The Militant Libertarian

I'm pissed off and I'm a libertarian. What else you wanna know?

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Comments on Trust No On In Government

My good friend Dale Williams sent the following comments on the article:

Good article, moose. Its dead nuts on, too. Though most people are so out of it (socialized) that they won't have the context to remotely get what you're saying. But the article is down to earth and plain spoken, its great.

The problem is that this world is full of, largely, two kinds of people. First are those who, having gone to a Marxist college (almost all of them are), believe that we need the amount of government we have, and likely a good deal more -- to begin to manage all those untidy areas (children left behind, and such). These are soccer moms, Cher and most anybody else that you've met through the media or in a coffee shop, or who is under 30.

What passes today for a "conservative" is actually a classical fascist -- as you well know. Among other bizarre beliefs, these people think that the form and amount of govt. we live under is a direct expression of the synthesis of the public will. Hence the pronouncement: "I have no problem with anybody who works for the I.R.S. They're just doing what we hired them to do." -- K-Talk Radio Host, May, 04

I guess that people like this have not managed to get acquainted with the fact that the vast majority of Americans want us out of the U.N., want a radical change in immigration policy, want taxes lowered. The list of intractable cases of government "unresponsiveness" is, of course, as long as your arm. The so-called "conservatives" (fascists) know that the tax burden will never seriously change so long as the present United States continues to operate. They know that we will never leave the U.N. They know that, no matter what, our southern border will remain open. And, subliminally at least, they realize that these constants, taken together with the assumption that the average person does not wish for national suicide, mean that the Republic is as dead as a brick -- has been for over a century.

Respecting your article, what then is the real nature of an I.R.S. employee? Or, for that matter, the civilian manager of a wartime manufacturing facility employing slave labor in WWII Germany? Or, the cops who beat and gas people peacefully protesting F.T.A.A. summits?

Their nature is that of people who have long ago decided to disconnect from their conscience and to accept the moral pardon offered by "employment" -- especially direct employment by the govt. They are people who live under the protection of tyranny in exchange for being a cog in the machine of state. And, like the Soviet soldiers who loaded millions of their fellow citizens into cattle cars, they are the indispensable muscle of the slave state.

Throughout history it has always been possible to hire 1/2 of the poor to kill the other half. The rape of Yugoslavia under Clinton. Now the destruction of over 60,000 souls in Iraq under Bush and at the whim of the Zionists. This country is a menace to its non-government affiliated citizens and to any foreign citizen who may live in a country that has something that the U.S. or the "Israelis" want.

I believe that people are born with a particular disposition toward other living things, an innate capacity (or lack thereof) to become aware of the presence of other souls within the physical forms around them, including their fellow man. This disposition determines the level of environmental violence necessary to warp someone into an I.R.S. agent, a brutal, morally indiscriminate cop or a media apologist for the abuses of an empire. Some require hardly any twisting at all. Others were transmogrified at such a young age that they were human for only the briefest moment anyway.

Shortly, we will see society divide up along the lines of those with this endowment and those without it -- the ones who wave a paycheck as if it were a badge or a pardon.

D.W.

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Friday, May 21, 2004

Trust No One In Government

by Aaron Turpen

Recently, I was betrayed by a friend. He promised something and then reneged on that promise because his financial situation was desperate enough he apparently felt justified. When confronted with this betrayal, he chose to attack me personally rather than defend himself, make amends, or apologize. This person happens to have been an elected public servant in the past and is presently attempting to win election to another office.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

In my experience, this is not unusual. I should have known better than to have been friends with him. It's my considered opinion that anyone (and I mean ANYONE) in this day and age who accepts a job paid for with tax dollars, especially one which is an elected position or has any kind of authority to it, has sold out and will continue to sell themselves out as time goes on. People who accept that tax money taken from the populace by coercion and then paid to them as a salary is kosher will have no trouble selling you out as soon as it benefits them to do so.

"Well, you certainly don't mean so-and-so," you'll say. Everyone has a friend in government somewhere, whether it be a meter-maid, a congressman, or a clerk at the DMV. I said no exceptions. They're all sell-outs. Ditto for anyone who actively pursues public office, even if they lose their election. Sell outs.

Now, before you send me your hate mail and tell me how Joe the Cop can't be bad ("he's just doing his job") and before you write me nasty grams informing me that your friend Betty at the Social Welfare office is doing good for society…think about what I said earlier. They have sold out by accepting money stolen from you, your friends, and their own family by coercion (taxation) in order to draw a salary for themselves.

Further, before you send those Anthrax-laden letters to my doorstep, put this person you have so much trust in to the test. Make that person choose between your friendship and the law...or your friendship and their enrichment...or better yet, your friendship and the loss of their job... You'll find out if I'm right.

If your friend will choose your friendship over avoidance of serious hardship, consider yourself very lucky and be glad that you got your friend out of their immoral livelihood. If you are a public servant or public employee of any kind, do yourself (and those around you) a favor and quit your job immediately. Find gainful employment in an honest profession and stop stealing from your friends and family to feed yourself.

Freedom starts at home. The sooner we make life miserable for those who would steal from us to better themselves, the sooner we'll make change for the better and restore liberty to this nation.

Give no support, help, friendship, etc. to anyone who chooses a life of legalized crime to support themselves. Instead, refuse to do business with them, drive on by when they're stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire, and be as rude and unfriendly as possible to them at all times. Make sure they know why you're treating them this way...someone will ask eventually. Tell them the truth. You don't like being stolen from to pay their salary and you aren't going to be friendly with anyone who is willing to whore themselves by accepting stolen money as payment.

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Wake Up!

I'm in a surly mood, so I'm going to quote some heavy-handed lyrics from Rage Against the Machine. They sang this song the first time I saw them in concert. I had no idea who they were at the time (it was a multi-band tour) and immediately found myself getting pissed off and ready to kill the next g-man I saw... The emphasis are my own.

Wake Up!
Rage Against the Machine - self-titled album
Come on! Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never read it
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm

You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men

Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!

I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

[Quoting from a CIA training manual]
'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers...And neutralize them,
neutralize them, neutralize them'


Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

This is a great, pissed off, shove-it-in-their-face song. Probably one of the reasons this band broke up after a short lifespan...

Flipping through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations today to find something, I stumbled on this, labeled as a Celtic Battle Chant:


"Cherish the man who stands next to you in battle;
Take strength from the righteousness* of your cause;
Feel only the pain you suffer upon your enemies."


*may be rightness

...and this from Su Tung P'O:
"Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, though intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ingorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister."

OK, I'm done ranting.

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Thursday, May 20, 2004

Not So Funnies





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Wednesday, May 19, 2004

How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib

THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

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'Definitely a Cover-Up'

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040518-1.html

ABCNEWS.com
Tuesday 18 May 2004

'Definitely a Cover-Up'
By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon

Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal

Dozens of soldiers - other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged - were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to.

"What I was surprised at was the silence," said Provance. "The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."

Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military intelligence at the prison.

He said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners.

"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," he said.

Top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence.

"One interrogator told me about how commonly the detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions, wearing women's underwear," Provance said. "If it's your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard to move from that to another level."

According to Provance, some of the physical abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib included U.S. soldiers "striking [prisoners] on the neck area somewhere and the person being knocked out. Then [the soldier] would go to the next detainee, who would be very fearful and voicing their fear, and the MP would calm him down and say, 'We're not going to do that. It's OK. Everything's fine,' and then do the exact same thing to him." Provance also described an incident when two drunken interrogators took a female Iraqi prisoner from her cell in the middle of the night and stripped her naked to the waist. The men were later restrained by another MP.

Pentagon Sanctions Investigation

Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the role of military intelligence in the abuse at the Iraq prison.

Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying.

Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out.

"I feel like I'm being punished for being honest," Provance told ABCNEWS. "You know, it was almost as if I actually felt if all my statements were shredded and I said, like most everybody else, 'I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything. I don't know what you're talking about,' then my life would be just fine right now."

In response, Army officials said it is "routine procedure to advise military personnel under investigative review" not to comment.

The officials said, however, that Fay and the military were committed to an honest, in-depth investigation of what happened at the prison.

But Provance believes many involved may not be as forthcoming with information.

"I would say many people are probably hiding and wishing to God that this storm passes without them having to be investigated [or] personally looked at."

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Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Senate Judiciary Committee: My Answers to Follow-Up Questions

Aaron Turpen
Libertarian Party of Utah
April 14th, 2004 Utah Field Hearing of the Senate Judiciary
"Preventing and Responding to Acts of Terrorism: A Review of Current Law"
Answers to follow-up questions.


Several follow up questions were given by the Senate Judiciary Committee to myself and the other members of the April 14 panel. While the questions are astute, given the context of the testimony given and the subject at hand, they are, in my opinion, all-inclusive and can be answered together in one statement.

Referring back to my oral testimony before the Senate Judiciary on April 14, you will recall that I paraphrased Thoreau asking why we are striking branches instead of the root of the matter.

I asked whether the reaction to create more laws was the proper reaction. I stipulated that we should consider the basic problem at hand, rather than adding more to it.

Perhaps government has overstepped its bounds not just here on our own soil, but also abroad?

Looking at history, in a broad sense, I can see, at least partially, where we went awry.

Consider that for thousands of years, the "Arab World" has been content to make war with itself and has only turned its men of arms against western nations upon provocation from those nations. In this day and age, America is the most powerful military nation on the earth and exerts more influence internationally than any other nation. Most specifically, we exert a lot of influence in the Middle East. This, obviously, has lead to provocation.

Thomas Jefferson said "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."

In the aftermath of World War II, what is now called the "Cold War" began. During that time, the governments involved consolidated their powers and began a world-wide quest to consolidate alliances of power throughout the world. This "Us and Them" mentality has lead to many entangling alliances and enmity among many involved.

The Middle East, with its heavy oil reserves, was a hotbed for these intrigues as this Cold War commenced. In the process, many enemies were made. Nations, religious sects, and individuals were made to hate the United States because of our great influence (not always for the better) over them.

The people of the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. Many of them have come here specifically to take part in the American experiment in liberty. Those who hate us hate us because, to them, we embody all that they cannot have and they see us as taking what little they might have now. Through our entangling alliances, we have created this hatred.

So creating more police powers in this nation, giving more powers to "federal law enforcement," and making war abroad to "stem the tide of terrorism" are not the answer. If anything, these steps are only more fuel for the fire.

The answer is to make peace with these nations, to remove ourselves from these entangling alliances and become a prosperous nation of trade and commerce, not a nation of police and military might. Show the world that, while we will defend what is ours, we would rather be peaceful and give trade instead. Show those who hate us that we are no longer going to meddle in their affairs and will no longer entangle ourselves in complicated agreements as we have in the recent past.

One of the greatest strengths of the United States as a nation is our ability to admit to our own mistakes, show them to ourselves and the world, and then seek justice in making amends for those mistakes.

Perhaps this is what we should be doing now, sirs. Perhaps what we should be doing is reconsidering our actions and making amends for those mistakes we have made. Continuing down the path of increased legislation, increased police powers, and decreased freedoms is, perhaps, not the only solution, Senators.

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Everything's a Felony

More proof that everything's a felony now:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595064016,00.html
Broken windows draw felony charge
A 28-year-old Salt Lake resident was charged with criminal mischief, a third-degree felony, after windows at a Lutheran church were broken.

A woman who was inside St. John's Lutheran Church, 475 E. Herbert Ave. (1045 South), on May 11 heard glass breaking near the south entrance, according to charges filed Monday in 3rd District Court.

The woman ran outside and asked a man walking slowly down the sidewalk if he saw anything. The man proceeded to throw rocks at the church, breaking the stained glass window, the charges state.

The cost to replace the windows was estimated at $2,050. A police officer found a rock in a pocket of the man's pants, according to the charges.


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Monday, May 17, 2004

Distorting science

This LTE appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning:

Distorting science
I am a retired scientist and have recently become aware of a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which, I understand, was signed by about 90 internationally respected scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, regarding the federal executive branch's treatment of scientific findings. The report, "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking," is available at http://www.ucsusa.org.

I find this report extremely disturbing. It states, in part, "A growing number of scientists, policy makers, and technical specialists both inside and outside the government allege that the Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analysis of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy." I had not realized the magnitude of the suppression and distortion, and I agree with the conclusions and recommendations of the report.

If scientific findings by scientists in U.S. government agencies, their advisory organizations and non-government scientists working on executive branch projects continue to be distorted, senior scientists in all disciplines will refuse appointment to or employment by government agencies. Hiding unpopular data does nothing to solve the problem addressed.

Kenneth M. Brauner
Sandy

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Sunday, May 16, 2004

He Sends His Regrets...



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