Folks—
Michael Badnarik, one of liberty's best friend and a very good
friend of the Smith family is in a hospital following a severe
heart attack. This was to have been my weekly announcement.
However before I prepared it, the message from Dick Boddie
Arrived, Courtesy of Scott Bieser. I checked Wikipedia and the
news was already there. I'll get to my announcement tomorrow.
L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com
From Wikipedia:
Badnarik suffered a heart attack on the morning of December 21, 2009,
while in Viroqua, Wisconsin attending a hearing regarding a raw milk
case. After the hearing he boarded a car to go to lunch with friends,
then slumped over. His friends attempted CPR and contacted the
paramedics. They attempted CPR to revive him three times with no
success. Upon the fourth attempt his heart was revived yet with erratic
behavior. He was taken by helicopter to Gunderson Lutheran Hospital CCU
in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.[13] [14]
From Dick Boddie:
p.m. December 28, 2009
I just got off the phone with Michael Badnarik's Mother, Elaine. She
informed me that his condition seems to have "backslid". They were were
hoping that he would have been released on Wednesday to his Mother's
care in Indiana but his condition is still critical.
Michael came out of his unconscious state, unbound his wrists some how,
and removed the breathing tube from his throat. His mother remarked
that when Michael came to he asked to be released. He doesn't
understand how serious his situation is.
The hospital had to sedate him again to put the breathing tube back in
because he is having trouble breathing.
They cannot find the reason for his breathing problem... so he is
currently sedated to ease the pressure on his lungs and heart.
His heart is still in atrial fibrillation and had to be hit with the
AED defibrillator to reset its rhythm.
He will be sedated until his condition can be stabilized...
He is still at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital CCU in Lacrosse, WI. Please
do not call or visit the hospital, only family is allowed.
Please keep him and his family in your prayers.
In Freedom,
Gary Franchi
National Director
Restore the Republic
At press time we received this note:
Hi, Neil,
I haven't been able to find anything more than what you've told me, but
I did find a way to send Michael a personal message.
www.gundluth.org/?id=2&sid=1
That is his hospital, and evidently volunteers print and deliver the cards.
I hope lots of folks will send one. The more hugs he gets from friends,
the more will to live he will have if he wakes again. Candles are
burning here.
Take care and let's all have a prosperous and successful 2010.
Kathryn A. Graham
[email protected]
www.linkedin.com/in/kathryngraham
transcribed4less.com
Follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/kate9954
Dear Sir,
(I apologise if this arrived too late. I just read December 20 articles
early this am. Letter below.)
In response to Lion F Batoosta's "Liberty
does not need Justification"—I understand the rationale behind this argument, but I wonder...
The principles governing liberty seem to me to be an extension of
liberty, not justification for it. And they are an explanation of
how best to implement liberty, not motivation for believing in it.
Liberty is the goal, whereas morality, ethics, utility, private
property, and NAP are the means to achieve it, on a personal as
well as universal level. Without these principles in practice,
liberty would not exist.
I don't believe that I am *justifying* liberty by citing, for example,
the non-aggression principle. Nor is it justification to enlist
'private property' as a means of establishing liberty in one's life
or in society. These principles merely enhance the definition of
liberty, which is every man's natural right.
Mr. Batoosta is correct in saying that liberty itself needs no
justification, but the explanatory principles underlying liberty
are the foundation for it, not any of them a greater value than the
whole.
Pat Taylor
7thwav@cox.net
Teal'c: Indeed
Stargate SG-1 ran a total of ten seasons, five on Showtime, five
on the Sci-Fi Channel (Renamed lately SyFy Channel by some idiot in
marketing who thus demonstrated a total disrespect for their fan base,
worse than running Tuesday night rasslin'). It introduced us to the
Jaffa, a race of warriors used by the Goa'uld as storm troopers and to
serve as living incubators for larval Goa'uld. In exchange for serving
as incubators their physical strength, endurance, and resistance to
disease was improved. However their own immune systems were suppressed
and and the Jaffa died horribly if their symbionts were removed.
On Christmas Eve 2010 the Senate passed its Health Care Reform Act.
This Bill must now be reconciled with the House version, and to be
honest I hope this effort fails, leading to some portions I don't find
too objectionable passing as stand alone bills (hey in a bill this huge
it's impossible not to find something to like, just not enough to
tolerate the rest!) while the rest is swept into the dustbin of history.
Just for the sake of argument let us say that Obamacare delivers every
good thing promised and doesn't crash the economy by raising taxes to
Europe's 80% level (as opposed to the 40-45% combined fed, state, and
local taxes hit us for in the US, more if your catching up on back
taxes.) or by interfering with the insurance companies investing their
premiums. More happy, healthy people living longer without going broke
if catastrophic illness hits. 30 million Americans finally have proper
health coverage without covering the 12 to 20 million illegal
immigrants in the country (in other words 4 to 6.67 % of the people
living in the US will be denied coverage). No one has to change their
doctor or pays more for meds. The course of medical research is not
diverted or delayed. The liberals got something right since the
(liberal act of your choice). Yay!! Hell, they even cure me of making
parenthetical comments.
And people will become that much more dependent on the government. The
22nd Amendment gets repealed and whoever is President replaces law with
executive decree. Can't rebel, Grandma needs her Alzheimer medication
and we have to pay to fix Johnnie's busted nose (seems head butting a
soccer ball with your nose instead of your forehead doesn't work too
good.). Well of course you don't have to reduce your carbon footprint
and funny how the voucher for the Prozac that you need to control
suicidal urges is hung up. Well yes, you do have the right to keep and
bear arms, but if you can afford that much ammo we think you can afford
a higher co-payment for your insulin.
And the Jaffa all behave because they can't live without their
symbionts.
A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com
To Which L. Neil Smith replied:
You are, of course, completely correct. This is intended as a leash.
The good news is that unregulated medicine will flourish as an
unintended consequence, and medical progress will leap forward like the
U.S.S. Enterprise going into warp drive.
L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com
And "RDB" replied:
Al, there is nothing in either version of this Boot On Your Neck Party
festival of Marxism that I can find not "too objectionable passing as
stand alone bills." It's too much like asking a woman who had been
gang-raped "Which one of your assailants screwed you the most
enjoyably?"
Pre-paid medical care was originally offered as a "get-around" during
World War II, when the progressives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
administration locked wage and price controls down on the U.S. economy
to hide the impact of their currency counterfeiting. Employers with a
need for personnel to fulfill their wartime contracts had to offer
non-wage perquisites to attract labor, and "health insurance" as a part
of the compensation package was a way of providing desired value that
FDR's brain trust hadn't thought to tax or otherwise limit.
The health care system in these United States adjusted itself to this
cornucopia of employer-provided employee benefits, and later to
King-Anderson (Medicare), expanding far beyond the relatively
bare-bones medical service provision mechanisms of my childhood and
even my training years.
I grew up into a medical profession where we expected—and we were
quite comfortable with—a relatively bare-bones establishment,
focused on getting the job done, and who gave a damn about what the
place looked like? I can remember the first time I stepped onto a
nursing floor and discovered that the place had been set up with
wall-to-wall carpeting.
Carpeting? What the hell? On a nursing floor? How the hell is anybody
supposed to keep carpeting clean enough to control infections?
And—guess what?—they're not keeping hospitals clean enough to
control infections. You can't. Bare linoleum you can swab down with
anything up to and including 50% bleach solutions. Carpeting? No goddam
way.
I am absolutely certain that, when push comes to shove, American
doctors, nurses, and ancillary health care providers can squeeze a
helluva lot of cost out of the delivery of health care. We can do it
without compromising quality of care, though you can be goddam certain
that patients themselves are not going to be happy about it. Comfort
levels will go down. But outcomes would stay good.
The problem is that care-oriented people are not in charge as the
result of this legislation. The politicians, the bureaucrats, the
administrators—the Pointy-Haired Bosses, to give you Dilbert—are
the ones making the decisions, and those of us who understand how to
get maximal bang for the buck expended....
Well, us common medical grunts have been moved out of the decision loop
altogether. The only physicians you're going to see involved here with
any kind of authority are going to be the equivalents of Ayn Rand's Dr.
Stadler, people who'd done good enough work in their younger years to
make themselves "names," and then allowed themselves to be co-opted by
the politicians.
The way I figure it, things are going to go sour at a progressive rate.
It'll take some years to shake the slack out of the system, but when it
does you can bet that it will not be the politicians, the bureaucrats,
or the administrators who are going to take the blame for it.
Guess who will.
Right. Us damned greedy doctors.
Jeez, how dare we?
RDB
bartucci01@verizon.net
Articles that "call" for the Covenant of Unanimous Consent
In my TLE article
"Why
I think the Covenant is more important than the Constitution" I quote from an
article by William Buppert titled "Question Authority: Always and
Forever Hereafter" that summarizes why I think it important to
explore the virtues of and possible applications for the Covenant
of Unanimous Consent. I also note that Buppert's article was
obviously NOT written with the Covenant in mind—BUT IT AND MANY
MORE LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!
The same points that I made in my article also apply to the excellent
TLE article "Smashing:
Fail; Withdrawing: Epic Win" by Jim Davidson.
L. Neil Smith's 1985 Covenant
of Unanimous Consent is a timely method, tactic or tool that
people can utilize to withdraw support from tyranny as described by
Etienne de la Boetie and to attempt to achieve the Agorism that Jim
describes.
Dennis Lee Wilson
DennisLeeWilson@Yahoo.com
Signatory: Covenant of Unanimous Consent
To which Jim Davidson replied:
Dear Editor,
Dennis makes a compelling point. The covenant of unanimous consent
is an excellent document, thoughtfully written, and composed to
generate many opportunities for the first time reader to actually
think about what it means to consent to be governed.
I have often been remiss in mentioning it in my various essays,
though I've done my best in several cases. In some ways, I simply
assume that people who are really determined to be free are going
to find the covenant's terms agreeable.
Making any assumption about people is usually a poor choice. Or,
as several people have pointed out, no one has ever gone broke by
underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
Regards,
Jim Davidson
jim@vertoro.com
Reply to Letters 20091227
Dear Editor,
In my "The
Issue of Copyright", I used the phrase, "don't quit your day job."
I'm afraid that the hesitation I felt in using that phrase has come
back to haunt me.
What I was trying to convey was simply that not everyone can make a
living doing professionally what they can enjoy doing as a hobby. Few
avid model makers go on to work in model making, and I have seen
model trains of spectacular quality and size created purely for the
enjoyment of making.
Mr. Bussjaeger wrote, "I went back to my day job", but what I was
really thinking of was something like Conrad Janis, actor, but also
leader of The Unlisted Jazz Band. He didn't "go back" to his day job,
he simply did more than one thing in his life. Garage bands, home
vintners, community theater.
R.A.Heinlein said that writers are driven to write. El Neil, Carl
Bussjaeger, others who have written books, stories, articles, music,
poetry (all of which I've tried, and I suck at it), these individuals
have enriched humanity with their works. I am in awe of people who
can write.
My sincere hope is that those of us who love to read and those who
write can get together, to not think less because of a few spelling
errors, to not expect the hobby to pay the bills. As Derek Benner
said, to help each other. The big publishing houses have one power
that is very elusive: Marketing.
Can "micropayments" and an adjustment to all our expectations take the
place of the monopoly grants of copyright? Let's find out what works,
for everyone. And maybe by doing so we can release the sequels to
Net Assets and Ceres from their cocoons.
Curt Howland
Howland@priss.com
Know Thy Enemy
So it seems a Nigerian national tried to blow up a plane on the way to
Detroit on Christmas while over the United States. He managed to burn
his pants off and not much else. He claims he was acting on
instructions received in Yemen from Al Qaida.
The "attack" stinks of Al Qaida. During the Uprising (or Resistance) in
Iraq the predominantly Sunni Al Qaida in Iraq made a point of attacking
Shi'a Mosques and religious ceremonies. Dishonoring Christmas is
exactly their style. Both attacks served multiple purposes. Dishonoring
Christian and Shi'a observances is always "good" thing from a Wahhabi
point of view. They make their enemies look incapable of protecting
their people, thus weakening popular support for the US Government and
the American imposed government in Iraq. And they provoke payback,
leading to the creation of martyr's for their cause, gaining support
and radicalizing victimized (in their minds' eyes) Muslims around the
world.
The attack was timed for Christmas because they know that is when it
would have created the best combination of rage and fear among the
Americans. Al Qaida knows us, they understand our beliefs, they know
what buttons to push. They even know how exploit anti government
sentiment on both left and right in this country.
We don't know them. We can't even agree on how many virgins a suicide
bomber gets in Paradise. I swear I've read everything from 70 to 100.
I've had people quote me chapter and verse on why Muslims should be
hated and not extended the same rights as everyone else. I've been told
about how the Muslims want to conquer us and force us to join their
faith, be their slaves, or die. I have not had one message on how to
get into a Muslim's head and get them to live by the Zero Aggression
Principal or live with a decent regard for the rights of people who do
not belong to their particular branch of Islam.
They know how to mess with our minds, to get us to create a situation
where a Jihad that will empower Muslim fanatics is necessary. We don't
understand the culture of the Middle East well enough to consistently
describe how the interaction of religion, desert, politics, and
distribution of wealth interact and how to use this to our advantage.
If we don't correct this two things will happen. The first is that
those who use terror to advance radical Islamic politics will always be
ahead of the curve on us, able to turn even our military victories into
political defeats. The second is that, with the full support and at the
request of the American people, our government will become ever more
repressive.
It's time to stop letting tyrants and terrorists make the rules. We
must properly learn the minds of both so that we can ultimately free
ourselves of them.
A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com
To which "RDB" replied:
Feh. I tend to favor armed preparedness. If firearms and edged weapons
aren't allowed on airline flights, blunt instruments cannot be
prevented, and ought to be encouraged.
Karate—literally "empty hand"—got its start as an improvisation
to permit common people (who had been denied the ownership and carriage
of military weapons) to turn their bare hands and whatever other
implements they were allowed to the purpose of self-defense.
That included walking staffs, the oriental equivalent of hay-hooks,
scythes, and other farm implements. For contemporary Americans, think
garden spades, hatchets, canes, even ballpoint pens. We need
disciplines of armed combat that rely only upon found objects
commonplace (and innocuous in appearance) in our everyday lives, and we
need the willingness to use them on anybody we personally "profile" as
potentially dangerous.
As if the private citizen isn't going to "profile" somebody who looks
like that Islamic whackjob on the airplane, especially if he's named
"Slave of Allah."
RDB
bartucci01@verizon.net
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Guys, Gals, undecideds, it's all a big happy damn
tent....
Did You Know This About Leather Dresses?
Do you know that when a woman wears a leather dress, a man's heart
beats quicker, his throat gets dry, he gets weak in the knees, and
he begins to think irrationally???
Ever wonder why?
It's because she smells like a new Truck.
Smells like a new truck?
Dave Earnest
earnest_dave@hotmail.com
It's hard to find decent help
So first Barrack Obama had to slap down Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder
when they proposed reimposing the ugly gun ban to stop the flow of
smuggled guns into Mexico. Then he had to tell his people that he would
not support raising taxes on the middleclass to pay for "health care
reform" (OK, so that's what's going to end up happening, but at least
for the time being it isn't policy). Now after Janet Napolitano has
stated that US security agencies did not screw up when the Flaming Self
Pantser managed to get on a plane to the States BHO has come out and
stated that American security agencies screwed up.
To add insult to injury in two of these cases he has been forced to
bust his people for being too "liberal." Meanwhile in spite of having a
partisan majority in Congress he still hasn't passed his Heath Care
Reform. He had to go along with a progun rider to the Credit card
Holders' "Bill of Rights" Law, thus having to support gun rights twice
in his first year as President (compare this to Dubya who was
conspicuously silent on gun rights in spite of bein elected with NRA
money).
Not since Henry II had to tell his knights that's not what he meant
when he asked them to rid him of that troublesome priest has any leader
had to disavow his supporters so thoroughly. Neither can I remember any
president in my lifetime, including Jack Kennedy, who had so little
control of Congress, and a Congress that supposedly shares his agenda
to boot.
The only questions that remains are whether the Republicans or a more
radical Democrats take control of congress in 2010 and the White House
in 2012 and whether a more profreedom third party can get a noticeable
number of votes in these circumstances.
A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com
Previous
Contents
Next
