's the NATION that sucks diseased donkey dingus! Thomas Creasing
Dear Ken: With respect to my article in last weekend's The Libertarian Enterprise, "Will We Let the Real America Die?", in which I said, "...the Brits have always been willing to fight bravely to the very last drop of Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, or South African blood...", my friend Dr. Sean Gabb writes, "Ooooh—the British ruling class has always been brave with our blood as well!" Point taken! Thanks very much, Sean. L. Neil Smith
RE: "Playing the God Card" by Ann Morgan After the contentious example Ann Morgan presents, about an orgy conducted in plain sight across the street from school children, she states, "If you think something governmental should be done about that, you don't want an entirely free society, you want to 'play the God Card' and have a theocracy of some variety or the other." Let's imagine a free town. People who have established the town have made a set of ordinances, including one prohibiting orgies on the front lawn. The adoption of these ordinances was unanimous. Other people, who move into the town, have three choices: 1) agree with the ordinances; or at least 2) tolerate them even if they don't agree with them; or 3) move somewhere else. Is it really a free town? I think so. The ordinances appear to be a form of contract, dealing with freedom of association. You don't have to live there. If orgies on the front lawn are important to you, go to a place that finds them acceptable. Note, in a free town, changing those ordinances would require a unanimous vote of all persons affected. Freedom does not mean extreme license, uniformly applied. Even conservative people, and people who believe in God, can find a place that suits them in a free country. It's not "playing the God card" that such a place could be available to them. Yes, very few people would be willing to live in a state of extreme license, uniformly applied, but many, maybe even most (I think) could be comfortable in a state of true freedom—after they got over the initial "fear of the unknown". Just like Win Bear did. Paul Bonneau
RE: "Walk Like A (Free) Man" by Kaptain Kanada a.k.a. Manuel Miles
I always like to hear from another real conservative. Screw that crap about Jesus and obey the leader. Back in the day, the standards were straightforward: long hair and beards on men (check, getting a bit grey), flexibility about relationships (I'll have to ask La Esposa about that when she gets back from spending the weekend with her boyfriend but count that as a check) and Smash the State. Never forget to Smash the State or the rest is just cosmetics and pissing into the wind. Ward Griffiths
Campaign 4 Liberty or Christian Coalition Redux? Just a quick note, I am going to the Ron Paul Rally for the Campaign for Liberty tomorrow. It looks as if it is going to be another historic event in a historic election year. However, on the eve of the revelations of the Campaign 4 Liberty (C4L) there are a few disturbances in "the force." I won't go into all the details at this time. However, I have been around a similar movement before with some of the same people. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition took grass roots organizing to a whole new level from the ground up. Becoming the base of the Republican Party and capturing the power positions (the republican revolution) they accomplished their goal of electing a "born again, Bible believing, Christian president," George W. Bush. However, according to David Kuo author of Tempting Faith, he says some of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as "the nuts." "National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo writes. More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly "nonpartisan" events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races. Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush's 2004 Ohio victory "at least partially... to the conferences we had launched two years before." You see folks, the Christian Coalition was a success. They got what they wanted. Only they found out too late that they were not in control. The "Neo-Cons" were in complete control behind the scenes. See PNAC. Recognize the names? They are the ones who have brought us the last eight years. So what does this have to do with Ron Paul? Doug Wead and Grover Norquist! Why are they speaking at the rally? Are they disgruntled Dominionists? Whatever the reasons or even if their more recent "conversions" to Ron Paulism is genuine, they bear careful watching. If the C4L plan is to repeat the Christian Coalition strategy and take over the Republican Party for "Liberty" then, who defines that "Liberty?" You know that it will still be a "Limited Liberty" as these are just "Statists Lite." They still believe in the majoritarian position that if a majority of a minority of "qualified" votes cast, collected, and counted by a minority of the whole of the population says that you should be executed because you are a heretic to the secular religion of their interpretation of the "holy" writ of their completely mutable "constitution" then, you will be executed to applause, amens and apologies that "it may not be perfect but it is the law" and they must follow it. Who really is in control behind the scenes? It remains to be seen. I'll report back. In the meantime, here are some other links concerning Wead & Norquist: http://www.dougwead.com/biography.htm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/wead.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/etc/script.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/barack-obama-jo.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800983.html http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/apr/21/00013/ Tim Wingate
The Subornation of Football Texas Friday Night Football has started. Young men will demonstrate that they are fast, strong, cunning and loyal to their group, thus proving they are fit to reproduce. Young women will demonstrate their agility and flexibility, proving that they also are fit to reproduce and can hold the attention of their mates at least long enough to raise their children together. Young people regularly compete to establish their reproductive fitness. Somewhere along the line the drive to prove you have the best genes and will do a good job of helping raise kids (traits expressed as courage, strength, speed, intelligence, loyalty and sexiness) began to express itself as small scale, often ritualized war. One remnant of this was the Plains Indian custom of counting coup. You weren't trying to kill the enemy, you were demonstrating your reproductive fitness. Even further down the line a bunch of power hungry old farts figured out how to redirect this basic, healthy urge into getting young men to die in war to protect and expand said OF's power. Please note that with the rare exception of the likes of Niall of the Nine Hostages and Temujin (AKA Genghis Khan) the men who sent youngsters off to war had already reproduced and were out of the baby making business. I have a certain respect for the WWII Roosevelts and Kennedys who fought and lost kin in WWII. Still, this willingness to "eat their young" by those who seek to rule tyrannically is just one more reason to condemn the power mad monsters who have misruled our society in the past and continue to do so now. Let's go back to football (Soccer, rugby, and American style) and other rough sports to have young men establish their right to breed. And let the old men who only want power, even if it means destroying their nations' future, be stripped of the authority to get young men killed. PS. Now you know why women's styles become more revealing in the US during wartime and why Moslem men are promised (However many their detractors enumerate) virgins in Paradise if they die in Jihad. A.X. Perez
Re: "Walk like a (free) man" by Kaptain Kanada a.k.a. Manuel Miles In his declaration of a cultural war, Manuel Miles writes, "Get your children out of the government schools and into good private schools or, better yet, home school them. I know that this is difficult, expensive and time consuming, but if you didn't want difficult, expensive and time consuming things in your life, then why the heck did you have children?!" Actually, it's not difficult, expensive and time consuming to homeschool. That is a bit of propaganda the ruling class wants us to believe, to discourage people from homeschooling. Manuel needs to purge that from his brain. We all have such little factoids from the state lodged here and there in our consciousness, and need to root them out - just as he suggests. Paul Bonneau
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