NYPOST.COM

JEFFORDS SHOULD FREEZE IN ALASKA

BY STEVE DUNLEAVY


May 28, 2001 -- In the coming months, as Californians
eat their tofu by candlelight and the energy police
tell Barbra Streisand to turn out lights in her
castle, I pray for one thing.

And that is that Jim "Judas" Jeffords goes to the
wilderness of Alaska, camps out, freezes his rear end
off, hugs a tree and plays catch with a polar bear.
Jeffords, as reward for sabotaging last year's
Electoral College result, has been gifted by the
Democrats to head the Senate committee on the
environment.

And as if to underscore that drilling for critically
needed oil in the Alaskan wilderness is dead, Sen. Tom
Daschle (S.D.), who will become Senate majority leader
June 5, knows what his Valachi friend Jeffords will do
in his new bribe job.

Is drilling in Alaska dead? Daschle was asked on NBC's
"Meet the Press" yesterday.
"Yes," he replied. "Finished."

How well Daschle knows the result of that bribe to
Jeffords, his surrogate. Drilling in Alaska is dead.
With the demand for domestic oil production growing at
a frightening pace - 62 percent more in the next half
generation - Daschle and Jeffords will have ample time
to explain:

* Why, with our continued reliance on mostly Arab oil,
we will be blackmailed into softening our support for
Israel.

* How to convince parents in The Bronx, who can't
afford higher oil costs, that their babies are not
really sweating or freezing in their beds, depending
on the season.

* What to do when gasoline prices hit $3 a gallon.
Ride horses?

To answer these points, the first words out of the
mouths of Daschle and Jeffords, who represent the
interests of millionaire trial lawyers and members of
indolent teachers unions, is "conservation."

We would have to conserve 62 percent of our present
usage of energy in the future to keep up with the
present low voltage.

Don't think that California's energy crisis won't be
here in our homes and cars in a skinny minute.
I love the way Daschle and new buddy Jeffords never
stop talking about "bipartisanship," which is about as
foreign to those guys as Urdu.

"Consider the source," says my social scientist, Eddie
Kavanah, of their bipartisanship pledge.

"They don't speak even political double-talk, just
outright lies."

Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), from Daschle's own party,
said yesterday: "We were far too shrill as a minority,
and we're less concerned about getting along than
getting even."

"Well," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Brit Hume on
"Fox News Sunday," "they [the Democratic majority]
will not be able to obstruct without being
accountable."

Since when has Daschle ever been accountable? He
changes his position like he changes his socks.
As for Jeffords, running as a Republican last year in
Vermont, his campaign slogan was, "I'm a Republican
who gets things done." Well, I can't wait for him to
get things done.

I can't wait for him to go to Alaska, hug a tree, play
catch with a polar bear and explain why his eco-holism
reduces our economy to that of a Third World country.
Of course, like all rats, he could in the future ask
to be admitted to the witness-protection program.

"NEW YORK POST" IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF "NYP
HOLDINGS, INC.", "NYPOST.COM", "NYPOSTONLINE.COM", AND
"NEWYORKPOST.COM" ARE TRADEMARKS OF "NYP HOLDINGS,
INC."



__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

townhall.com    Kathleen Parker    May 20, 2001

IN STUMBO CASE, GOVERNMENT ACTS LIKE DUMBO

At about 7 a.m. one day in September 1999, at a home
on a dead-end road in rural North Carolina, a
2-year-old girl put her jammies into the hamper and
was about to get dressed when she remembered her new
kitten.

Which is to say, she got distracted and forgot to get
dressed before wandering naked outside to look for her
kitty. By her innocent actions, the little streaker,
now 4, inadvertently opened a Pandora's Box and set in
motion a court battle over Americans' constitutional
protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

The abridged version goes like this: An anonymous
tipster called the Cleveland County Department of
Social Services and reported seeing the daughter of
Mary Ann and Jim Stumbo outside alone. In fact, she
was outside only minutes before her older brother
brought her back inside. Mom was sick in bed that day;
Dad was fixing breakfast for the couple's four
home-schooled children.

Within a couple of hours, after Jim Stumbo had left
for work, a social worker was at the door, asking to
come inside and interview each of the children behind
closed doors. Mary Ann Stumbo, who is smart enough to
teach her own children, was also wise enough to call a
lawyer at the Home School Legal Defense Association,
to which the Stumbos belong.

The upshot is that Stumbo declined to let the social
worker talk to her children without a witness, and she
and her husband were charged with obstructing an
investigation.

Fast-forward two years. Earlier this week (MAY 15),
the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in a split
decision that the Stumbos should have cooperated with
the investigator, and that a child-abuse investigation
doesn't qualify as a "search" covered by the Fourth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In other words, in North Carolina and most other
states, American citizens have no protections against
well-meaning social workers acting on an anonymous tip
and must cooperate or risk arrest and prosecution. And
you thought you lived in a free country.

Rage is an appropriate response to such unwarranted
intrusions, though it may be misdirected toward social
workers themselves. The blame belongs to an
overreactive system put in place by other well-meaning
folks who, giving them the benefit of the doubt,
failed to imagine the common-sense deficit soon to
plague their nation.

That system was put in place in 1973 under the
"Mondale Act" or the "Child Abuse Prevention and
Treatment Act," which provides federal funding for
child-abuse investigations. Although the act's funding
is small and, therefore, relatively harmless, another
$4.5 billion in federal Medicaid dollars are attached
to the act's implementation.

That is, states wishing to get their hands on any part
of that $4.5 billion also have to put in place a hot
line system for accepting anonymous child-abuse tips
and for mandatory investigation. If social services
get a tip, they have no choice but to investigate.

And, given current laws, private citizens have to
submit to the investigation. Usual rules of
unreasonable search and seizure apply only to criminal
cases. The Catch-22 for people like the Stumbos is: If
they're criminally charged, they can invoke the Fourth
Amendment. But because they aren't guilty of anything
criminal, they're guilty of - um, well - what (ital)
are (end ital) they guilty of?

That's the question Mary Ann Stumbo keeps asking
herself. Of trying to protect her children from a
stranger who, by her questioning, might do them harm?
Of trying to protect her home from invasion? Of
letting a toddler walk around without clothes?

The Stumbos are taking their case to the state Supreme
Court to press for an answer. What they hope - what we
all should hope - is that the court will decide that
even well-intended social workers should be subject to
constitutional guidelines. Hell needs no further
paving.

©2001 Tribune Media Services    townhall.com




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

DEAR MR  / MS "FOLKLORE":

"FOLKLORE" IS RIGHT.  YOU'VE MANAGED TO MENTION EVERY
CLICHE AND EVERY SHRED OF ANTI-CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA
FLOATED THROUGHOUT HISTORY.....WHICH SUGGESTS TO ME
THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT "CAPITALISM."

AS FOR THE "BILDERBERGERS," THEY NEVER STRUCK ME AS
"CAPITALISTS," BUT INSTEAD AS "STATISTS" [BELIEVERS IN
STATISM OF THE FASCIST VARIETY]---AND IT WOULDN'T HURT
US TO HANG A BUNCH OF THEM FROM LAMPPOSTS.

YI HA
MINISTER OF INFORMATION
PEOPLES' "CAPITALIST" REPUBLIC OF WHIZBANGISTAN

===============================================

Date:   20 May 2001 08:06:59 -0000

From:   anarchistforum@yahoogroups.com
To:     anarchistforum@yahoogroups.com
Subj:   Individualist Anarchism Digest Number 15

========================================

There is 1 message in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

       1. Fwd:  BILDERBERG 2001
            From: folklore@...


Message: 1
    Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 17:39:56 -0000
    From: folklore@...
Subject: Fwd:  BILDERBERG 2001

--- In National-Anarchist@y..., TROY SOUTHGATE
<NorwoodPride@c...>
wrote:
[Come on folks, we're calling on every single one of
you to do your
bit to
spread the word. Help us by sending this statement to
every form of
media
or newsgroup you can think of. Let's bombard the
opposition until they
actually sit up and take notice]

A CALL TO ARMS AGAINST GLOBALISATION:
DENOUNCE BILDERBERG 2001

For nearly 50 years, an elite group composed of some
of the world's
top
business and political figures has been meeting
secretively in
isolated
resorts around the globe. It is no mystery that not
all that is
discussed
in forums such as Davos, WTO, IMF, World Bank, G-7 or
G-8 meetings
finally
makes it to the media, either controlled or
"independent". And yet the
agenda for what has come to be known as the Bilderberg
Group has
seldom
been disclosed.

WHAT IS THE BILDERBERG GROUP?

Simply put, it is one of the most secretive globalist
organs post-war
society has ever witnessed or, to paraphrase the
English journalist
Will
Hutton, the "High Priesthood of Globalisation."
Founded in 1954, the
forum
owes its name to the Dutch hotel in which the group's
first meeting
ever
took place. Since
then, Bilderberger delegates - a cross-section of
presidents,
ministers,
industrialists and financial leaders - gather annually
in token
locations
to discuss their classified globalist agenda, neither
to be disclosed
to
the public nor to the press.

Its regular attendants include former U.S. Secretary
of State Henry
Kissinger, business tycoon David Rockefeller,
International Monetary
Fund
(IMF) director Stanley Fischer, World Bank president
James Wolfensohn
and,
at one time or another, every U.S. president since
Eisenhower up to
Clinton.

RULE #1: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BILDERBERG
RULE #2: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BILDERBERG

Under the pretense of allowing so-called "free
discussion" between the
leading personalities of the establishment, society is
left in the
dark as
to what their leaders think the future should hold.
Unaccountable,
untroubled and unreported, Bilderberger meetings have
formed the
basis of
international policy for decades.

Why does Bilderberg shroud itself in the utmost
confidentiality? What
do
the world leaders have to hide? That is, if they are
not concealing
enough
already about the agendae of the mainstream global
summits.

It seems Bilderberg is the only time in which public
officers can
cease
acting as such under the spurious pretence of privacy.
In this way,
they
refrain from the public accounting that is implicit in
the rest of
their
tenures as policy-makers. It is intriguing that the
collaborative
silence
of the media virtually denies the existence of this
forum. It is
simply
unbelievable that what influentual people discuss
behind closed doors
is
not reflected in their public conduct.

AN APPEAL TO ALL CONSCIENTIOUS ACTIVISTS

With such a profile, it is hardly a surprise that
febrile conspiracy
theories have thrived around Bilderberg, from the
extreme right to the
radical left. The effect has been to leave the
importance of the
meetings
tainted by association. It fits the Bilderbergers
perfectly. This has
taken
place for far too long. In recent years, the
oligarchic/capitalist
structure beneath the guise of a seemingly inoffensive
"free-trade",
has
been unmasked. Even societies which to all propaganda
purposes have
apparently met their basic necessities, are
experiencing turmoil from
the
badly-suppressed, thinly-disguised contradictions
inherent within
capitalism. Rising unemployment, dispossession,
cultural nihilism,
environmental plundering, issues we know only too
well.

And thus we invite you to stand up and reclaim the
flags of
liberation from
those who have spoken too long for us, be it the power
centres or the
ineffectual political minorities with their tired
schemes of left and
right. Bilderberg is only the tip of the iceberg, but
too heinous a
truth
to be kept in silence. The dark side of globalization
must be brought
to
light.

We, the National Revolutionaries of the European
Liberation Front
(ELF),
ask you to help us build a new society and encourage
the more
conscientious
people to denounce Bilderberg for what it is. No
matter where you are
or
what your means are, globalisation must be fought
globally. Let us
drag the
oligarchs out onto the streets and make them answer
for their actions.

A WELCOMING COMMITTEE FOR THE OLIGARCHS

Bilderberg will hold its annual meeting at a resort in
Sweden May 24-
27.
The oligarchs will meet at the Quality Hotel
Stenungsbaden, 50
kilometers
north of Gothenburg. Accessible by land, the hotel
occupies an entire
island off the coast. You can get there two ways:

BY FERRY:
Ferries run to Gothenburg from Newcastle-upon-Tyne
(England),
Amsterdam
(Netherlands), Harwich (England) and Kiel (Germany).

BY AIR:
There are direct flights to Gothenburg from Aarhus,
Amsterdam, Basel,
Belgrade, Billund, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf,
Frankfurt,
Hamburg,
Hannover, Helsingborg, London-Heathrow,
London-Gatwick, Malta,
Manchester,
Munich, Oslo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague,
Sandefjord, Skopje,
Teheran,
Vienna and Zurich.

Göteborg-Landvetter Airport is situated close to the
40 trunk road
between
Gothenburg (25 km) and Borås (40 km). The nearest
village is Härryda.

If you cannot attend and welcome the oligarchs to
Sweden, there are
multiple ways of helping. Spread the word, send this
communiqué,
alert your
local media and activist organizations, etc. These and
other actions
are
equally helpful. Be part of the struggle!

THE EUROPEAN LIBERATION FRONT (ELF)

The European Liberation Front (ELF) represents an
alliance of
committed
National Revolutionaries, and our unified Secretariat
is presently
attempting to coordinate a strategy to promote self
determination and
freedom movements around the world. In a wider
context, our trusted
contacts outside Europe form part of the Liaison
Committee for
Revolutionary Nationalism (LCRN), which serves as the
NR
International. If
you currently operate outside the following
geographical contact
zones but
would like to contribute towards the establishment of
a new ELF or
LCRN
section, please get in touch. Each time we extend the
scope of our
European
and International sections, another standard is raised
aloft in the
global
struggle against Capitalism.

CONTACTS IN EUROPE:

--Belgium:
* Mouvement pour la Nation, B.P. 1749, 1000 Brussels
1, Belgium.
* Odal-Aktiekomitee, B.P. 301, 1000 Brussels 1,
Belgium.

--England:
* National Revolutionary Faction, BM Box LCRN, London
WC1N 3XX,
England.
* Eurasian Movement, BM Box LCRN, London WC1N 3XX,
England.

--France:
* Unité Radicale, Europa, MBE 188, 44 rue Monge, 75005
Paris.

--Germany:
* Freiheit Volk Bewegung, Postfach 1316, 24550
Henstedt-Ulzburg,
Germany.
* Freiheit Volk Bewegung, Postfach 600221, 22202
Hamburg, Germany.

--Italy:
* Movimiento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore, via XX
settembre 13/3, 16212
Genova,
Italia.
* Idee en Movimento, via XX settembre 13/3, 16212
Genova, Italia.
* Avanguardia Giovanile, via XX settembre 13/3, 16212
Genova, Italia.

--Poland
* Fenriks, skr. poczt. 29, 90-960 Lodz 11, ul.
Zgierska 2, Poland.

--Portugal
* JP, Apt. 1326, 1009 Lisboa Codex, Portugal.

--Russia:
* National Bolshevik Party, 113 216, P/O M 216, 8/P
No. 9, Melentiev
SB,
Russia

--Spain:
* Alternativa Europea, Apartado de Correos 877,
E-08080 Barcelona,
Spain

CONTACTS OUTSIDE EUROPE

--America
* American Front, P.O. Box 2496, Harrison AR 72602,
U.S.A.

--Canada:
* National Liberation Front, P.O. Box 241, Saskatoon,
SK S7K 3K4,
Western
Canada
* National Liberation Fronts, P.O. Box 2712, Hearst,
ON P0L 1N0,
Canada

--New Zealand:
* Nationalist Worker, P.O. Box 1627, Paraparaumu
Beach, New Zealand.

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS STATEMENT AS WIDELY AS
POSSIBLE. SYMPATHETIC
INDIVIDUALS ARE INVITED TO CONTACT THEIR LOCAL AND
NATIONAL MEDIA.
BLANKET
COVERAGE IS ESSENTIAL. THANKYOU FOR YOUR HELP!
--- End forwarded message ---









__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

--- In National-Anarchist@y..., TROY SOUTHGATE <NorwoodPride@c...>
wrote:
[Come on folks, we're calling on every single one of you to do your
bit to
spread the word. Help us by sending this statement to every form of
media
or newsgroup you can think of. Let's bombard the opposition until they
actually sit up and take notice]

A CALL TO ARMS AGAINST GLOBALISATION:
DENOUNCE BILDERBERG 2001

For nearly 50 years, an elite group composed of some of the world's
top
business and political figures has been meeting secretively in
isolated
resorts around the globe. It is no mystery that not all that is
discussed
in forums such as Davos, WTO, IMF, World Bank, G-7 or G-8 meetings
finally
makes it to the media, either controlled or "independent". And yet the
agenda for what has come to be known as the Bilderberg Group has
seldom
been disclosed.

WHAT IS THE BILDERBERG GROUP?

Simply put, it is one of the most secretive globalist organs post-war
society has ever witnessed or, to paraphrase the English journalist
Will
Hutton, the "High Priesthood of Globalisation." Founded in 1954, the
forum
owes its name to the Dutch hotel in which the group's first meeting
ever
took place. Since
then, Bilderberger delegates - a cross-section of presidents,
ministers,
industrialists and financial leaders - gather annually in token
locations
to discuss their classified globalist agenda, neither to be disclosed
to
the public nor to the press.

Its regular attendants include former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger, business tycoon David Rockefeller, International Monetary
Fund
(IMF) director Stanley Fischer, World Bank president James Wolfensohn
and,
at one time or another, every U.S. president since Eisenhower up to
Clinton.

RULE #1: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BILDERBERG
RULE #2: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BILDERBERG

Under the pretense of allowing so-called "free discussion" between the
leading personalities of the establishment, society is left in the
dark as
to what their leaders think the future should hold. Unaccountable,
untroubled and unreported, Bilderberger meetings have formed the
basis of
international policy for decades.

Why does Bilderberg shroud itself in the utmost confidentiality? What
do
the world leaders have to hide? That is, if they are not concealing
enough
already about the agendae of the mainstream global summits.

It seems Bilderberg is the only time in which public officers can
cease
acting as such under the spurious pretence of privacy. In this way,
they
refrain from the public accounting that is implicit in the rest of
their
tenures as policy-makers. It is intriguing that the collaborative
silence
of the media virtually denies the existence of this forum. It is
simply
unbelievable that what influentual people discuss behind closed doors
is
not reflected in their public conduct.

AN APPEAL TO ALL CONSCIENTIOUS ACTIVISTS

With such a profile, it is hardly a surprise that febrile conspiracy
theories have thrived around Bilderberg, from the extreme right to the
radical left. The effect has been to leave the importance of the
meetings
tainted by association. It fits the Bilderbergers perfectly. This has
taken
place for far too long. In recent years, the oligarchic/capitalist
structure beneath the guise of a seemingly inoffensive "free-trade",
has
been unmasked. Even societies which to all propaganda purposes have
apparently met their basic necessities, are experiencing turmoil from
the
badly-suppressed, thinly-disguised contradictions inherent within
capitalism. Rising unemployment, dispossession, cultural nihilism,
environmental plundering, issues we know only too well.

And thus we invite you to stand up and reclaim the flags of
liberation from
those who have spoken too long for us, be it the power centres or the
ineffectual political minorities with their tired schemes of left and
right. Bilderberg is only the tip of the iceberg, but too heinous a
truth
to be kept in silence. The dark side of globalization must be brought
to
light.

We, the National Revolutionaries of the European Liberation Front
(ELF),
ask you to help us build a new society and encourage the more
conscientious
people to denounce Bilderberg for what it is. No matter where you are
or
what your means are, globalisation must be fought globally. Let us
drag the
oligarchs out onto the streets and make them answer for their actions.

A WELCOMING COMMITTEE FOR THE OLIGARCHS

Bilderberg will hold its annual meeting at a resort in Sweden May 24-
27.
The oligarchs will meet at the Quality Hotel Stenungsbaden, 50
kilometers
north of Gothenburg. Accessible by land, the hotel occupies an entire
island off the coast. You can get there two ways:

BY FERRY:
Ferries run to Gothenburg from Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England),
Amsterdam
(Netherlands), Harwich (England) and Kiel (Germany).

BY AIR:
There are direct flights to Gothenburg from Aarhus, Amsterdam, Basel,
Belgrade, Billund, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt,
Hamburg,
Hannover, Helsingborg, London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick, Malta,
Manchester,
Munich, Oslo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Sandefjord, Skopje,
Teheran,
Vienna and Zurich.

Göteborg-Landvetter Airport is situated close to the 40 trunk road
between
Gothenburg (25 km) and Borås (40 km). The nearest village is Härryda.

If you cannot attend and welcome the oligarchs to Sweden, there are
multiple ways of helping. Spread the word, send this communiqué,
alert your
local media and activist organizations, etc. These and other actions
are
equally helpful. Be part of the struggle!

THE EUROPEAN LIBERATION FRONT (ELF)

The European Liberation Front (ELF) represents an alliance of
committed
National Revolutionaries, and our unified Secretariat is presently
attempting to coordinate a strategy to promote self determination and
freedom movements around the world. In a wider context, our trusted
contacts outside Europe form part of the Liaison Committee for
Revolutionary Nationalism (LCRN), which serves as the NR
International. If
you currently operate outside the following geographical contact
zones but
would like to contribute towards the establishment of a new ELF or
LCRN
section, please get in touch. Each time we extend the scope of our
European
and International sections, another standard is raised aloft in the
global
struggle against Capitalism.

CONTACTS IN EUROPE:

--Belgium:
* Mouvement pour la Nation, B.P. 1749, 1000 Brussels 1, Belgium.
* Odal-Aktiekomitee, B.P. 301, 1000 Brussels 1, Belgium.

--England:
* National Revolutionary Faction, BM Box LCRN, London WC1N 3XX,
England.
* Eurasian Movement, BM Box LCRN, London WC1N 3XX, England.

--France:
* Unité Radicale, Europa, MBE 188, 44 rue Monge, 75005 Paris.

--Germany:
* Freiheit Volk Bewegung, Postfach 1316, 24550 Henstedt-Ulzburg,
Germany.
* Freiheit Volk Bewegung, Postfach 600221, 22202 Hamburg, Germany.

--Italy:
* Movimiento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore, via XX settembre 13/3, 16212
Genova,
Italia.
* Idee en Movimento, via XX settembre 13/3, 16212 Genova, Italia.
* Avanguardia Giovanile, via XX settembre 13/3, 16212 Genova, Italia.

--Poland
* Fenriks, skr. poczt. 29, 90-960 Lodz 11, ul. Zgierska 2, Poland.

--Portugal
* JP, Apt. 1326, 1009 Lisboa Codex, Portugal.

--Russia:
* National Bolshevik Party, 113 216, P/O M 216, 8/P No. 9, Melentiev
SB,
Russia

--Spain:
* Alternativa Europea, Apartado de Correos 877, E-08080 Barcelona,
Spain

CONTACTS OUTSIDE EUROPE

--America
* American Front, P.O. Box 2496, Harrison AR 72602, U.S.A.

--Canada:
* National Liberation Front, P.O. Box 241, Saskatoon, SK S7K 3K4,
Western
Canada
* National Liberation Fronts, P.O. Box 2712, Hearst, ON P0L 1N0,
Canada

--New Zealand:
* Nationalist Worker, P.O. Box 1627, Paraparaumu Beach, New Zealand.

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS STATEMENT AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE. SYMPATHETIC
INDIVIDUALS ARE INVITED TO CONTACT THEIR LOCAL AND NATIONAL MEDIA.
BLANKET
COVERAGE IS ESSENTIAL. THANKYOU FOR YOUR HELP!
--- End forwarded message ---

Date:   Tue, 15 May 2001 18:07:03 -0700 (PDT)

From:   WHIZ BANG <old_dog_1947@...

To:     president@...
         vice.president@...
         drudge@...
         rush@...

CC:     correspondence@...
         letters@...
         jim.nicholson@...
         jack.oliver@...
         info@...


SUMMER BLACKOUTS TO BE WORSE THAN EXPECTED

CALIF.:  Electricity shortages in California this
summer will be worse than state authorities had
predicted, with blackout-weary consumers facing 30
percent more outages than previously forecast, the
North American power grid overseer said on Tuesday.

The industry-led North American Electric Reliability
Council (NERC) also said New York City and New England
had tight electricity supplies and could have
occasional outages if equipment or power lines broke
down.

But the situation is dire in California, the nation's
richest and most populous state.

Californians could see as many as 260 hours of rolling
blackouts during the sweltering summer months,
affecting everything from traffic lights to hospital
equipment.

Previous estimates by the California Independent
System Operator (ISO) and Western authorities
estimated the state would have about 200 hours of
rotating blackouts this summer.

``California will experience difficulties meeting its
projected electricity demand this summer and
California electricity users will experience rotating
blackouts, much more so than last summer,'' said NERC
president Michehl Gent at a news conference to unveil
the group's summer power outlook.

TIGHT SUPPLIES IN NORTHEAST

NERC, which was formed in 1965 after blackouts
crippled New York City and other locales, said the
northeast also had precariously tight supplies.

``New England and New York City are particularly
sensitive to long-term heat waves and
high-than-expected generating unit forced outages,''
the NERC report said.

The New York Independent System Operator (ISO), a
non-profit entity that dispatches electricity
throughout the state, has developed an emergency
program for peak periods. That plan calls for
industrial customers with emergency back-up generators
to use their own equipment when power supplies drop
below a certain level to free up power for other
users.

A key issue for New York City is the speedy completion
of 11 combustion turbines now under construction, NERC
said. The turbines will generate a combined total of
about 480 megwatts, and would operate during peak
demand hours of the late afternoon and early evening.

Experts say 1,000 megawatts is roughly enough power to
serve 1 million homes.

Texas, which is seen as having ample power supplies,
also will be monitored closely because of state
deregulation changes next month, NERC said.

``Texas will undergo a major shift in its operation in
June when it opens up to full retail access and
consolidates 10 control area operations into one,''
NERC said.

Continent-wide, the overseer said no other regions
were expected to suffer shortages.

That includes the drought-stricken Pacific Northwest,
which should be able to meet its own needs for
electricity, even though hydroelectric resources are
suffering from the lack of rain. That drought will
prevent sales of hydro power to California, which
depends on the electricity to ease supply crunches
during the hottest months.

GOLDEN STATE WOES

For months, federal and state politicians and regional
power experts have issued warnings about the summer
shortfalls hitting California. NERC said the balance
between supply and demand was worse than previously
expected.

The state's ``deficiencies will be more severe than
California ISO's expected conditions,'' NERC said.

The industry group said supply shortages will range
from about 4,500 to 5,500 megawatts during peak demand
times each summer month. That is about 2,000 to 4,000
megawatts greater than state projections.

California may experience operating emergencies due to
the state's reliance on once-plentiful hydro
resources, NERC said.

The average size of each rolling blackout -- or the
amount of power lacking -- will be about 2,150
megawatts, it said.

Under ``best case'' scenarios the state could have as
much as 2,500 megawatts capacity surplus over its
required needs, but that under a ``worst case'' the
power grid could be deficient by as much as 13,000
megawatts.

``Both of these cases are deemed unlikely,'' NERC
added.

California's chronic power crisis has already forced
PG&E Corp's Pacific Gas & Electric unit -- the state's
biggest utility -- to file for bankruptcy protection.
The state's flawed 1996 deregulation law forced
utilities to absorb sharply higher wholesale prices
instead of passing them through to customers.




__________________________________________________
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Date:   Tue, 8 May 2001 19:09:48 -0700 (PDT)

From:   WHIZ BANG <old_dog_1947@...>

Subj:   CALIF GOVERNOR DAVIS "AT WAR
         WITH POWER COMPANIES"

To:     EMINENCE ROUGE <graydavis@...>

CC:     DUBYA <president@...>
         DICK <vice.president@...>
         WSJ <opinionjournal@...>
         WSJ <editors@...>
         WSJ <letters@...>
         WSJ <editors@...>

TO:    DAVIS

YOU AND YOUR KNOW-NOTHING PARTY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN "AT
WAR WITH POWER COMPANIES."  YOU WANT ENDS WITHOUT
MEANS, POWER WITHOUT POWER GENERATORS. YOU DESPISE
INDUSTRIALISTS AND YOU HONOR ENVIROMANIACS WHO OUGHT
TO BE HORSEWHIPPED UNTIL THEY ARE DEAD.  YOU JERK.

YI HA
MINISTER OF INFORMATION
PEOPLES' CAPITALIST REPUBLIC OF WHIZBANGISTAN
=================================================

Rolling Blackouts Hit California
By Jennifer Coleman
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 8, 2001; 2:26 p.m. EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –– More blackouts were likely in
California on Tuesday for a second day in a row as
temperatures rose again and electricity imports from
other states dwindled, power grid operators said.

Officials at the Independent System Operator said they
managed to acquire enough electricity to avoid
blackouts in the morning, but outages were still
expected during the afternoon. It would be the sixth
day of blackouts this year.

In what authorities had warned was a preview of
summer, outages were ordered in sections of selected
cities Monday afternoon as temperatures hit record
highs and the state slipped off the tightrope of
electrical supply and demand for the fifth time this
year.

Rush-hour traffic jammed in communities where signal
lights went dark, and police were sent to control
intersections. No major accidents were reported by the
time the blackouts ended.

Tuesday morning, demand was significantly higher than
at the same time Monday, said ISO spokeswoman
Stephanie McCorkle.

And afternoon temperatures were forecast in the 90s in
inland California, with readings in the 80s along the
coast of Southern California.

Imports from the Northwest had been down Tuesday
morning by about 1,000 megawatts, but repairs to a
transmission problem in the Northwest allowed more
electricity to flow to California, McCorkle said. One
megawatt is enough to power roughly 750 homes.

Before Monday's blackouts, the Independent System
Operator urged conservation because warm weather
across the West was pushing up demand for electricity.
Imported power was scarce and several key plants,
including nuclear generating stations, were down for
pre-summer maintenance.

The ISO managed to stave off a late-morning threat of
blackouts Monday by asking for cutbacks from
"interruptible" customers who get cheaper electricity
rates in exchange for scaling back power use during
emergencies.

"We were able to take off the interruptible, but only
for so long," ISO spokeswoman Lorie O'Donley said.
"Then they started coming back on and the temperatures
were still high."

The mercury climbed to a record 93 degrees in San
Francisco, while in the south, temperatures topped 100
in the deserts and a record was set in Lancaster at 96
degrees.

"We expected demand to peak between 3 and 4 p.m. and
it didn't," O'Donley said. "It just continued to
climb."

Grid managers ordered utilities to cut 300 megawatts
between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. One megawatt is enough to
power about 750 homes.

Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric Co. cut off
about 54,000 customers in Northern and Central
California. An additional 36,000 commercial,
industrial and residential customers of Southern
California Edison were affected in portions of 40
communities.

San Diego Gas & Electric cut power to about 8,600
customers in Orange County, El Cajon and areas of San
Diego. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District cut
18 megawatts, affecting about 4,600 customers in
southern Sacramento County.

Tight electricity supplies and high demand led to two
days of rolling blackouts Jan. 17 and 18 in Northern
California. The ISO ordered statewide blackouts March
19 and 20 because of scarce power supplies.

The utilities blame the crisis on 1996 deregulation
legislation designed to open up California's
electricity market to competition. Among other things,
the law temporarily capped the rate the state's
largest utilities could charge customers even while
they were forced to pay soaring prices for wholesale
electricity.

In April, PG&E filed for bankruptcy.

SoCal Edison is teetering on the edge.







__________________________________________________
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By Greg Sandoval
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 13, 2001, 11:25 a.m. PT

The Central Intelligence Agency has made an investment in SafeWeb, an
Oakland, Calif.-based start-up that developed technology that cloaks
a customer's identity and movements as they scan the Web, SafeWeb
executives said Tuesday. The CIA made the investment through In-Q-
Tel, a venture capital group founded by the agency two years ago to
invest in technology that could aid it in the spy game. The terms of
the investment were not disclosed. SafeWeb's founder, Stephen Hsu,
said the CIA is interested in SafeWeb's Triangle Boy software, which
prevents companies, schools, and governments from blocking Web users
from accessing certain sites.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-4807456.html

Feds: Nearly 200 Pieces Of Evidence Mistakenly Held From Defense
McVeigh's Lawyers Considering Asking For Stay Of Execution
FBI Probing Why Materials, Found During Archiving, Weren't Disclosed
McVeigh's would be the first federal execution since 1963.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,290654-412,00.shtml

(CBS) Six years after the Oklahoma City bombing and six days before
Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to die, the Justice Department Thursday
said the FBI mistakenly withheld nearly 200 pieces of evidence from
McVeigh's defense team, CBS News has learned.

McVeigh and his attorneys learned of the evidence on Tuesday, and the
judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, has also been
informed. The Justice Department delivered the documents, comprising
thousands of pages, to the defense team.

The attorneys told CBS News they are actively considering filing for
a stay of execution.

"We have under consideration the options that we could pursue," said
attorney Nathan Chambers. "Mr. McVeigh is going to think about it and
decide how he wants to proceed."

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports that some of the evidence
appears to be original FBI interviews done in the hours and days
immediately after the bombing.

An FBI spokesman told CBS News that the bureau does not know at this
time why the material was not turned over, and is conducting an
internal investigation to determine how such an error occurred.

According to a letter from Justice Department attorney Sean Connelly
to the defense team,
(see: http://newsimages.cbsig.net/now/image/0,1615,290673-s,00.jpg )
which was delivered by hand Thursday, Connelly told the lawyers about
the newly uncovered evidence by telephone on Tuesday. Connelly first
learned of the oversight the same day.

The materials were "generated" by the FBI field division outside
Oklahoma City, according to the letter and include FBI "302" reports
of interviews, as well as photographs, letters and tapes. Some of the
material concerns people who "at one time were thought to resemble"
the composite sketches of the bombing suspects produced early in the
investigation.

Connelly wrote that FBI Special Agent Danny Defenbaugh, who headed
the bombing investigation and now works in the bureau's Dallas field
office, alerted Connelly to the existence of the material.

"FBI Director Louis Freeh and Agent Defenbaugh had requested on
numerous occasions prior to trial that each field division and legal
attache forward all (bombing investigation-related) material to the
Oklahoma Division, and had received assurances that all such
materials had been forwarded," the letter reads. "The belated
discovery of additional such materials came after an FBI archivist
requested that all (bombing-related) materials be sent to the
Oklahoma City field office for archiving."

The Justice Department letter contends the evidence is not relevant
to the convictions of McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols of the
sentences against them. Nichols is serving a life term.

"Similarly, we do not believe anything in the materials makes even a
prima facie showing of either man's actual evidence," Connelly
writes, adding that many of the materials are similar to evidence the
defense team was given.

In most cases, a disclosure that evidence was withheld would make a
motion for a new trial almost certain. At a minimum, that would
involve a hearing that would delay the death sentence.

But that is up to McVeigh and his attorneys. McVeigh has said he
wants to die. It is not known what he has conveyed to his attorneys,
and he might tell his defense team not to interfere.

Chambers said there was a "theoretical possibility" McVeigh could be
tried again.

"I'm disturbed that these reports were produced at this late date,"
Chambers said. "Here we are a full six years after the bombing and
less than a week before Mr. McVeigh's scheduled executions, when
these reports mysteriously appear, so it's a cause for concern."

Oklahoma City survivors, meanwhile, were stunned by the late
development.

"It'll set everybody back several steps," said survivor Glenda
Riley. "I really think it'll set everybody back."

McVeigh is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the federal prison
in Terre Haute, Ind., at 7 a.m. CST on May 16. His execution would be
the first federal death penalty administered since 1963. It will
broadcast on closed circuit television so survivors and families of
those killed can watch.

A CBS News poll taken last month in which 76 percent of the
respondents favor the execution and only 20 percent oppose it.

The April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City killed 168 people.

McVeigh claims he built and detonated the 4,800-pound bomb in
response to the deadly 1993 federal raid at the Branch Davidians
compound in Waco.

Arrested on federal charges two days after the blast and indicted the
following August, McVeigh's trial ran from March to June 1997.
McVeigh was convicted of conspiracy, using a weapon of mass
destruction, destroying a federal building with a bomb and murdering
eight federal agents. He was sentenced to death.

He appealed the sentence, but in December, 2000, withdrew his appeals
and asked for an execution date. On January 16, the date of May 16
was set. McVeigh had one month after the date was set to ask for
executive clemency, and made no such request.

In American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing,
a book published last month, McVeigh is quoted as saying, "the truth
is, I blew up the Murrah building."

In addition to his federal sentence, Nichols faces 160 Oklahoma state
murder counts. Michael Fortier, who was involved in the early
planning for the bombing but cooperated with prosecutors, faces jail
time on weapons charges.

© MMI Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

See also:

http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=39994&group=webcast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/americas/newsid_1324000/132436
5.stm

http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=40029&group=webcast

http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=39489&group=webcast

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/ok.html

http://thenewamerican.com/focus/okc/index.htm

http://209.207.141.249/articles/1296/okc1.htm

http://users.erols.com/igoddard/prior.htm

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

"If you love wealth better than liberty, the
tranquility of servitude better than the animating
contest for freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not
your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the
hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon
you, and may posterity forget that you were our
countrymen."

SAMUEL ADAMS                        August 1, 1776

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

AFTER DRINKING JUST ONE "SAM ADAMS" BEER, PATRICK
HENRY SANG OUT, IN THE VIRGINIA HOUSE OF BURGESSES:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid
it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me
death!"

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

I'M IN FAVOR OF GUN CONTROL. DISARM THE GOVERNMENT.
ARM THE PEOPLE. AND "VOTE LIBERTARIAN!"

YI HA, MINISTER OF INFORMATION
PEOPLES' CAPITALIST REPUBLIC OF WHIZBANGISTAN

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

"There are two parties in this town, the Wicked Party
  and the Stupid Party. Sometimes they get together and
  pass legislation which is both wicked and stupid. We
  call this 'Bipartisanship'".  - Provenance unknown

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in
favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a
different opinion." --William Ralph Inge

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

BROOMSTICK COWBOY       by Bobby Goldsboro

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy,
Of rocket ships and Mars;
Of sunny days and Willie Mays,
And chocolate candy bars.

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy,
Dream while you can;
of big green frogs and puppy dogs,
And castles in the sand.

For all too soon you'll waken,
Your toys will all be gone;
Your broomstick horse will ride away,
To find another home.

And you'll have grown into a man,
With cowboys of your own.
And then you'll have to go to war,
To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate,
You'll have to learn to kill;
It's always been that way my son,
And I guess it always will

No broomstick gun they'll hand you,
No longer you'll pretend;
You'll call some man your enemy,
You used to call him friend.

And when the rockets thunder,
You'll hear your brothers cry;
And through it all you'll wonder,
Just why they had to die.

So dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy,
Dream while you can;
For soon you'll be a dreadful thing,
My son, you'll be a man.

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

WYNKEN, BLYNKEN AND NOD  by Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.

The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish--
Never afeard are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam.
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home.

'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea--
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle bed.

So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

SOME TEXAS WISDOM, JUST IN OVER THE TRANSOM....

1. NEVER SLAP A MAN WHO'S CHEWIN' TOBACCO.

2. GOOD JUDGMENT COMES FROM EXPERIENCE, AND A LOT OF
THAT COMES FROM BAD JUDGMENT.

3. LETTIN' THE CAT OUTTA THE BAG IS A WHOLE LOT EASIER
'N PUTTIN' IT BACK IN.

4. IF YOU'RE RIDIN' AHEAD OF THE HERD, TAKE A LOOK
BACK EVERY NOW AND THEN TO MAKE SURE IT'S STILL THERE.

5. IF YOU GET TO THINKIN' YOU'RE A PERSON OF SOME
INFLUENCE, TRY ORDERIN' SOMEBODY ELSE'S DOG AROUND.

6. NEVER KICK A COW CHIP ON A HOT DAY.

7. THERE'S TWO THEORIES TO ARGUIN' WITH A WOMAN.
NEITHER ONE WORKS.

8. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE, THE FIRST THING TO
DO IS STOP DIGGIN'.

9. DON'T SQUAT WITH YOUR SPURS ON.

10. IT DON'T TAKE A GENIUS TO SPOT A GOAT IN A FLOCK
OF SHEEP.

11. ALWAYS DRINK UPSTREAM FROM THE HERD.

12. NEVER MISS A GOOD CHANCE TO SHUT UP.

13. THERE ARE THREE KINDS OF PEOPLE: THE ONES THAT
LEARN BY READING, THE FEW WHO LEARN BY OBSERVATION,
AND THE REST OF THEM WHO HAVE TO TOUCH THE FIRE TO SEE
FOR THEMSELVES IF IT'S REALLY HOT.  SO WHICH OF THESE
ARE YOU?

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

HONK IF YOU VOTED FOR "AL GORE."  THAT'S THE BUTTON IN
THE MIDDLE OF THE WHEEL.

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

THE NATURAL HUMAN RIGHTS OF LIFE, LIBERTY, PRIVATE
PROPERTY, AND PURSUIT OF PERSONAL HAPPINESS ARE THE
PRINCIPAL SOCIAL VALUES OF A FREE SOCIETY.

ALL OF THESE VALUES ARE DERIVATIVES OF THE FIRST
ARTICLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY--THE SELF. IS THIS
SELFISH? YOU BET IT IS! BUT IF IN A FREE SOCIETY YOU
WISH TO BE UNSELFISH WITH YOUR OWN PROPERTY, NO ONE
WILL STOP YOU.  IF YOU WISH TO BE UNSELFISH WITH THE
PROPERTY OF SOMEONE ELSE, HOWEVER, YOUR LIFE RIGHTLY
WILL BE IN DANGER.

YI HA, MINISTER OF INFORMATION
PEOPLES' CAPITALIST REPUBLIC OF WHIZBANGISTAN

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

REVIEW LIBERTARIAN BOOKS AT www.laissezfairebooks.com.

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>





__________________________________________________
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BACK TO YOU LATER WHEN I GET A MOMENT TO READ THROUGH
IT.

BEST RGDS

YI HA



__________________________________________________
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Article by James Ostrowski

Does democracy promote peace? We are told continually that it does.
Let's compare the rhetoric to the reality.

Not to be confused with a republic, a democracy is a system in which,
theoretically, what the majority says goes.
The reality, however, is more complex and much uglier. In a democracy,
various political elites struggle for
control of the state apparatus by appealing to the material interests
of large voting blocks with promises of
legalized graft.

Thus, we may modify our definition of democracy to mean a system in
which our rulers are chosen by a majority
of those who bother to show up on election day, exclusive of those who
lack the minimal mental skills required to
cast a lawful ballot.

In modern democracies, individuals allegedly retain certain rights
that cannot be overridden by the majority. Who
defines and enforces those rights? Officials chosen by the majority.
So much for individual rights in a democracy.
Probably the most salient feature of modern democracy is the bizarre
notion that whatever the majority says constitutes sublime moral
principle.

In truth, democracy is nothing more than the numerous bullying the
less numerous. It is an elaborate rationalization for the strong in
numbers to
impose their will on the electorally weak by means of centralized
state coercion. What a formula for peace! If democratic states can
impose
their will on their own minority populations, why not impose their
will on other countries, states, and peoples, particularly if they are
not
democratic? Strange it is, though, that pugnacious democrats always
forget the principle of majority rule when war comes. They have never
sought the prior consent of the majority of the inhabitants of the
nations they seek to conquer, subdue, and rule.

Modern democracies tend to extensively intervene in the free market by
means of high taxes, welfare, and subsidies in order to buy the votes
that keep the politicians in power. As Ludwig von Mises demonstrated,
each intervention into the economy causes problems that lead to the
demand for ever further interventions. Government thereby creates its
own demand. Eventually, the economic problems become intractable,
leading to the inevitable temptation to create a foreign policy
distraction. Combine that with the fact that war, while undeniably
harming the
economy, gives the appearance of stimulating the economy, and we have
a formula for why democratic governments would have a motive for
war. Any similarities between this discussion and FDR's desperate bid
to get us into World War Part II is purely intentional.

Democracies also have the means to fight wars. Analysts of war spend
too much time thinking about why wars are fought and far too little
time
contemplating the means of war. The resources for war are acquired by
conscription, taxation, confiscation, and inflation. Without cannon
and
cannon fodder, there are no wars. With their aura of legitimacy,
democracies are particularly adept at utilizing all these means. Since
citizens
tend to identify with the democratic state, there is usually little
trouble conscripting troops and confiscating the economic resources
required
for war.

True, democracies rarely fight each other. That's like saying that
seven-foot-tall men rarely fight each other. There just haven't been
that
many democracies around in the last 150 years, and, furthermore, six
of them are English-speaking countries. What are they going to fight
about-their accents? Democracies do, however, like to fight
non-democracies. They did so in World War Parts I and II. Suppose they
gave a
war and the democracies didn't show up.

But, you may say, the non-democracies started all these wars. Really?
The United States was looking for any excuse to get into World War
Part I-against Germany. Examination of the international law quagmire
that led to American involvement in World War Part I leads me to
conclude that the United States had four options: declare war on
Germany, declare war on England, declare war on both, or mind its own
business. Democracies, however, do not seem to mind their own
business. What is clear is that the scope of American involvement in
that war
far exceeded anything justified by the alleged cause of that
involvement: German attacks on American shipping in the North
Atlantic.

The United States has always seemed to get attacked just when its
leaders were plotting to drag the nation into war by any means
possible-Fort Sumter, Remember the Maine, the Lusitania, etc. What a
relief; we got attacked. What about Japan and Pearl Harbor? It seems
our mind-our-own-business democracy wanted Japan out of China. Our
leaders wanted China in the hands of the mass murderer Chiang or
the megamurderer Mao. An oil embargo was imposed on a country that had
no oil. Thus, the United States provoked Japan into starting a war.
That does not mean that Japan was justified, merely that it was, in
its own mind, provoked. No democratic provocation, no war.

Two of the most important wars in modern history were fought in part
for the express purpose of advancing democratic principles. In the
case
of World War Part I, this is well known. Woodrow Wilson called it the
war "to make the world safe for democracy." We have heard this refrain
over and over again as the rationalization for war: in Korea, Viet
Nam, the Balkans, Kuwait-oops, strike that, Kuwait was an Oriental
despotism.

Lesser known is the role of the democratic idea in causing the most
destructive war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. Why did Lincoln
order armies into peaceful old Virginia, which had not been involved
in the attack on Fort Sumter? Let him speak for himself:

     "[W]e divide upon [all our constitutional controversies] into
majorities and minorities. If a minority . . . will secede rather than
     acquiesce [to the majority], they make a precedent which, in turn,
will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will
     secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by
such minority . . . the central idea of secession, is the essence
     of anarchy." First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861. (For further
discussion of this passage, see, J. Ostrowski, "Was the Union
     Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act?" in
Secession, State & Liberty, David Gordon, ed., [New Brunswick,
     NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998]).

Thus, a substantial motive for Lincoln's invasion of the South was to
preserve the principle of majority rule, that is, the ability of the
majority to
impose its will on the minority. The War Between the States revealed
the true nature of democracy as bullying. It just so happens that we
usually put up with it, and the bullied minority is scattered
throughout the nation. In the War Between the States, however, the
bullied minority
was clustered together and willing to fight. Democracy, ultimately, is
majority rule at gunpoint. Such a philosophy is perfectly consistent
with a
tendency to fight wars.

Democracy's main contribution to war is to encourage minority groups
that feel exploited by the majority to attempt to secede. The bullying
majority-like any slave master-rarely lets its subjects go in peace,
and thus war breaks out. The provocateur is almost always the
majoritarian state, and that state's rationalization for fighting is
always the preservation of the majority principle. Lincoln taught them
well. In
recent years, Lincolnian wars have raged in Northern Ireland, the
Middle East, East Timor, Chechnya, Georgia, the Balkans, India, and
elsewhere.

Perhaps the leading cause of war in the foreseeable future will be the
struggle of peoples who constitute a minority in their countries to
escape
from oppressive democratic majority rule by those animated by alien
ethnic, cultural, religious, economic, or philosophic values.

In the meantime, there are still opportunities for good, old-fashioned
wars caused by our bumbling, stumbling, holier-than-thou, democratic
meddling all over the planet. Let me get this straight. The crisis
over the incident in the South China Sea is really about Taiwan. We
are so
committed to the Taiwanese people's right of self-determination that
we supported Chiang Kai-shek and crew who, in the words of Joseph
Stromberg, "imposed themselves on the Taiwanese people-in a
near-perfect example of a conquest state." Chiang had been so bad at
running China-fourth-ranked mass murderer of the century-that he
managed to make even Mao look good! Are you getting the feeling that
the United States has never really had a clue about China?

Forget apologizing for what happened in the sky the other week, or for
Bush's recent remarks. Let's apologize for one hundred years of
meddling in China, and promise that in the future the Chinese will not
have to put up with any activity off their shores that we wouldn't
tolerate
off of ours.

But no, the forces of democratic meddling, the neoconservatives, have
pushed for escalation of the conflict. They complain that a
"superpower" should not be exposed to "public international
humiliation." Remember what happened the last time the empire was
being
subjected to an extended public humiliation. After it was beginning to
look like the federal government was being made a fool of by a "bunch
of
religious nuts with guns," they rolled in a tank, and eighty-one
people were killed. Gentlemen, you are not dealing with David Koresh
here.

Does democracy-institutionalized coercion-promote peace? No. The only
thing that promotes peace is peace, which is just another name for
individual liberty.

* * * * *

James Ostrowski practices law in Buffalo, NY. See his archive and send
him MAIL.  Also, see the best book on the history of the U.S. warfare
state: The Costs of War edited by John Denson

                                  APPENDIX

                  AMERICA'S WARS TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY

                              (By no means an exhaustive list.)

     1861-? War Between the States: First modern total war against
civilians.
     ? - 1898 Indian Wars: We needed Indian land for polling
places.
     1893 Invasion of Hawaii: Don't knock it. Without this war, we
would have been left out of WWII.
     1898 American-Spanish War: remember the main point was
imperialism.
     1899-1902 American-Philippine War: Hey, didn't we win the
Philippines in the American-Spanish War?
     1917-1918 World War Part I: Made the world safe for
Hitler.
     1941-1945 World War Part II: Made the world safe for
communism.
     1950-? Korea: No declaration of war; no declaration of
peace.
     1964-1975 Viet Nam: Made southeast Asia safe for
genocide.
     1982 Lebanon: Let's lose one for the Gipper.
     1983  Invasion of Grenada: Tiny island invasion boosted national
morale.
     1989  Invasion of Panama: Tough love for an ex-CIA guy turned drug
dealer.
     1990-? Gulf War. We needed petroleum to get the voters to the
polls.
     1999 Kosovo: Made it safe for the KLA to attack
Macedonia.
     Coming Soon: 2002  China/Taiwan: Made Taiwan safe for the China
haters.

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In any society there will be conflicts as to how a particular resource
is to be used. There are four ways dealing with these conflicts.

1) Private Property

Resources are divided between various individuals and voluntary
associations of individuals. Property is acquired by mixing ones labor
with unowned property, buying it from a previous owner, receiving
the property as a gift, or producing it. The owner of the property
decides how the resource is to be used. Private property creates
incentives for producing value, and increasing the value of natural
resources, because the owner of the resource obtains the benefit of
any increase in value of his or her property.

2) Socialism

A coercive organization determines the use of all resources. I am
using the word socialism in its original statist sense. The social
anarchist idea of a voluntary socialism came much later.

3) War

Resources go to the individual or state who conquers it. This is a
parasitical system. Instead of producing value people fight over
already existing resources.

4) A Combination of the above

The fatal flaw in socialist anarchism is that it has no way to deal
with resource conflicts. Whenever a resource conflict arises, one of
the above methods will have to be used. If private property is used,
the system loses its socialist character. If an authority is used to
allocate resources, it is not anarchy. That authority is a state even
if it goes by a different name. This problem of social anarchy was
evident in the Spanish Civil War when the social anarchists gained
power. See :

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/spain.htm

A private property based anarchist society could tolerate voluntary
social anarchist communities within it. A social anarchist system
could not tolerate private property because it would then no
longer be socialist. A social anarchist society would have to
constantly initiate the use of force to prevent private property form
emerging.

Source Article :

http://www.nypress.com/content.cfm?content_id=3843
&now=03/15/2001&content_section=1

So if the weather folk can't figure out the weather for the rest of
the week, how come they think they can tell us what the climate will
be across the next decade, the next 50 years, the next century?
Answer: they can't, and that summary judgment includes the 122
Co-ordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors, 515 Contributing Authors,
21 Review Editors and 337 Expert Reviewers who participated in the
Third Assessment Report of Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which seized the headlines not so long
ago with clamorous fears about the role of greenhouse gases in the
creation of global warming.

What global warming? In Siberia they're grinding their way through the
coldest winter in 100 years, and it's been rough in the northeastern
provinces of Canada. It's scarcely been a hothouse on the East Coast
of the U.S. either. Shivering on Ireland's south coast at Christmas,
my brother Patrick complained that it was as cold as he could
remember.

Sure, it's been cold. But it doesn't stop most people from accepting
global warming as an official, long-term planetary condition, caused
in large part by emissions of greenhouse gases due to human
activities. Why, even the representative of the oil industry currently
ensconced in the White House believes it. George W. Bush has signaled
his support for a plan to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions.
Titans of industry who bitterly derided the models of the global
warming crowd five years ago have now clearly decided the fight is not
worth the bad publicity.

But the fact is that estimates of the human contribution to a current
warming trend are as speculative as they were a decade ago. The case
is nonproven, as even a moderately close reading of the IPCC's
"Summary for Policymakers" makes clear. What follows is a reality
check on the "global warming/greenhouse gas" hypothesis, with the
benefit of counsel from my friend Pierre Sprey, a man knowledgeable
about the often disastrous interface between environmental prediction
and computer models.

First question: Is our globe actually warming up? Back in the late
1930s they certainly thought it was. Not so long ago I picked up an
excellent old volume put out by the USDA called Climate, which
contained a chapter acknowledging "global warming" (that same phrase)
and hailing it as a benign trend that would return the Earth to the
normalcy in climate it enjoyed several hundred thousand years ago.

In fact we may well be enjoying a phase of warming. The "Summary for
Policymakers" makes much of the fact that across the last 1000 years
"the rate and duration of warming of the 20th century has been much
greater than in any of the previous nine centuries." But to take a
slightly longer-term view, the present warming trend is well within
the fluctuations of the last 100,000 or last million years. The
Earth's climate has changed drastically down the eons.

As Sprey puts it, "If there's a warming trend now, so what? These
changes are due to causes that they don't know and we don't know and
are very small in terms of earlier changes. For their 1000-year period
they're basing their numbers on tree ring, coral and icecap records
before 1861, which is when people began to keep extensive thermometer
records. But if you look at ice cores, tree rings and coral across
longer periods, there were times when it was vastly hotter and vastly
colder. This is like a pimple on the ass of climate change.

"To take one example of the monumental differences in geological
record: Today, oxygen is somewhere between 18 and 20 percent of the
atmosphere. But there was a period of geological time when oxygen was
over 30 per cent of the atmosphere, thus prompting monstrously large
species. The proportion of carbon dioxide was way higher. And here
they are today, arguing about differences of one part per million of
CO2."

At the core of the greenhouse gas hypothesis lie computer models with
a dubious lineage stretching back to the time, 40-some years ago, when
the mega-computer teams flourishing around Oak Ridge and TVA figuring
out models of nuclear fission found that they had done their stuff and
now had excess computer capacity and the prospects of a dwindling
budget. In the ceaseless quest to preserve funding, they began to look
for environmental assignments. Their first big model concerned acid
rain, and it turned into something of a debacle. The idea was that
they could model the atmosphere, predict drift patterns and how sulfur
dispersed, connecting the belching smokestack in Ohio to a poisoned
lake in upstate New York.

For sure, there are acid rains all over world, but it turned out that
relating such rains to an ecosystem was a lot more difficult than
anyone imagined. Right from the start, the acid rain craze was
premised on a mountain of bogus studies in Sweden, where they'd found
that some hundreds of lakes had gone alarmingly acid. And indeed there
were also plenty of lakes where fish had died. But the lakes where
fish were dying were not the lakes with acid.

The prime models of air movement and of the aerodynamics of dispersal
came out of the biowarfare labs at Porton Down in England during WWII,
and the acid rain modelers discovered what the Porton boffins had long
known: it's very tough to construct models of air dispersal, and no
one has yet done it successfully. So, having failed at acid rain, the
modelers leaped toward even larger and more empirically unverifiable
studies, toward scenarios of global warming, constructing even bigger
models, far harder to confirm or deny. It was the perfect subject for
computer modeling, and also the perfect way of changing the subject of
finite, well-known environmental ills susceptible to immediate, though
politically risky, action, like dirty rivers and poisoned wetlands.

Now for the central premise of the greenhouse gas model of global
warming. During daylight hours our turning globe gets its huge heat
input in the form of short infrared rays from the sun. In close
balance, our turning globe releases this heat in the form of longer
waves of infrared radiation during the night hours.

In the greenhouse model, malign gases such as carbon dioxide and
methane happen to absorb the long infrared radiation more strongly.
Thus these allegedly malign gases let the short infrared rays in, but
when heat tries to escape each night, they hold it in the atmosphere.
The more CO2 we humans create, the more cows we put to pasture and in
feedlots belching out methane, the more heat is trapped and the hotter
the world gets.

That's the theory. In the "Summary for Policymakers," which represents
the state-of-the-art model for the greenhouse crowd, assertions and
predictions are hedged, evasive or furtively shorn of inconvenient
material. On the first of the document's 20 pages a footnote proclaims
a verbal scale of confidence, ranging from "virtually certain" all the
way down to "exceptionally unlikely." To each category a numeric
window is attached. Thus "unlikely" is assigned "10-33% chance," which
in terms of the scientific use of statistics is ludicrous.

"Globally," says the report on its first page, "it is very likely
[i.e., a 90-99 percent chance] that the 1990s was the warmest decade
and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861." But
the idiom of potentially catastrophic change often falters. Try page
5. "Over the 20th century (1900 to 1995) there were relatively small
increases in global land areas experiencing severe drought or severe
wetness." Same page: "A few areas of the globe have not warmed in
recent decades, mainly over some parts of the Southern Hemisphere
oceans and parts of Antarctica." Same page: "No significant trends of
Antarctica sea-ice extent are apparent since 1978." Same page:
"Changes globally in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and
frequency are dominated by inter-decadal to multi-decadal variations,
with no significant trends evident over the 20th century."

Hedged with such self-protective lingo, the report inches its way
along to the conclusion that "warming [over the past 1000 years] was
unusual and is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin." "Unlikely"
has its numeral window of 10-33 percent, which means these modelers
are admitting there could be a one in three chance they are wrong
about what is now taken by people, including George W. Bush, to be a
dead cert.

Soon the vigilant reader notes that in all the graphs and trend lines
there is one extremely significant omission: the role played by water
vapor. This is odd because, as Sprey emphasizes, "Water vapor is the
single largest factor in the heating and cooling of the earth. There
is far more water in the atmosphere than CO2, and it absorbs a lot of
infrared radiation. But from the computer modeler's point of view,
water vapor is very variable. Rain they can't predict; clouds they
can't predict. So, if your computer model can't deal with water,
forget it.

"Think of the heating-cooling equation as a giant seesaw, with a
billion tons at each end. You are arguing about a few pounds making
the seesaw tilt. And it's true. A few pounds do make up a difference.
But which few pounds are you talking about? All measurements in all
these models have far more error than a few pounds, and in fact these
computer modelers compete for money against the atmospheric measurers.
There's major research to be done in the area of exchange between
stratosphere and troposphere. There are vast tropical thunderstorms
that are very crucial for mixing of lower atmosphere air, polluted
with CO2 and aerosols and mixing it into upper atmosphere."

Yet the more they model, the less they actually measure. Sprey draws
my attention to an amazing table that takes up two-thirds of page 8 of
the "Summary." It purports to shows the proportions of various factors
such as CO2, methane and halocarbons in "forcing" the climate system
to greater warmth. A confident box states that the summary's experts
can asserts with a "high" level of "scientific understanding" that
halocarbons, N2O [nitrous oxide], CH4 [methane] and CO2 are forcing
the climate toward greater heat at a rate of 2.5 watts per square
meter. Less obviously featured in the table is a line suggesting with
a "very low" level of scientific understanding that an "Aerosol
indirect effect" is cooling the climate system at a rate of 2 watts
for each square meter.

Aerosols are particles so fine they float in air. As we know from the
seeding of clouds by aerosols, they can cause rain. The more rain we
have, the less water vapor in the form of atmosphere, hence the less
heat trapped by this water vapor. A footnote to the table mumbles
coyly that "A second indirect effect of aerosols on clouds, namely
their effect on cloud lifetime...is not shown." Now, Sprey points out
that on page 4 of the "Summary" we find the statement that "It is very
likely that precipitation has increased by 0.5 to 1% per decade in the
20th century over most mid- and high latitudes of the Northern
Hemisphere continents, and it is likely that rainfall has increased by
0.2 to 0.3% per decade over the tropical...land areas...

"They are saying rain has increased. If it rains more, you are taking
water vapor out of the air. Since the role of water vapor is much
larger than that of CO2, it's crucial to understand what draws water
vapor out of the ocean and into the atmosphere, thus making the world
warmer. Oceans are by far the largest part of the earth's surface.
Ocean currents transfer heat from the tropics to the Arctic. They are
also important because they release water vapor. So, changes in ocean
currents alone could easily account for global warming or cooling.

"On top of that we have feedback, which is barely admitted by the
Summary. There may be factors in the global heat balance that tend to
be stabilizing. For example, it may well be that when CO2 goes up into
the atmosphere, it rains more. Aerosols feed clouds and increase
precipitation, meaning less water vapor, hence less heat trapped at
night. This could mean that current smokestack emissions, full of
aerosols, might be cooling the earth more than the CO2 is heating it
up. Since the aerosol effect is as poorly understood as the water
effect, who knows whether the earth is cooling or heating, due to
human activity. Certainly not the computer modellers."

The nearest the "Summary" gets to this is to say their models "cannot
yet simulate all aspects of climate" and "there are particular
uncertainties associated with clouds and their interaction with
radiation and aerosols." Having made this extremely damaging, albeit
furtive, admission the "Summary" brays triumphantly that "Some recent
models produce satisfactory simulations of current climate without the
need for non-physical adjustments." And what, pray, is a "non-physical
adjustment"? In ordinary English it's a fudge factor, an element
introduced into the model for the sole purpose of making that model
work.

"In a lot of natural mechanisms," Sprey concludes, "there are
stabilizing factors. This runs counter to the catastrophist notion
that if you tip things a little, then everything goes to hell."

We like catatrophism. It's part of the eschatology of guilt. But it
has more to do with faith than with science, and this absurd "Summary"
only serves to buttress that basic point: the global
warming/greenhouse gas thesis is most emphatically nonproven.

http://www.grida.no/inf/news/news01/shangh1.htm

source article at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/changed.htm

Two eminent experts from the University of Nis, Prof. Dr. Dimitrije
Stefanovic from the Faculty of Electronics and Prof. Dr. Milovan
Purenovic from the Department of Physics of the Faculty of nature &
mathematics are contending that in the course of the air strikes
against Yugoslavia a meteorological war took place.

In order to disperse the clouds and make possible clear air space for
its bombers, NATO aircraft, by dropping special chemicals into
atmosphere caused unprecedented droughts that may last several
decades, even a hundred years, depending on global meteorological
conditions.

"Thanks to the documents we have acquired and to our analyses, we are
contending that use of chemical means in this areas started over Tuzla
in 1994", two experts have said. Same happened again in April 1999
over FR of Yugoslavia, first above towns of Vrnjacka Banja, Trstenik
and Kraljevo, and shortly later over Nis, and then above Negotin,
Zajecar and Smederevo. On April 5th in the evening, skies over Nis
were overcast, rain being expected any time. Then, after the air
sortie, sky suddenly become red, clouds started swirling and
disappeared and latter that night Nis was bombed. Same night town of
Aleksinac suffered damage while same happened to Negotin and Prahovo
next evening. Ever since in these areas there is a great,
unprecedented drought, said Prof. Dr. Dimitrije Stefanovic, professor
of the Faculty of Electronics of the University of Nis to the Belgrade
daily "Politika".

In the region of southern Serbia, from Leskovac to Aleksinac, thus
also over the Nis, on ten occasions use of termo - lighting bombs was
registered. This bombs exploded in the atmosphere were rising the
temperature to over 3.000 degrees centigrade. Shining light made
possible to aircraft to "see" targets on the ground while consequences
only have to be seen. Due to such programmed explosions taking place
at the altitude between 2500 and 3000 meters, large quantities of
energy were discharged causing shifting of layers of the atmosphere
and strong winds. Thus, rain-bearing clouds rise to higher strata
where get concentrated and, at the temperature of 10 degrees
centigrade bellow zero, hailing is formed. If any precipitation
occurs, it would be large hailing that destroys crops, said the Nis
professors. That, unfortunately happened in May 1999 in the South
Morava valley, near Leskovac.

source article at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/haarp.htm

The important debate on global warming under UN auspices provides but
a partial picture of climate change; in addition to the devastating
impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the World's
climate can now be modified as part of a new generation of
sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans and the
Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's
climate.

In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency
Active Aural Research Program (HAARP) as part of the ("Star Wars")
Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence
suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of
potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes.
From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction.
Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of
selectively destabilising agricultural and ecological systems of
entire regions.

While there is no evidence that this deadly technology has been used,
surely the United Nations should be addressing the issue of
"environmental warfare" alongside the debate on the climatic impacts
of greenhouse gases...

Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of deliberate
climatic manipulations for military use has never been explicitly part
of the UN agenda on climate change. Neither the official delegations
nor the environmental action groups participating in the Hague
Conference on Climate Change (CO6) (November 2000) have raised the
broad issue of "weather warfare" or "environmental modification
techniques (ENMOD)" as relevant to an understanding of climate
change.

                The clash between official negotiators,
environmentalists and American business lobbies has centered on
Washington's outright refusal to abide by commitments on carbon
dioxide reduction targets under the 1997 Kyoto protocol.(1) The
impacts of military technologies on the World's climate are not an
object of discussion or concern. Narrowly confined to greenhouse
gases, the ongoing debate on climate change serves Washington's
strategic and defense objectives.

		 "WEATHER WARFARE"

World renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell confirms that "US
military scientists ... are working on weather systems as a potential
weapon. The methods include the enhancing of storms and the diverting
of vapor rivers in the Earth's atmosphere to produce targeted droughts
or floods." (2)  Already in the 1970s, former National Security
advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had foreseen in his book "Between Two
Ages" that:

"Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations,
techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum
of the security forces need be appraised... [T]echniques of weather
modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought
or storm."

Marc Filterman, a former French military officer, outlines several
types of "unconventional weapons" using radio frequencies. He refers
to "weather war," indicating that the U.S. and the Soviet Union had
already "mastered the know-how needed to unleash sudden climate
changes (hurricanes, drought) in the early 1980s."(3) These
technologies make it "possible to trigger atmospheric disturbances by
using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radar [waves]." (4)

A simulation study of future defense "scenarios" commissioned for the
US Air Force calls for:

"US aerospace forces to 'own the weather' by capitalizing on emerging
technologies and focusing development of those technologies to
war-fighting applications... From enhancing friendly operations or
disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural
weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and
counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a
wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary... In
the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of
national security policy with both domestic and international
applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on
its interests, at various levels. (5)

                HIGH-FREQUENCY ACTIVE AURAL RESEARCH PROGRAM (HAARP)

The High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP) based in
Gokoma Alaska --jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US
Navy-- is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the
US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force
Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a
system of powerful antennas capable of creating "controlled local
modifications of the ionosphere". Scientist Dr. Nicholas Begich
--actively involved in the public campaign against HAARP-- describes
HAARP as:

"A super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the
ionosphere [upper layer of the atmosphere] by focusing a beam and
heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth
and penetrate everything -- living and dead." (6)

Dr. Rosalie Bertell depicts HAARP as "a gigantic heater that can cause
major disruption in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long
incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from
bombarding the planet." 7

                MISLEADING PUBLIC OPINION

HAARP has been presented to public opinion as a program of scientific
and academic research. US military documents seem to suggest,
however, that HAARP's main objective is to "exploit the ionosphere for
Department of Defense purposes." (8) Without explicitly referring to
the HAARP program, a US Air Force study points to the use of "induced
ionospheric modifications" as a means of altering weather patterns as
well as disrupting enemy communications and radar.9 According to Dr.
Rosalie Bertell, HAARP is part of a integrated weapons' system, which
has potentially devastating environmental consequences:

"It is related to fifty years of intensive and increasingly
destructive programs to understand and control the upper atmosphere.
It would be rash not to associate HAARP with the space laboratory
construction which is separately being planned by the United States.
HAARP is an integral part of a long history of space research and
development of a deliberate military nature. The military implications
of combining these projects is alarming. ... The ability of the HAARP
/ Spacelab/ rocket combination to deliver very large amount of energy,
comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth via laser and particle
beams, are frightening. The project is likely to be "sold" to the
public as a space shield against incoming weapons, or, for the more
gullible, a device for repairing the ozone layer. (10)

In addition to weather manipulation, HAARP has a number of related
uses:

"HAARP could contribute to climate change by intensively bombarding
the atmosphere with high-frequency rays... Returning low-frequency
waves at high intensity could also affect people's brains, and effects
on tectonic movements cannot be ruled out. (11)

More generally, HAARP has the ability of modifying the World's
electro-magnetic field. It is part of an arsenal of "electronic
weapons" which US military researchers consider a "gentler and kinder
warfare". (12)

                WEAPONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER

HAARP is part of the weapons arsenal of the New World Order under the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). From military command points in
the US, entire national economies could potentially be destabilized
through climatic manipulations. More importantly, the latter can be
implemented without the knowledge of the enemy, at minimal cost and
without engaging military personnel and equipment as in a conventional
war.

The use of HAARP -- if it were to be applied -- could have potentially
devastating impacts on the World's climate. Responding to US economic
and strategic interests, it could be used to selectively modify
climate in different parts of the World resulting in the
destabilization of agricultural and ecological systems.

It is also worth noting that the US Department of Defense has
allocated substantial resources to the development of intelligence and
monitoring systems on weather changes. NASA and the Department of
Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) are working on
"imagery for studies of flooding, erosion, land-slide hazards,
earthquakes, ecological zones, weather forecasts, and climate change"
with data relayed from satellites. (13)

                POLICY INERTIA OF THE UNITED NATIONS

According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro:

"States have... in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations
and the principles of international law, the (...) responsibility to
ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not
cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the
limits of national jurisdiction." (14)

It is also worth recalling that an international Convention ratified
by the UN General Assembly in 1997 bans "military or other hostile use
of
environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting
or severe effects." (15) Both the US and the Soviet Union were
signatories to the Convention. The Convention defines "environmental
modification techniques' as referring to any technique for
changing--through the deliberate manipulation of natural
processes--the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth,
including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere or of
outer space." (16)

Why then did the UN --disregarding the 1977 ENMOD Convention as well
as its own charter-- decide to exclude from its agenda climatic
changes resulting from military programs?

                EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ACKNOWLEDGES IMPACTS OF HAARP

In February 1998, responding to a report of Mrs. Maj Britt Theorin
--Swedish MEP and longtime peace advocate--, the European Parliament's
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public
hearings in Brussels on the HAARP program.(17) The Committee's
"Motion for Resolution" submitted to the European Parliament:

"Considers HAARP... by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the
environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological
and ethical implications to be examined by an international
independent body...; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of
the United States Administration... to give evidence to the public
hearing ...into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP
program." (18).

The Committee's request to draw up a "Green Paper" on "the
environmental impacts of military activities", however, was casually
dismissed on the grounds that the European Commission lacks the
required jurisdiction to delve into "the links between environment and
defense". (19) Brussels was anxious to avoid a showdown with
Washington.

                FULLY OPERATIONAL

While there is no concrete evidence of HAARP having been used,
scientific findings suggest that it is at present fully operational.
What this means is that HAARP could potentially be applied by the US
military to selectively modify the climate of an "unfriendly nation"
or "rogue state" with a view to destabilizing its national economy.

Agricultural countries are already in crisis as a result of New World
Order policies including market deregulation, commodity dumping, etc.
Amply documented, IMF and World Bank "economic medicine" imposed on
the Third World and the countries of the former Soviet block has
largely contributed to the destabilization of domestic agriculture. In
turn, the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have
supported the interests of a handful of Western agri-biotech
conglomerates in their quest to impose genetically modified (GMO)
seeds on farmers throughout the World.

It is important to understand the linkage between the economic,
strategic and military processes of the New World Order. In the above
context, climatic manipulations under the HAARP program (whether
accidental or deliberate) would inevitably exacerbate these changes by
weakening national economies, destroying infrastructure and
potentially triggering the bankruptcy of farmers over vast areas.
Surely national governments and the United Nations should address the
possible consequences of HAARP and other "non-lethal weapons" on
climate change.

                NOTES

                1. The latter calls for nations to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent to become effective between
2008 and 2012.
                See Background of Kyoto Protocol at
http://www.globalwarming.net/gw11.html

                2. The Times, London, 23 November 2000.

                3. Intelligence Newsletter, December 16, 1999.

                4. Ibid.

                5 Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final
Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/

                6 Nicholas Begich and Jeane Manning, The Military's
Pandora's Box, Earthpulse Press,
http://www.xyz.net/~nohaarp/earthlight.html. See also
                the HAARP home page at http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/

                7. See Briarpatch, January, 2000. (emphasis added).

                8 Quoted in Begich and Manning, op cit.

                9. Air University, op cit.

                10. Rosalie Bertell, Background of the HAARP Program, 5
November, 1996,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/weapons.htm

                11. Begich and Manning, op cit.

                12. Don Herskovitz, Killing Them Softly, Journal of
Electronic Defense, August 1993. (emphasis added). According to
Herskovitz, "electronic
                warfare" is defined by the US Department of Defense as
"military action involving the use of electromagnetic energy..." The
Journal of Electronic
                Defense at http://www.jedefense.com/ has published a
range of articles on the application of electronic and electromagnetic
military technologies.

                13. Military Space, 6 December, 1999.

                14. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, New
York, 1992. See complete text at
http://www.unfccc.de/resource/conv/conv_002.html,
                (emphasis added).

                15. See Associated Press, 18 May 1977.

                16. Environmental Modification Ban Faithfully Observed,
States Parties Declare, UN Chronicle, July, 1984, Vol. 21, p. 27.

                17. European Report, 7 February 1998.

                18. European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no. A4-0005/99, 14 January
1999.

                19. EU Lacks Jurisdiction to Trace Links Between
Environment and Defense, European Report, 3 February 1999.

Choking on Pork
by Rob Moody

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is
in session.

~ Mark Twain

Well, the Georgia legislature is about to wrap up its annual
legislative session, and all I can say is: thank God. Some 884 bills
and 518 resolutions were introduced in the House, and 308 bills and
374 resolutions were introduced in the Senate, all in less than 40
days! Do we really need to apply force in 1,192 new ways? Don't we
already have enough laws on the books to last for a millennium?
After "Don't use force or fraud against peaceful people," what else
needs to be codified? You hear about new laws being passed all the
time, but when was the last time you heard about a law, a tax or a
regulation being repealed? Incredibly, it appears that just six House
bills and one Senate bill have been passed and signed into law thus
far, in part because a lot of time and energy were spent making our
state flag politically correct, which didn't leave time for much else.

I once heard about a study that found that the length of a state's
legislative session is inversely proportionate to the amount of
freedom the state's citizens enjoy. I believe Massachusetts has the
longest legislative session. I like Harry Browne's idea of paying
Congressmen $400 per year (instead of about $140,000) so they'd have
to get real jobs back home and couldn't afford to spend all of their
time in Washington taking away our freedoms. Another idea I've heard
is to tie legislators' pay to the amount of money they spend, so that
the more they spend, the less they get paid.

Even so, a legislature that meets just 40 days a year can still
destroy a lot of wealth and liberty. A friend of mine examined the
$15.2 billion ($800 million more than last year) mid-year budget that
was recently passed (even with 75 Republicans in the House, the vote
there was 155-19) by the Georgia legislature, and found it laden with
pork. (See also the $15.4 billion budget for the fiscal year
beginning July 1 that passed the House 150-22.) For example, the
legislature appropriated (which my dictionary defines as: "To take
possession of or make use of for oneself, often without permission or
legal right"):

· $150,000 for a NASCAR Hall of Fame in Dawsonville. Now let me get
this straight. Just one driver – Dale Earnhardt – earned $41 million
in winnings and ten times that much from endorsements, and every
working stiff in Georgia has to shell out some money for a NASCAR
museum? I think this is a sport that can afford to build its own
museum. But then again, politicians just love to subsidize our bread
and circuses, to keep us entertained and distracted from what they're
doing under the gold dome.

$500,000 to expand the Gordonia-Altamaha golf course to 18 holes. Why
stop at 18? If the stupid taxpayer is picking up the tab, why not
make it 36?
$50,000 for the preservation of the first brick house in Jonesboro.
What the hell is this? Is it the government's role to preserve the
first brick house in every town in the state? Why just brick, though?
We could expand this program to include the first houses made with
stucco, hardyplank and vinyl siding.
$2.2 million for an industrial development project in House Speaker
Tom Murphy's home county. This S.O.B. has been a state legislator
since 1961 and Speaker since 1974! Talk about absolute power!
$40,000 to promote the movie making and recording industry in Macon.
Yeah, just what we need: DreamWorks SKG and Madonna hanging out in
John Rocker's hometown.
$4.1 million to build a state park in House Democratic Leader Larry
Walker's home county. To the victor go the spoils, eh? $4.1 million
for a park? What, will the park benches be made of solid gold? I
wonder how many people in that county would pay $3 to visit a private
park. Probably not very many. But if the park is being paid for with
OPM (other people's money), hey, $4.1 million is chump change.
$250,000 to construct and operate a public fishing area in Burke
County. A public fishing area? I have fished in hundreds of places,
and never have I needed the government to construct a place where I
could put my pole in the water.
$1 million to build an amphitheater at the Mable House Culture
Activities Center in Governor Barnes' hometown of Mableton. Hmmm,
didn't the world's first "democrazy" also build a lot of
amphitheaters? Gotta keep those taxpayers entertained, or they might
notice what the politicians are up to!
$25,000 to plant flowers in Augusta/Richmond County. I can see it
now: These flowers will be annuals instead of perennials (making this
an "annual" expenditure), and will die soon after they're planted,
thanks to the state's outdoor watering ban.
But this is just a tiny sample of the benevolence our state
legislators have bestowed upon us from on high. Go to the state
budget and scroll almost halfway down to Section 41, where you'll
find most of the pork. From the beginning of that section, scroll
down quickly and watch the dollar amounts on the right whiz by in a
dizzying blur of waste. That's your money that's being poured down a
rat hole. You probably worked hard for that money. Most likely, you
got up early, came home late, made sacrifices, delayed gratification,
improved your education and skills, acted responsibly, took risks,
made wise decisions, and thought of new ways to please your fellow
man, all for the purpose of earning a living. But the legislature had
other plans for that money, and these are their plans. Pretty
grotesque, huh?

What struck me about the budget is the staggering number of entities,
programs and grants. Does anyone seriously believe that legislators
spent a lot of time deliberating the merits and size of each
expenditure, or that each expenditure will be adequately supervised
to guard against waste and theft? Another thing that struck me is
that this is "only" $15.2 billion. The federal government's budget is
$1.9 trillion. Lord knows what kind of pork is contained in that
monstrosity.

Most legislators believe their job is to "bring home the bacon" to
their constituents. To them, the more pork-barrel projects they
secure for their district, the more votes they'll receive in the next
election. Heck, they even brag about it by faxing press releases to
the media and erecting signs next to pork-barrel projects so you'll
know who to thank for the loot. But whence do these porcine products
come? The politicians would have us believe that they are like manna
from Heaven. Rather, they are the 20 pieces of silver that voters
accept to betray their fellow citizens and sell themselves and
everyone else into a lifetime of slavery.

If you're a legislator, please, don't bring home the bacon; I'm
choking on it. If you're a voter, don't covet the 20 pieces of
silver, unless you like hearing a revenue agent tell you, "Squeal
like a pig, boy!" See where the pork comes from? It comes from little
piglets like you that are in the government's pigpen.


March 10, 2001

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By: Thomas C Greene in Washington
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/17361.html


A core objection to paranoid rants regarding the US National Security
Agency (NSA) electronic eavesdropping apparatus called ECHELON is the
simple observation that spooks trying to use it are literally buried
in an avalanche of white noise from which it's quite difficult to
extract anything pertinent.

But now the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), no doubt with some
assistance and guidance from NSA, is making strides towards cracking
that little inconvenience.

The CIA's Office of Advanced Information Technology is developing a
number of data-mining enhancements to make life easy for those who
would eavesdrop on electronic communications, Reuters reports.

First up is a computer program called Oasis, which automatically
converts audio signals into conveniently readable, and searchable,
text.

And it distinguishes voices, cleverly enough, so that the transcript
of an intercepted 'broadcast' (a conference call via mobile phones?)
will show each speaker automatically identified as Male 1, Female 1;
Male 2, Female 2; and so on.

If the transcript seems implausible at any point, or disappointingly
mundane, the operator can easily listen to relevant parts of the
broadcast to check the machine's accuracy, and determine that
"recognize speech" actually was "wreck a nice beach," and send in the
appropriate goon squads to prevent it.

Oasis also references search terms and keywords automatically. Thus
text containing the phrase "truck bomb" would pop up in a query for
"terror*".

The CIA is planning to develop Oasis for spy-useful foreign languages
such as Arabic and Chinese, the wire service says.

Next comes a software tool called FLUENT, which enables an operator to
search stored documents in a language s/he doesn't understand by using
his or her own language for queries.

So, imagine an uneducated, highly-trained Anglophone with a PhD in
some anti-intellectual pseudo-'discipline' like medicine, education,
women's studies, engineering, creative writing, economics or computer
science, naturally poorly acquainted with languages, but charged with
grave national security responsibilities.

Say this person needs to know what the Chinese have been publishing
about nuclear warheads.

Salvation: FLUENT allows them to search on "nuclear warhead" in
English, and still dredge up Chinese (or whatever) documents for
people with actual language skills to translate and evaluate for them.
Is that cool or what?

Presently, FLUENT can translate Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian,
Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian, Reuters says.

The omissions are almost as telling as the languages included. What,
no Japanese, no Arabic, no Spanish, no Hebrew, no French? Laotian and
Navajo we can understand, but what have we here? Laziness,
discrimination, or misplaced trust?

You make the call.

The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis
of the principle of
self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of
other nations; and that the
Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our
people and the settlement of
our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only
those who have German
blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be
a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and
must be subject to the law of
aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the
State shall belong only to
citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever
nature, whether in the central
government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone
who is not a citizen.

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby
men are appointed to posts
by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that
every citizen shall have the
possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should
not be possible to feed the whole
population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the
Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand
that all non-Germans
who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to
leave the Reich
immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or
physically. No individual shall do any
work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit
of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from
work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood
and treasure, all personal profit
arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We
therefore demand the total
confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class,
the immediate
communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small
tradespeople, and the
strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders
shall deliver the supplies needed
by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national
requirements, and the
enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of
any land needed for the
common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of
all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the
injury of the common
welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with
death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of
the world, be replaced by
German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious
German to obtain higher
education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of
leadership, the State must assume the
responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of
the people. The curricula of all
educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The
conception of the State Idea
(science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very
beginning. We demand that
specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or
occupation, be educated at the
expense of the State.

21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national
health by providing maternity
welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical
fitness through the introduction
of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible
encouragement of associations
concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a
national (folk) army.

23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who
propagate deliberate political lies
and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the
creation of a German press,
we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the
German language shall be
German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express
permission of the State.
They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German
newspapers shall be forbidden to
non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for
transgressing this law be the
immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the
non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be
suppressed. We demand legal
action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a
disruptive influence upon the life of
our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing
demands shall be dissolved.

24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar
as they do not endanger its
existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive
Christianity without binding itself to any
one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist
spirit within and without, and is
convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about
from
                      The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis
of the principle of
self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of
other nations; and that the
Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our
people and the settlement of
our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only
those who have German
blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be
a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and
must be subject to the law of
aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the
State shall belong only to
citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever
nature, whether in the central
government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone
who is not a citizen.

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby
men are appointed to posts
by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that
every citizen shall have the
possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should
not be possible to feed the whole
population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the
Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand
that all non-Germans
who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to
leave the Reich
immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or
physically. No individual shall do any
work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit
of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from
work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood
and treasure, all personal profit
arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We
therefore demand the total
confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class,
the immediate
communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small
tradespeople, and the
strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders
shall deliver the supplies needed
by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national
requirements, and the
enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of
any land needed for the
common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of
all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the
injury of the common
welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with
death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of
the world, be replaced by
German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious
German to obtain higher
education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of
leadership, the State must assume the
responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of
the people. The curricula of all
educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The
conception of the State Idea
(science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very
beginning. We demand that
specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or
occupation, be educated at the
expense of the State.

21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national
health by providing maternity
welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical
fitness through the introduction
of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible
encouragement of associations
concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a
national (folk) army.

23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who
propagate deliberate political lies
and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the
creation of a German press,
we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the
German language shall be
German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express
permission of the State.
They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German
newspapers shall be forbidden to
non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for
transgressing this law be the
immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the
non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be
suppressed. We demand legal
action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a
disruptive influence upon the life of
our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing
demands shall be dissolved.

24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar
as they do not endanger its
existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive
Christianity without binding itself to any
one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist
spirit within and without, and is
convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from
within on the pinciple:

                 COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a
strong central authority in the
State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament
of the whole State and all its
organizations.

The formation of professional committees and of committees
representing the several estates of the
realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority
shall be carried out by the
federal states.

The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the
foregoing points at all costs, if
necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.

within on the pinciple:

                 COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a
strong central authority in the
State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament
of the whole State and all its
organizations.

The formation of professional committees and of committees
representing the several estates of the
realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority
shall be carried out by the
federal states.

The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the
foregoing points at all costs, if
necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.

Reply by Zarthania

Murderers should be given the death penalty immediatly after being
convicted of the crime.  What other alternatives are there that could
possibly help anyone?  We are paying taxes in order for them to live
in prison and go on with their lives as if nothing happened.  I've
heard alot of people say that they should stay alive and think about
what they've done.  If it truly bothered a person to murder, they
wouldn't do it.  Why are we spending all of this money for murderers
to live in prison where they get to interact with other criminals?
This is what they want.  A home where they can actually be surrounded
with people that they can relate to.  I also do not believe that
there is a special way of giving someone the death penalty to make it
right.  Why are we constantly looking for ways to make it better for
them?  Were they concerned with the pain that they would cause when
they commited the crime?  I believe that we show far too much
compassion for criminals.  Couldn't our tax money be going to better
causes?

Does the death penalty deter crime? The New York Times reports that
the twelve states that don't have capital punishment have, on the
whole, lower homicide rates than those that do. Texas, for example,
has put 144 murderers to death under the current governor –
fellow
named Bush – yet has a murder rate more than three times as high
as
gentle Massachusetts, which has no death penalty.
Conclusion? One pundit draws the moral: "Capital punishment fails to
deter." That doesn't follow. It may be that without the death
penalty
even more Texans would kill each other, and that with the death
penalty even fewer Massachuters, or what ever you call them, would
kill each other. We aren't talking about laboratory conditions
here.
Many factors may make the difference.

Penalties deter. That's why the government relies on them. If
there
were no penalty for failing to pay taxes, do you think revenues would
remain where they are? The Internal Revenue Service is based on the
assumption that fear is the best incentive for a taxpayer, and
liberals don't clamor for an end to its reign of terror: they
like
that part of government.

But is the death penalty different? Of course not. If you credibly
tell someone to do as you say or you'll kill him, he'll do as
you
say. It works at convenience stores.

A few years ago the Washington Post reported that the "war on drugs"
was hampered by the reluctance of witnesses to testify. Why? Because
they were afraid of the death penalty, as administered by drug
dealers. At least that death penalty deterred. Which didn't stop
the
Post's own columnists from insisting that the death penalty
doesn't
work.

The difference is that when drug dealers target you, you don't
get a
trial, a lawyer, and years of appeals, as you do when the government
charges you with murder. There was a time when state and local
governments meted out justice very swiftly. A murderer might be
hanged within days of committing his crime, just as a witness today
may be shot within hours of talking to the Feds.

You can't compare swift retribution with what even Texas
inflicts.
The 144 killers executed under George W. Bush were probably a small
fraction of the total number of killers in the state, and they had
probably committed their murders many years before he took office. As
murderers go, they were no doubt extremely vicious and very unlucky.
They may have gotten justice, but it was neither certain nor swift,
and in the end it probably came as a surprise. It's unlikely that
they expected to pay the ultimate price when they committed their
crimes, some of which must have occurred during the early 1970s, when
the U.S. Supreme Court had banned the death penalty. (It later
changed its mind, allowing capital punishment under certain
conditions.)

That's the point. If a killer doesn't expect to die for his
crime, he
may not be deterred, even if there is a death penalty on the books.
He presumably knows the odds. But if he felt it was very likely that
he would be arrested and swiftly put to death, he might think twice.

Opponents of the death penalty usually dodge the most basic question:
Does a murderer deserve to die? It's no use calling the death
penalty
barbaric, unfair, arbitrary, or uncertain until you've faced the
issue of simple justice. And most opponents don't want to talk
about
it. This makes their arguments merely sentimental.

My own view is that, other things being equal, a murderer richly
deserves to die. But you can say that and still believe that the
state shouldn't execute him. The state has amply proved, over the
centuries (and especially the twentieth century), that it can't
be
trusted with life-and-death power over anyone. It can't be
trusted
with other powers either: the power to draft soldiers, the power to
tax, the power to control the currency. It has abused every power
ever entrusted to it, and some of the men whose faces adorn our money
deserved the gallows.

The modern state is itself a criminal enterprise. And though the
death penalty is intrinsically just and does deter, we don't want
justice enforced by criminals.

Money is a crucial command post of any economy, and therefore of any
society. Society rests upon a network of voluntary exchanges, also
known as the "free-market economy"; these exchanges imply a division
of labor in society, in which producers of eggs, nails, horses,
lumber, and immaterial services such as teaching, medical care, and
concerts, exchange their goods for the goods of others. At each step
of the way, every participant in exchange benefits immeasurably, for
if everyone were forced to be self-sufficient, those few who managed
to survive would be reduced to a pitiful standard of living.


Direct exchange of goods and services, also known as "barter," is
hopelessly unproductive beyond the most primitive level, and indeed
every "primitive" tribe soon found its way to the discovery of the
tremendous benefits of arriving, on the market, at one particularly
marketable commodity, one in general demand, to use as a "medium"
of "indirect exchange." If a particular commodity is in widespread
use as a medium in a society, then that general medium of exchange is
called "money."


The money-commodity becomes one term in every single one of the
innumerable exchanges in the market economy. I sell my services as a
teacher for money; I use that money to buy groceries, typewriters, or
travel accommodations; and these producers in turn use the money to
pay their workers, to buy equipment and inventory, and pay rent for
their buildings. Hence the ever-present temptation for one or more
groups to seize control of the vital money-supply function.


Many useful goods have been chosen as moneys in human societies. Salt
in Africa, sugar in the Caribbean, fish in colonial New England,
tobacco in the colonial Chesapeake Bay region, cowrie shells, iron
hoes, and many other commodities have been used as moneys. Not only
do these moneys serve as media of exchange; they enable individuals
and business firms to engage in the "calculation" necessary to any
advanced economy. Moneys are traded and reckoned in terms of a
currency unit, almost always units of weight. Tobacco, for example,
was reckoned in pound weights. Prices of other goods and services
could be figured in terms of pounds of tobacco; a certain horse might
be worth 80 pounds on the market. A business firm could then
calculate its profit or loss for the previous month; it could figure
that its income for the past month was 1,000 pounds and its
expenditures 800 pounds, netting it a 200 pound profit.

Gold or Government Paper


Throughout history, two commodities have been able to outcompete all
other goods and be chosen on the market as money; two precious
metals, gold and silver (with copper coming in when one of the other
precious metals was not available). Gold and silver abounded in what
we can call "moneyable" qualities, qualities that rendered them
superior to all other commodities. They are in rare enough supply
that their value will be stable, and of high value per unit weight;
hence pieces of gold or silver will be easily portable, and usable in
day-to-day transactions; they are rare enough too, so that there is
little likelihood of sudden discoveries or increases in supply. They
are durable so that they can last virtually forever, and so they
provide a sage "store of value" for the future. And gold and silver
are divisible, so that they can be divided into small pieces without
losing their value; unlike diamonds, for example, they are
homogeneous, so that one ounce of gold will be of equal value to any
other.


The universal and ancient use of gold and silver as moneys was
pointed out by the first great monetary theorist, the eminent
fourteenth-century French scholastic Jean Buridan, and then in all
discussions of money down to money and banking textbooks until the
Western governments abolished the gold standard in the early 1930s.
Franklin D. Roosevelt joined in this deed by taking the United States
off gold in 1933.


There is no aspect of the free-market economy that has suffered more
scorn and contempt from "modern" economists, whether frankly statist
Keynesians or allegedly "free market" Chicagoites, than has gold.
Gold, not long ago hailed as the basic staple and groundwork of any
sound monetary system, is now regularly denounced as a "fetish" or,
as in the case of Keynes, as a "barbarous relic." Well, gold is
indeed a "relic" of barbarism in one sense; no "barbarian" worth his
salt would ever have accepted the phony paper and bank credit that we
modern sophisticates have been bamboozled into using as money.


But "gold bugs" are not fetishists; we don't fit the standard image
of misers running their fingers through their hoard of gold coins
while cackling in sinister fashion. The great thing about gold is
that it, and only it, is money supplied by the free market, by the
people at work. For the stark choice before us always is: gold (or
silver), or government. Gold is market money, a commodity which must
be supplied by being dug out of the ground and then processed; but
government, on the contrary, supplies virtually costless paper money
or bank checks out of thin air.


We know, in the first place, that all government operation is
wasteful, inefficient, and serves the bureaucrat rather than the
consumer. Would we prefer to have shoes produced by competitive
private firms on the free market, or by a giant monopoly of the
federal government? The function of supplying money could be handled
no better by government. But the situation in money is far worse than
for shoes or any other commodity. If the government produces shoes,
at least they might be worn, even though they might be high-priced,
fit badly, and not satisfy consumer wants.


Money is different from all other commodities: other things being
equal, more shoes, or more discoveries of oil or copper benefit
society, since they help alleviate natural scarcity. But once a
commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at
all is needed. Since the only use of money is for exchange and
reckoning, more dollars or pounds or marks in circulation cannot
confer a social benefit: they will simply dilute the exchange value
of every existing dollar or pound or mark. So it is a great boon that
gold or silver are scarce and are costly to increase in supply.


But if government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit
as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government,
as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly
and at will. As a result, this "inflation" of the money supply
destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples
economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings
of the market economy.


The natural tendency of government, once in charge of money, is to
inflate and to destroy the value of the currency. To understand this
truth, we must examine the nature of government and of the creation
of money. Throughout history, governments have been chronically short
of revenue. The reason should be clear: unlike you and I, governments
do not produce useful goods and services which they can sell on the
market; governments, rather than producing and selling services, live
parasitically off the market and off society. Unlike every other
person and institution in society, government obtains its revenue
from coercion, from taxation. In older and saner times, indeed, the
King was able to obtain sufficient revenue from the products of his
own private lands and forests, as well as through highway tolls. For
the State to achieve regularized, peacetime taxation was a struggle
of centuries. And even after taxation was established, the kings
realized that they could not easily impose new taxes or higher rates
on old levies; if they did so, revolution was very apt to break out.

Controlling the Money Supply


If taxation is permanently short of the style of expenditures desired
by the State, how can it make up the difference? By getting control
of the money supply, or, to put it bluntly, by counterfeiting. On the
market economy, we can only obtain good money by selling a good or
service in exchange for gold, or by receiving a gift; the only other
way to get money is to engage in the costly process of digging gold
out of the ground. The counterfeiter, on the other hand, is a thief
who attempts to profit by forgery, e.g., by painting a piece of brass
to look like a gold coin. If his counterfeit is detected immediately,
he does no real harm, but to the extent his counterfeit goes
undetected, the counterfeiter is able to steal not only from the
producers whose goods he buys. For the counterfeiter, by introducing
fake money into the economy, is able to steal from everyone by
robbing every person of the value of his currency. By diluting the
value of each ounce or dollar of genuine money, the counterfeiter's
theft is more sinister and more truly subversive than that of the
highwayman; for he robs everyone in society, and the robbery is
stealthy and hidden, so that the cause-and-effect relation is
camouflaged.


Recently, we saw the scare headline: "Iranian Government Tries to
Destroy U.S. Economy by Counterfeiting $100 Bills." Whether the
ayatollahs had such grandiose goals in mind is dubious;
counterfeiters don't need a grand rationale for grabbing resources by
printing money. But all counterfeiting is indeed subversive and
destructive, as well as inflationary.


But in that case, what are we to say when the government seizes
control of the money supply, abolishes gold as money, and establishes
its own printed tickets as the only money? In other words, what are
we to say when the government becomes the legalized, monopoly
counterfeiter?


Not only has the counterfeit been detected, but the Grand
Counterfeiter, in the United States the Federal Reserve System,
instead of being reviled as a massive thief and destroyer, is hailed
and celebrated as the wise manipulator and governor of
our "macroeconomy," the agency on which we rely for keeping us out of
recessions and inflations, and which we count on to determine
interest rates, capital prices, and employment. Instead of being
habitually pelted with tomatoes and rotten eggs, the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board, whoever he may be, whether the imposing Paul
Volcker or the owlish Alan Greenspan, is universally hailed as Mr.
Indispensable to the economic and financial system.


Indeed, the best way to penetrate the mysteries of the modern
monetary and banking system is to realize that the government and its
central bank act precisely as would a Grand Counterfeiter, with very
similar social and economic effects. Many years ago, the New Yorker
magazine, in the days when its cartoons were still funny, published a
cartoon of a group of counterfeiters looking eagerly at their
printing press as the first $10 bill came rolling off the
press. "Boy," said one of the team, "retail spending in the
neighborhood is sure in for a shot in the arm."


And it was. As the counterfeiters print new money, spending goes up
on whatever the counterfeiters wish to purchase: personal retail
goods for themselves, as well as loans and other "general welfare"
purposes in the case of the government. But the
resulting "prosperity" is phony; all that happens is that more money
bids away existing resources, so that prices rise. Furthermore, the
counterfeiters and the early recipients of the new money bid away
resources from the poor suckers who are down at the end of the line
to receive the new money, or who never even receive it at all. New
money injected into the economy has an inevitable ripple effect;
early receivers of the new money spend more and bid up prices, while
later receivers or those on fixed incomes find the prices of the
goods they must buy unaccountably rising, while their own incomes lag
behind or remain the same. Monetary inflation, in other words, not
only raises prices and destroys the value of the currency unit; it
also acts as a giant system of expropriation of the late receivers by
the counterfeiters themselves and by the other early receivers.
Monetary expansion is a massive scheme of hidden redistribution.


When the government is the counterfeiter, the counterfeiting process
not only can be "detected"; it proclaims itself openly as monetary
statesmanship for the public weal. Monetary expansion then becomes a
giant scheme of hidden taxation, the tax falling on fixed income
groups, on those groups remote from government spending and subsidy,
and on thrifty savers who are naive enough and trusting enough to
hold on to their money, to have faith in the value of the currency.


Spending and going into debt are encouraged; thrift and hard work
discouraged and penalized. Not only that: the groups that benefit are
the special interest groups who are politically close to the
government and can exert pressure to have the new money spent on them
so that their incomes can rise faster than the price inflation.
Government contractors, politically connected businesses, unions, and
other pressure groups will benefit at the expense of the unaware and
unorganized public.

Banking is a particularly arcane part of the economic system; one of
the problems is that the word "bank" covers many different
activities, with very different implications. During the Renaissance
era, the Medicis in Italy and the Fuggers in Germany, were "bankers";
their banking, however, was not only private but also began at least
as a legitimate, non-inflationary, and highly productive activity.
Essentially, these were "merchant-bankers," who started as prominent
merchants. In the course of their trade, the merchants began to
extend credit to their customers, and in the case of these great
banking families, the credit or "banking" part of their operations
eventually overshadowed their mercantile activities. These firms lent
money out of their own profits and savings, and earned interest from
the loans. Hence, they were channels for the productive investment of
their own savings.

To the extent that banks lend their own savings, or mobilize the
savings of others, their activities are productive and
unexceptionable. Even in our current commercial banking system, if I
buy a $10,000 CD ("certificate of deposit") redeemable in six months,
earning a certain fixed interest return, I am taking my savings and
lending it to a bank, which in turn lends it out at a higher interest
rate, the differential being the bank's earnings for the function of
channeling savings into the hands of credit-worthy or productive
borrowers. There is no problem with this process.

The same is even true of the great "investment banking" houses, which
developed as industrial capitalism flowered in the nineteenth
century. Investment bankers would take their own capital, or capital
invested or loaned by others, to underwrite corporations gathering
capital by selling securities to stockholders and creditors. The
problem with the investment bankers is that one of their major fields
of investment was the underwriting of government bonds, which plunged
them hip-deep into politics, giving them a powerful incentive for
pressuring and manipulating governments, so that taxes would be
levied to pay off their and their clients' government bonds. Hence,
the powerful and baleful political influence of investment bankers in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: in particular, the
Rothschilds in Western Europe, and Jay Cooke and the House of Morgan
in the United States.

By the late nineteenth century, the Morgans took the lead in trying
to pressure the U.S. government to cartelize industries they were
interested in--first railroads and then manufacturing: to protect
these industries from the winds of free competition, and to use the
power of government to enable these industries to restrict production
and raise prices.


In particular, the investment bankers acted as a ginger group to work
for the cartelization of commercial banks. To some extent, commercial
bankers lend out their own capital and money acquired by CDs. But
most commercial banking is "deposit banking" based on a gigantic
scam: the idea, which most depositors believe, that their money is
down at the bank, ready to be redeemed in cash at any time. If Jim
has a checking account of $1,000 at a local bank, Jim knows that this
is a "demand deposit," that is, that the bank pledges to pay him
$1,000 in cash, on demand, anytime he wishes to "get his money out."
Naturally, the Jims of this world are convinced that their money is
safely there, in the bank, for them to take out at any time. Hence,
they think of their checking account as equivalent to a warehouse
receipt. If they put a chair in a warehouse before going on a trip,
they expect to get the chair back whenever they present the receipt.
Unfortunately, while banks depend on the warehouse analogy, the
depositors are systematically deluded. Their money ain't there.

An honest warehouse makes sure that the goods entrusted to its care
are there, in its storeroom or vault. But banks operate very
differently, at least since the days of such deposit banks as the
Banks of Amsterdam and Hamburg in the seventeenth century, which
indeed acted as warehouses and backed all of their receipts fully by
the assets deposited, e.g., gold and silver. This honest deposit
or "giro" banking is called "100 percent reserve" banking. Ever
since, banks have habitually created warehouse receipts (originally
bank notes and now deposits) out of thin air. Essentially, they are
counterfeiters of fake warehouse-receipts to cash or standard money,
which circulate as if they were genuine, fullybacked notes or
checking accounts. Banks make money by literally creating money out
of thin air, nowadays exclusively deposits rather than bank notes.
This sort of swindling or counterfeiting is dignified by the
term "fractional-reserve banking," which means that bank deposits are
backed by only a small fraction of the cash they promise to have at
hand and redeem. (Right now, in the United States, this minimum
fraction is fixed by the Federal Reserve System at 10 percent.)

Fractional Reserve Banking


Let's see how the fractional reserve process works, in the absence of
a central bank. I set up a Rothbard Bank, and invest $1,000 of cash
(whether gold or government paper does not matter here). Then I "lend
out" $10,000 to someone, either for consumer spending or to invest in
his business. How can I "lend out" far more than I have? Ahh, that's
the magic of the "fraction" in the fractional reserve. I simply open
up a checking account of $10,000 which I am happy to lend to Mr.
Jones. Why does Jones borrow from me? Well, for one thing, I can
charge a lower rate of interest than savers would. I don't have to
save up the money myself, but simply can counterfeit it out of thin
air. (In the nineteenth century, I would have been able to issue bank
notes, but the Federal Reserve now monopolizes note issues.) Since
demand deposits at the Rothbard Bank function as equivalent to cash,
the nation's money supply has just, by magic, increased by $10,000.
The inflationary, counterfeiting process is under way.

The nineteenth-century English economist Thomas Tooke correctly
stated that "free trade in banking is tantamount to free trade in
swindling." But under freedom, and without government support, there
are some severe hitches in this counterfeiting process, or in what
has been termed "free banking." First: why should anyone trust me?
Why should anyone accept the checking deposits of the Rothbard Bank?
But second, even if I were trusted, and I were able to con my way
into the trust of the gullible, there is another severe problem,
caused by the fact that the banking system is competitive, with free
entry into the field. After all, the Rothbard Bank is limited in its
clientele. After Jones borrows checking deposits from me, he is going
to spend it. Why else pay money for a loan? Sooner or later, the
money he spends, whether for a vacation, or for expanding his
business, will be spent on the goods or services of clients of some
other bank, say the Rockwell Bank. The Rockwell Bank is not
particularly interested in holding checking accounts on my bank; it
wants reserves so that it can pyramid its own counterfeiting on top
of cash reserves. And so if, to make the case simple, the Rockwell
Bank gets a $10,000 check on the Rothbard Bank, it is going to demand
cash so that it can do some inflationary counterfeit-pyramiding of
its own. But, I, of course, can't pay the $10,000, so I'm finished.
Bankrupt. Found out. By rights, I should be in jail as an embezzler,
but at least my phoney checking deposits and I are out of the game,
and out of the money supply.

Hence, under free competition, and without government support and
enforcement, there will only be limited scope for fractional-reserve
counterfeiting. Banks could form cartels to prop each other up, but
generally cartels on the market don't work well without government
enforcement, without the government cracking down on competitors who
insist on busting the cartel, in this case, forcing competing banks
to pay up.

Central Banking


Hence the drive by the bankers themselves to get the government to
cartelize their industry by means of a central bank. Central Banking
began with the Bank of England in the 1690s, spread to the rest of
the Western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and
finally was imposed upon the United States by banking cartelists via
the Federal Reserve System of 1913. Particularly enthusiastic about
the Central Bank were the investment bankers, such as the Morgans,
who pioneered the cartel idea, and who by this time had expanded into
commercial banking.

In modern central banking, the Central Bank is granted the monopoly
of the issue of bank notes (originally written or printed warehouse
receipts as opposed to the intangible receipts of bank deposits),
which are now identical to the government's paper money and therefore
the monetary "standard" in the country. People want to use physical
cash as well as bank deposits. If, therefore, I wish to redeem $1,000
in cash from my checking bank, the bank has to go to the Federal
Reserve, and draw down its own checking account with the
Fed, "buying" $1,000 of Federal Reserve Notes (the cash in the United
States today) from the Fed. The Fed, in other words, acts as a
bankers' bank. Banks keep checking deposits at the Fed and these
deposits constitute their reserves, on which they can and do pyramid
ten times the amount in checkbook money.

Here's how the counterfeiting process works in today's world. Let's
say that the Federal Reserve, as usual, decides that it wants to
expand (i.e., inflate) the money supply. The Federal Reserve decides
to go into the market (called the "open market") and purchase an
asset. It doesn't really matter what asset it buys; the important
point is that it writes out a check. The Fed could, if it wanted to,
buy any asset it wished, including corporate stocks, buildings, or
foreign currency. In practice, it almost always buys U.S. government
securities.

Let's assume that the Fed buys $10,000,000 of U.S. Treasury bills
from some "approved" government bond dealer (a small group), say
Shearson, Lehman on Wall Street. The Fed writes out a check for
$10,000,000, which it gives to Shearson, Lehman in exchange for
$10,000,000 in U.S. securities. Where does the Fed get the
$10,000,000 to pay Shearson, Lehman? It creates the money out of thin
air. Shearson, Lehman can do only one thing with the check: deposit
it in its checking account at a commercial bank, say Chase Manhattan.
The "money supply" of the country has already increased by
$10,000,000; no one else's checking account has decreased at all.
There has been a net increase of $10,000,000.

But this is only the beginning of the inflationary, counterfeiting
process. For Chase Manhattan is delighted to get a check on the Fed,
and rushes down to deposit it in its own checking account at the Fed,
which now increases by $10,000,000. But this checking account
constitutes the "reserves" of the banks, which have now increased
across the nation by $10,000,000. But this means that Chase Manhattan
can create deposits based on these reserves, and that, as checks and
reserves seep out to other banks (much as the Rothbard Bank deposits
did), each one can add its inflationary mite, until the banking
system as a whole has increased its demand deposits by $100,000,000,
ten times the original purchase of assets by the Fed. The banking
system is allowed to keep reserves amounting to 10 percent of its
deposits, which means that the "money multiplier"--the amount of
deposits the banks can expand on top of reserves--is 10. A purchase
of assets of $10 million by the Fed has generated very quickly a
tenfold, $100,000,000 increase in the money supply of the banking
system as a whole.

Interestingly, all economists agree on the mechanics of this process
even though they of course disagree sharply on the moral or economic
evaluation of that process. But unfortunately, the general public,
not inducted into the mysteries of banking, still persists in
thinking that their money remains "in the bank."

Thus, the Federal Reserve and other central banking systems act as
giant government creators and enforcers of a banking cartel; the Fed
bails out banks in trouble, and it centralizes and coordinates the
banking system so that all the banks, whether the Chase Manhattan, or
the Rothbard or Rockwell banks, can inflate together. Under free
banking, one bank expanding beyond its fellows was in danger of
imminent bankruptcy. Now, under the Fed, all banks can expand
together and proportionately.

"Deposit Insurance"

But even with the backing of the Fed, fractional reserve banking
proved shaky, and so the New Deal, in 1933, added the lie of "bank
deposit insurance," using the benign word "insurance" to mask an
arrant hoax. When the savings and loan system went down the tubes in
the late 1980s, the "deposit insurance" of the federal FSLIC [Federal
Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation] was unmasked as sheer fraud.
The "insurance" was simply the smoke-and-mirrors term for the
unbacked name of the federal government. The poor taxpayers finally
bailed out the S&Ls, but now we are left with the formerly sainted
FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], for commercial banks,
which is now increasingly seen to be shaky, since the FDIC itself has
less than one percent of the huge number of deposits it "insures."

The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one
insure an institution (fractional reserve banking) that is inherently
insolvent, and which will fall apart whenever the public finally
understands the swindle? Suppose that, tomorrow, the American public
suddenly became aware of the banking swindle, and went to the banks
tomorrow morning, and, in unison, demanded cash. What would happen?
The banks would be instantly insolvent, since they could only muster
10 percent of the cash they owe their befuddled customers. Neither
would the enormous tax increase needed to bail everyone out be at all
palatable. No: the only thing the Fed could do, and this would be in
their power, would be to print enough money to pay off all the bank
depositors. Unfortunately, in the present state of the banking
system, the result would be an immediate plunge into the horrors of
hyperinflation.

Let us suppose that total insured bank deposits are $1,600 billion.
Technically, in the case of a run on the banks, the Fed could
exercise emergency powers and print $1,600 billion in cash to give to
the FDIC to pay off the bank depositors. The problem is that,
emboldened at this massive bailout, the depositors would promptly
redeposit the new $1,600 billion into the banks, increasing the total
bank reserves by $1,600 billion, thus permitting an immediate
expansion of the money supply by the banks by tenfold, increasing the
total stock of bank money by $16 trillion. Runaway inflation and
total destruction of the currency would quickly follow.

Protectionism, often refuted and seemingly abandoned, has returned,
and with a vengeance. The Japanese, who bounced back from grievous
losses in World War II to astound the world by producing innovative,
high-quality products at low prices, are serving as the convenient
butt of protectionist propaganda. Memories of wartime myths prove a
heady brew, as protectionists warn about this new "Japanese
imperialism," even "worse than Pearl Harbor." This "imperialism"
turns out to consist of selling Americans wonderful TV sets, autos,
microchips, etc., at prices more than competitive with American firms.

Is this "flood" of Japanese products really a menace, to be combated
by the U.S. government? Or is the new Japan a godsend to American
consumers?

In taking our stand on this issue, we should recognize that all
government action means coercion, so that calling upon the U.S.
government to intervene means urging it to use force and violence to
restrain peaceful trade. One trusts that the protectionists are not
willing to pursue their logic of force to the ultimate in the form of
another Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Keep Your Eye on the Consumer

As we unravel the tangled web of protectionist argument, we should
keep our eye on two essential points: (1) protectionism means force
in restraint of trade; and (2) the key is what happens to the
consumer. Invariably, we will find that the protectionists are out to
cripple, exploit, and impose severe losses not only on foreign
consumers but especially on Americans. And since each and every one
of us is a consumer, this means that protectionism is out to mulct
all of us for the benefit of a specially privileged, subsidized
few—
and an inefficient few at that: people who cannot make it in a free
and unhampered market.

Take, for example, the alleged Japanese menace. All trade is mutually
beneficial to both parties—in this case Japanese producers and
American consumers—otherwise they would not engage in the
exchange.
In trying to stop this trade, protectionists are trying to stop
American consumers from enjoying high living standards by buying
cheap and high-quality Japanese products. Instead, we are to be
forced by government to return to the inefficient, higher-priced
products we have already rejected. In short, inefficient producers
are trying to deprive all of us of products we desire so that we will
have to turn to inefficient firms. American consumers are to be
plundered.

How To Look at Tariffs and Quotas

The best way to look at tariffs or import quotas or other
protectionist restraints is to forget about political boundaries.
Political boundaries of nations may be important for other reasons,
but they have no economic meaning whatever. Suppose, for example,
that each of the United States were a separate nation. Then we would
hear a lot of protectionist bellyaching that we are now fortunately
spared. Think of the howls by high-priced New York or Rhode Island
textile manufacturers who would then be complaining about
the "unfair," "cheap labor" competition from various low-
type "foreigners" from Tennessee or North Carolina, or vice versa.

Fortunately, the absurdity of worrying about the balance of payments
is made evident by focusing on inter-state trade. For nobody worries
about the balance of payments between New York and New Jersey, or,
for that matter, between Manhattan and Brooklyn, because there are no
customs officials recording such trade and such balances.

If we think about it, it is clear that a call by New York firms for a
tariff against North Carolina is a pure ripoff of New York (as well
as North Carolina) consumers, a naked grab for coerced special
privilege by less efficient business firms. If the 50 states were
separate nations, the protectionists would then be able to use the
trappings of patriotism, and distrust of foreigners, to camouflage
and get away with their looting the consumers of their own region.

Fortunately, inter-state tariffs are unconstitutional. But even with
this clear barrier, and even without being able to wrap themselves in
the cloak of nationalism, protectionists have been able to impose
inter-state tariffs in another guise. Part of the drive for
continuing increases in the federal minimum-wage law is to impose a
protectionist devise against lower-wage, lower-labor-cost competition
from North Carolina and other southern states against their New
England and New York competitors.

During the 1966 Congressional battle over a higher federal minimum
wage, for example, the late Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY) freely
admitted that one of his main reasons for supporting the bill was to
cripple the southern competitors of New York textile firms. Since
southern wages are generally lower than in the north, the business
firms hardest hit by an increased minimum wage (and the workers
struck by unemployment) will be located in the south.

Another way in which interstate trade restrictions have been imposed
has been in the fashionable name of "safety." Government-organized
state milk cartels in New York, for example, have prevented
importation of milk from nearby New Jersey under the patently
spurious grounds that the trip across the Hudson would render New
Jersey milk "unsafe."

If tariffs and restraints on trade are good for a country, then why
not indeed for a state or region? The principle is precisely the
same. In America s first great depression, the Panic of 1819, Detroit
was a tiny frontier town of only a few hundred people. Yet
protectionist cries arose—fortunately not fulfilled—to
prohibit
all "imports" from outside of Detroit, and citizens were exhorted to
buy only Detroit. If this nonsense had been put into effect, general
starvation and death would have ended all other economic problems for
Detroiters.

So why not restrict and even prohibit trade, i.e., "imports," into a
city, or a neighborhood, or even on a block, or, to boil it down to
its logical conclusion, to one family? Why shouldn t the Jones family
issue a decree that from now on, no member of the family can buy any
goods or services produced outside the family house? Starvation would
quickly wipe out this ludicrous drive for self-sufficiency.

And yet we must realize that this absurdity is inherent in the logic
of protectionism. Standard protectionism is just as preposterous, but
the rhetoric of nationalism and national boundaries has been able to
obscure this vital fact.

The upshot is that protectionism is not only nonsense, but dangerous
nonsense, destructive of all economic prosperity. We are not, if we
were ever, a world of self-sufficient farmers. The market economy is
one vast latticework throughout the world, in which each individual,
each region, each country, produces what he or it is best at, most
relatively efficient in, and exchanges that product for the goods and
services of others. Without the division of labor and the trade based
upon that division, the entire world would starve. Coerced restraints
on trade—such as protectionism—cripple, hobble, and destroy
trade,
the source of life and prosperity. Protectionism is simply a plea
that consumers, as well as general prosperity, be hurt so as to
confer permanent special privilege upon groups of less efficient
producers, at the expense of more competent firms and of consumers.
But it is a peculiarly destructive kind of bailout, because it
permanently shackles trade under the cloak of patriotism.

The Negative Railroad

Protectionism is also peculiarly destructive because it acts as a
coerced and artificial increase in the cost of transportation between
regions. One of the great features of the Industrial Revolution, one
of the ways in which it brought prosperity to the starving masses,
was by reducing drastically the cost of transportation. The
development of railroads in the early 19th century, for example,
meant that for the first time in the history of the human race, goods
could be transported cheaply over land. Before that, water—rivers
and
oceans—was the only economically viable means of transport. By
making
land transport accessible and cheap, railroads allowed interregional
land transportation to break up expensive inefficient local
monopolies. The result was an enormous improvement in living
standards for all consumers. And what the protectionists want to do
is lay an axe to this wondrous principle of progress.

It is no wonder that Frederic Bastiat, the great French laissez-faire
economist of the mid-19th century, called a tariff a "negative
railroad." Protectionists are just as economically destructive as if
they were physically chopping up railroads, or planes, or ships, and
forcing us to revert to the costly transport of the past—mountain
trails, rafts, or sailing ships.

"Fair" Trade

Let us now turn to some of the leading protectionist arguments. Take,
for example, the standard complaint that while the
protectionist "welcomes competition," this competition must
be "fair." Whenever someone starts talking about "fair competition"
or indeed, about "fairness" in general, it is time to keep a sharp
eye on your wallet, for it is about to be picked. For the
genuinely "fair" is simply the voluntary terms of exchange, mutually
agreed upon by buyer and seller. As most of the medieval scholastics
were able to figure out, there is no "just" (or "fair") price outside
of the market price.

So what could be "unfair" about the free-market price? One common
protectionist charge is that it is "unfair" for an American firm to
compete with, say, a Taiwanese firm which needs to pay only one-half
the wages of the American competitor. The U.S. government is called
upon to step in and "equalize" the wage rates by imposing an
equivalent tariff upon the Taiwanese. But does this mean that
consumers can never patronize low-cost firms because it is "unfair"
for them to have lower costs than inefficient competitors? This is
the same argument that would be used by a New York firm trying to
cripple its North Carolina competitor.

What the protectionists don t bother to explain is why U.S. wage
rates are so much higher than Taiwan. They are not imposed by
Providence. Wage rates are high in the U.S. because American
employers have bid these rates up. Like all other prices on the
market, wage rates are determined by supply and demand, and the
increased demand by U.S. employers has bid wages up. What determines
this demand? The "marginal productivity" of labor.

The demand for any factor of production, including labor, is
constituted by the productivity of that factor, the amount of revenue
that the worker, or the pound of cement or acre of land, is expected
to bring to the brim. The more productive the factory, the greater
the demand by employers, and the higher its price or wage rate.
American labor is more costly than Taiwanese because it is far more
productive. What makes it productive? To some extent, the comparative
qualities of labor, skill, and education. But most of the difference
is not due to the personal qualities of the laborers themselves, but
to the fact that the American laborer, on the whole, is equipped with
more and better capital equipment than his Taiwanese counterparts.
The more and better the capital investment per worker, the greater
the worker s productivity, and therefore the higher the wage rate.

In short, if the American wage rate is twice that of the Taiwanese,
it is because the American laborer is more heavily capitalized, is
equipped with more and better tools, and is therefore, on the
average, twice as productive. In a sense, I suppose, it is not "fair"
for the American worker to make more than the Taiwanese, not because
of his personal qualities, but because savers and investors have
supplied him with more tools. But a wage rate is determined not just
by personal quality but also by relative scarcity, and in the United
States the worker is far scarcer compared to capital than he is in
Taiwan.

Putting it another way, the fact that American wage rates are on the
average twice that of the Taiwanese, does not make the cost of labor
in the U.S. twice that of Taiwan. Since U.S. labor is twice as
productive, this means that the double wage rate in the U.S. is
offset by the double productivity, so that the cost of labor per unit
product in the U.S. and Taiwan tends, on the average, to be the same.
One of the major protectionist fallacies is to confuse the price of
labor (wage rates) with its cost, which also depends on its relative
productivity.

Thus, the problem faced by American employers is not really with
the "cheap labor" in Taiwan, because "expensive labor" in the U.S. is
precisely the result of the bidding for scarce labor by U.S.
employers. The problem faced by less efficient U.S. textile or auto
firms is not so much cheap labor in Taiwan or Japan, but the fact
that other U.S. industries are efficient enough to afford it, because
they bid wages that high in the first place.

So, by imposing protective tariffs and quotas to save, bail out, and
keep in place less efficient U.S. textile or auto or microchip firms,
the protectionists are not only injuring the American consumer. They
are also harming efficient U.S. firms and industries, which are
prevented from employing resources now locked into incompetent firms,
and who could otherwise be able to expand and sell their efficient
products at home and abroad.

"Dumping"

Another contradictory line of protectionist assault on the free
market asserts that the problem is not so much the low costs enjoyed
by foreign firms, as the "unfairness" of selling their
products "below costs" to American consumers, and thereby engaging in
the pernicious and sinful practice of "dumping." By such dumping they
are able to exert unfair advantage over American firms who presumably
never engage in such practices and make sure that their prices are
always high enough to cover costs. But if selling below costs is such
a powerful weapon, why isn t it ever pursued by business firms within
a country?

Our first response to this charge is, once again, to keep our eye on
consumers in general and on American consumers in particular. Why
should it be a matter of complaint when consumers so clearly benefit?
Suppose, for example, that Sony is willing to injure American
competitors by selling TV sets to Americans for a penny apiece.
Shouldn t we rejoice at such an absurd policy of suffering severe
losses by subsidizing us, the American consumers? And shouldn t our
response be: "Come on, Sony, subsidize us some more!" As far as
consumers are concerned, the more "dumping" that takes place, the
better.

But what of the poor American TV firms, whose sales will suffer so
long as Sony is willing to virtually give their sets away? Well,
surely, the sensible policy for RCA, Zenith, etc. would be to hold
back production and sales until Sony drives itself into bankruptcy.
But suppose that the worst happens, and RCA, Zenith, etc. are
themselves driven into bankruptcy by the Sony price war? Well, in
that case, we the consumers will still be better off, since the
plants of the bankrupt firms, which would still be in existence,
would be picked up for a song at auction, and the American buyers at
auction would be able to enter the TV business and outcompete Sony
because they now enjoy far lower capital costs.

For decades, indeed, opponents of the free market have claimed that
many businesses gained their powerful status on the market by what is
called "predatory price-cutting," that is, by driving their smaller
competitors into bankruptcy by selling their goods below cost, and
then reaping the reward of their unfair methods by raising their
prices and thereby charging "monopoly prices" to the consumers. The
claim is that while consumers may gain in the short run by price
wars, "dumping," and selling below costs, they lose in the long run
from the alleged monopoly. But, as we have seen, economic theory
shows that this would be a mug s game, losing money for the "dumping"
firms, and never really achieving a monopoly price. And sure enough,
historical investigation has not turned up a single case where
predatory pricing, when tried, was successful, and there are actually
very few cases where it has even been tried.

Another charge claims that Japanese or other foreign firms can afford
to engage in dumping because their governments are willing to
subsidize their losses. But again, we should still welcome such an
absurd policy. If the Japanese government is really willing to waste
scarce resources subsidizing American purchases of Sony s, so much
the better! Their policy would be just as self-defeating as if the
losses were private.

There is yet another problem with the charge of "dumping," even when
it is made by economists or other alleged "experts" sitting on
impartial tariff commissions and government bureaus. There is no way
whatever that outside observers, be they economists, businessmen, or
other experts, can decide what some other firm s "costs" may
be. "Costs" are not objective entities that can be gauged or
measured. Costs are subjective to the businessman himself, and they
vary continually, depending on the businessman s time horizon or the
stage of production or selling process he happens to be dealing with
at any given time.

Suppose, for example, a fruit dealer has purchased a case of pears
for $20, amounting to $1 a pound. He hopes and expects to sell those
pears for $1.50 a pound. But something has happened to the pear
market, and he finds it impossible to sell most of the pears at
anything near that price. In fact, he finds that he must sell the
pears at whatever price he can get before they become overripe.
Suppose he finds that he can only sell his stock of pears at 70 cents
a pound. The outside observer might say that the fruit dealer has,
perhaps "unfairly," sold his pears "below costs," figuring that the
dealer s costs were $1 a pound.

"Infant" Industries

Another protectionist fallacy held that the government should provide
a temporary protective tariff to aid, or to bring into being,
an "infant industry." Then, when the industry was well-established,
the government would and should remove the tariff and toss the
now "mature" industry into the competitive swim.

The theory is fallacious, and the policy has proved disastrous in
practice. For there is no more need for government to protect a new,
young, industry from foreign competition than there is to protect it
from domestic competition.

In the last few decades, the "infant" plastics, television, and
computer industries made out very well without such protection. Any
government subsidizing of a new industry will funnel too many
resources into that industry as compared to older firms, and will
also inaugurate distortions that may persist and render the firm or
industry permanently inefficient and vulnerable to competition. As a
result, "infant-industry" tariffs have tended to become permanent,
regardless of the "maturity" of the industry. The proponents were
carried away by a misleading biological analogy to "infants" who need
adult care. But a business firm is not a person, young or old.

Older Industries

Indeed, in recent years, older industries that are notoriously
inefficient have been using what might be called a "senile-industry"
argument for protectionism. Steel, auto, and other outcompeted
industries have been complaining that they "need a breathing space"
to retool and become competitive with foreign rivals, and that this
breather could be provided by several years of tariffs or import
quotas. This argument is just as full of holes as the hoary infant-
industry approach, except that it will be even more difficult to
figure out when the "senile" industry will have become magically
rejuvenated. In fact, the steel industry has been inefficient ever
since its inception, and its chronological age seems to make no
difference. The first protectionist movement in the U.S. was launched
in 1820, headed by the Pennsylvania iron (later iron and steel)
industry, artificially force-fed by the War of 1812 and already in
grave danger from far more efficient foreign competitors.

The Non-Problem of the Balance of Payments

A final set of arguments, or rather alarms, center on the mysteries
of the balance of payments. Protectionists focus on the horrors of
imports being greater than exports, implying that if market forces
continued unchecked, Americans might wind up buying everything from
abroad, while selling foreigners nothing, so that American consumers
will have engorged themselves to the permanent ruin of American
business firms. But if the exports really fell to somewhere near
zero, where in the world would Americans still find the money to
purchase foreign products? The balance of payments, as we said
earlier, is a pseudo-problem created by the existence of customs
statistics.

During the day of the gold standard, a deficit in the national
balance of payments was a problem, but only because of the nature of
the fractional-reserve banking system. If U.S. banks, spurred on by
the Fed or previous forms of central banks, inflated money and
credit, the American inflation would lead to higher prices in the
U.S., and this would discourage exports and encourage imports. The
resulting deficit had to be paid for in some way, and during the gold
standard era this meant being paid for in gold, the international
money. So as bank credit expanded, gold began to flow out of the
country, which put the fractional-reserve banks in even shakier
shape. To meet the threat to their solvency posed by the gold
outflow, the banks eventually were forced to contract credit,
precipitating a recession and reversing the balance of payment
deficits, thus bringing gold back into the country.

But now, in the fiat-money era, balance of payments deficits are
truly meaningless. For gold is no longer a "balancing item." In
effect, there is no deficit in the balance of payments. It is true
that in the last few years, imports have been greater than exports by
$150 billion or so per year. But no gold flowed out of the country.
Neither did dollars "leak" out. The alleged "deficit" was paid for by
foreigners investing the equivalent amount of money in American
dollars: in real estate, capital goods, U.S. securities, and bank
accounts.

In effect, in the last couple of years, foreigners have been
investing enough of their own funds in dollars to keep the dollar
high, enabling us to purchase cheap imports. Instead of worrying and
complaining about this development, we should rejoice that foreign
investors are willing to finance our cheap imports. The only problem
is that this bonanza is already coming to an end, with the dollar
becoming cheaper and exports more expensive.

We conclude that the sheaf of protectionist arguments, many plausible
at first glance, are really a tissue of egregious fallacies. They
betray a complete ignorance of the most basic economic analysis.
Indeed, some of the arguments are almost embarrassing replicas of the
most ridiculous claims of 17th-century mercantilism: for example,
that it is somehow a calamitous problem that the U.S. has a balance
of trade deficit, not overall, but merely with one specific country,
e.g., Japan.

Must we even relearn the rebuttals of the more sophisticated
mercantilists of the 18th century: namely, that balances with
individual countries will cancel each other out, and therefore that
we should only concern ourselves with the overall balance? (Let alone
realize that the overall balance is no problem either.) But we need
not reread the economic literature to realize that the impetus for
protectionism comes not from preposterous theories, but from the
quest for coerced special privilege and restraint of trade at the
expense of efficient competitors and consumers. In the host of
special interests using the political process to repress and loot the
rest of us, the protectionists are among the most venerable. It is
high time that we get them, once and for all, off our backs, and
treat them with the righteous indignation they so richly deserve.

In our official mythology, Winston Churchill, even more than Franklin
Roosevelt, still symbolizes the epic struggle against tyranny in
World War II. But correction of this myth is long overdue.
Before and during the war, Roosevelt fawned on Joseph Stalin, to whom
he delivered most of Central Europe as the spoils of victory. Far
from reciprocating this adulation, Stalin cold-bloodedly took full
advantage of Roosevelt's gullibility. Roosevelt's admirers,
somewhat
embarrassed at his obsequious appeasement of the Soviet tyrant,
prefer to say delicately that he "misjudged" Stalin.

Churchill, on the other hand, enjoys a more unsullied reputation,
especially among anti-Communists, since he lived to revert to his pre-
war anti-Communism and warned (albeit a little late in the day)
against the "Iron Curtain" that had fallen across Europe.

But in his obsessive hatred of Germany, which long predated the rise
of Adolf Hitler, Churchill forgot the evil of Communism and in fact
rivaled Roosevelt in his eagerness to please Stalin. When Hitler and
Stalin joined to invade Poland in 1939, Churchill, who would become
prime minister in early 1940, directed all his wrath against Hitler;
Britain and France declared war on Germany, but not on the Soviet
Union, even when, the following year, Stalin grabbed the three Baltic
states and attacked Finland. A particular antipathy to Germany, not
the principle of the security of small nations, was clearly
Churchill's ruling motive.

Before the war Stalin had already slaughtered millions, far more than
Hitler would kill during the war itself. Churchill, like Roosevelt,
chose to ignore this; and when Hitler turned on Stalin in June 1941,
Churchill welcomed Stalin as an ally without reservation.

When Germany defeated and conquered France in 1940, driving the
British back across the Channel, Churchill refused to make peace;
since Britain was no match for Germany, this could only mean that he
intended to draw the United States into the war, which he proceeded
to do, with Roosevelt's secret cooperation. The two men conspired
to "force an incident" (as Churchill put it) in the North Atlantic
that would compel the reluctant U.S. Congress to declare war on
Germany; their plot failed, but, happily for them, the Japanese
bombing of Pearl Harbor achieved the desired result.

Early in the war Churchill approved the Lindemann Plan of terror-
bombing civilians as a matter of policy. He lied to Parliament about
this, insisting the civilian casualties in German cities had been
accidental victims of bombs aimed at military targets; later he would
disclaim any part in the destruction of Dresden: "I thought the
Americans did it." The full truth was revealed only long after the
war.

Throughout the war Churchill praised Stalin in fulsome terms. In 1944
he spoke of "deep-seated changes which have taken place in the
character of the Russian state and government" and "the new
confidence which has grown in our hearts toward Stalin." This
wasn't
mere public rhetoric. To his wife he wrote: "I have had very nice
talks with the old Bear. I like him the more I see him. Now they
respect us & I am sure they wish to work with us." Like Roosevelt,
Churchill had a pathetic desire to be liked by Stalin – and a
consequent reluctance to cross him by denying him his wishes.
Churchill even agreed to the massive deportations of civilians and
the use of Germans for slave labor after the war! In all their
dealings it was Stalin, not Churchill, who displayed an iron will.

At the Yalta Conference of 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to
turn Poland over to Stalin in exchange for a promise that he would
permit free elections, never mind his partnership in Poland's
rape in
the first place. As for guarantees, the word of their drinking
buddy "Uncle Joe" was good enough for them.

After the war Churchill admitted that "we lie in the grip of even
worse perils than those we have surmounted." Only in hindsight did he
perceive what the scorned "isolationists" had foreseen from the
first.

Hero of the twentieth century? The historian Ralph Raico offers a
sterner judgment: "Winston Churchill was a man of blood and a
politico without principle, whose apotheosis serves to corrupt every
standard of honesty and morality in politics and history."

When last we left, our hero was explaining that government is
perfectly analogous to an abusive man. Politicians convince us that
we need them, that they are the source of our self-worth. And this is
why we tolerate their uninterrupted record of lying, cheating,
stealing, and killing.

The only way an abused woman can fix her life is to have the courage
to admit that she has not simply been "unlucky in love." She must
admit that her lack of self-esteem causes her to be attracted to
those who mistreat her. Above all else, she must stop making excuses
for the scoundrels that abuse her.

"Oh, but he sent me flowers on my birthday!"

Doesn't matter. He beats you.

"Oh, he said he was sorry, and that it will never happen again. This
time, he was sincere. I just know it."

Bunk. He says that every time, and every time he is lying. He will
beat you again.

"But I'm so lonely. Men don't think I'm pretty. If I
leave him, I
might be alone forever."

No you won't. You don't need him. Stop making excuses.

"He said he loved me."

He is lying. He knows that's what he needs to say in order to
maintain his power over you. He is incapable of loving anyone but
himself.

"Why are you being so mean to me? How dare you say it is my fault!
You think I want men to hit me? Can't you just acknowledge how
awful
my life is and comfort me? You are being very insensitive to my
situation!"

Tough. You have dug yourself into such a hole that only stern counsel
will pull you out of it. If I tell you it's not your fault, that
maybe the next guy will be nice, I will be doing you a disservice,
because you are not seeing the underlying problem.

And so on.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------



Now most women have the self-respect to understand the tragic
foolishness of the abused woman who makes arguments like the ones
above. Now, just for fun, let's consider some of the political
heroes
of American women.

Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy does not give a s--- about women. He makes speeches about
equal opportunity, etc. because that's what he needs to say in
order
to maintain his power over you (and all Americans). He literally let
a girl drown. Stop making excuses for him. Someone who does that (and
philanders) has nothing but contempt for women, because they are so
gullible and giving. Ted Kennedy learned how to lie to women from the
old pros in his family.

(Of course, many women readers were with me until that last
line. "Now he's gone too far! JFK was a wonderful man!"

Bunk. How many times did he make his wife cry? Does a wonderful man
do that? Stop making excuses. You're in love with him because he
was
handsome, said exactly what you wanted to hear after being treated so
badly by previous politicians, and, above all, because he had power.

And don't tell me he was a great president. Name one thing he
actually did. Bay of Pigs? Yeah, that was sheer brilliance on his
part.)

Oh, but we need Ted Kennedy, right? Without him, abortion rights
might be taken away.

And who takes away abortion rights? The government. People from the
Christian Coalition can't force your daughter into a back alley.
But
the police can.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is a corrupt liar. No, I am not afraid of powerful or
intelligent women. I am afraid of powerful, evil, cunning women (and
men) who want to run my life.

"I voted for Hillary because of what she went through. That poor
woman."

Let me get this straight: Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman in
the world, and she had no idea that her husband was a pathological
cheater? If her judgment is that horrible, do we want her running our
health care system? Won't she believe every promise made by
devious
HMOs?

She cares for children? Then why did she choose to have a child with
a scoundrel like Bill Clinton?

Hillary Clinton is either incredibly stupid or incredibly evil. I
vote for the latter.

Janet Reno

This one should be the easiest of all. Get ready, ladies: Janet Reno
literally burned children alive. The government used chemical weapons
against the Branch Davidians that have been banned in international
warfare. Photos of the Waco aftermath show the charred remains of
young children (too small for gas masks) whose backs were broken when
the gas caused their muscles to seize up.

Oh, but Reno was just trying to save them from their abusive parents,
Bob! Stop being so mean and insensitive!

Stop making excuses, ladies. Your heroes have been lying to you this
whole time. You do not need them.

Yes, men are pigs. That's why when you give them the power to
start
wars, they use it.

Yes, men are pigs. But I've got another truism for you:

Government Is Evil.

My New Year's Resolution was to quit trying to be so cute all the
time and just say what I mean. Well, I can hardly cease being cute,
as the reader can well imagine, but at the very least I can indulge
myself in less subtlety at the innocent reader's expense.
Consequently, no ambiguous title for this article; I will state the
truth without resort to my usual attempts at alliteration.

So some black woman journalist is on the O'Reilly Factor Friday
night, talking about Jesse Jackson's "tragedy." Now this lady is
supposed to be representing minorities and women, right? She is the
self-declared champion of their cause. And what does she do? Does she
shake her head in shame, and lament that the temptations of power and
money have corrupted yet another noble soul?

Of course not. She just stresses over and over that Jackson's
lifetime record contains far more good than bad. Okay, at this point
I'm still not even listening to her. But then my ears perk up,
because she says something along the following lines:

"I've known the Jackson family for over 30 years, Mr.
O'Reilly, and I
can tell you this: that child will be loved."

Now I don't know this lady, but I'll bet she whines about
what awful
role models gangsta rappers are for the disadvantaged youths in this
wicked country. Yet she has no qualms condoning Jackson. Isn't
she "sending a message" to kids that fathering a child out of wedlock
is acceptable, so long as you apologize and make a speech showing how
much you "care" about the latest hot button issue?

I'll bet she buys into the nauseating claim that Ronald Reagan
made
us "comfortable with our greed." Isn't Jackson making us
comfortable
with our rate of illegitimacy? You think racism makes a ghetto kid
turn into a drug dealer? How about the fact that the only person
setting any standards in this kid's life is a teenager herself
who
believed some worthless unemployed sweet-talker when he told her he
loved her? Oh, no Bob, it's all good; there's no need for
mature
parents. The ghetto kid'll learn how to behave in society at the
lovely public schools that all of the "caring" people provide for him.

Right now the conservative reader is guffawing. "So true! So true!
Those idiot liberals can't see how hypocritical their leaders
are.
Clinton didn't even do anything for blacks; he just said a bunch
of
nice stuff. And whenever Bill Clinton or some other icon fails to
deliver anything tangible, the dumb liberals make excuses for him and
blame it on the Republicans."

Guess what, fellas, you do the exact same thing. Oooh! George W. is
one of us! We've been waiting for eight years to rid Washington
of
these clowns, and now we can get some work done. Of course, Bush
can't implement anything really important; it's because he
has to
compromise with those damn Democrats! That's why most of his
wonderful tax cuts are to be phased in down the road. If Bush had his
way, we'd get all of our money back right now….

Right, and I'm Cyndi Lauper. Does anyone think Bush doesn't
know what
happened at Waco, right next door to his ranch? Then why isn't he
doing anything about it? "Oh, he is Bob! Why, look at his support for
gun rights. And besides, those damn Democrats won't let him
prevent
another federal massacre. Believe me, he wants to dismantle the FBI
and BATF."

Or how about the Linda Chavez debacle? The conservative spin was that
she was being attacked for her "compassion." No, she was being
attacked for the same reason the Republicans go nuts whenever a
Democratic nominee gets caught with a skeleton in the closet.

My personal favorite is listening to Rush Limbaugh instruct us that
he knows George W. – hell, he shot a few rounds with the guy! And
Rush assures us that W. is a bona fide conservative; we mustn't
waver
in our trust simply because of W.'s apparent concessions, which
are
merely strategic retreats. Well gee, I'm sold, Rush. Where do I
sign
up?

You conservatives are baffled at how the liberals can support a lying
robot like Gore. Don't you realize that the liberals are just as
baffled that you can support a silver spoon idiot who did blow and
drove drunk?

(Yes, I know – W. is no idiot. That is a façade just as phony
as
Clinton's. I'm not saying he intentionally mangles words, but
you
don't become the most powerful person in the world unless you are
cunning. And he certainly does not present himself as cunning.)

Harry Browne had a great commercial in which he compared big
government to an abusive man. (When I first saw it, I was pissed
– I
had independently thought of the same analogy. Don't you just
hate it
when you come up with a good anarchist argument and somebody scoops
you?)

Politicians tell us how much they care about us, then inevitably get
caught lying or cheating or stealing. But they say they're really
sorry. So we forgive them. Then they do it again. They apologize. We
forgive them. Sometimes they treat us so badly, that we dump them for
good. But the next politician we fall for is just as much of a jerk.
And so the cycle continues.

(Incidentally, I am not making any claim to understanding how women
think. All I've really figured out so far is that constant
sarcasm
and megalomania do not constitute a good way to earn their affection.
I'll keep you posted if I discover anything else.)

Now why does the abused woman keep falling for the jerks? Because she
has no self-esteem. She settles for someone who only cheats on her
occasionally, or only hits her when he's been drinking (and never
in
front of the kids – he's not that bad!). In a perfect world,
of
course, he would be Prince Charming, but we have to accept people for
who they are, right? And besides, she thinks, she is so unattractive
or unintelligent that she doesn't deserve a better man.

Well guess what, folks? Humans have fallen for government. We have
lost our self-esteem; we simply do not believe humans can treat each
other with civility. We tell ourselves it's "human nature" that
causes wars. Sure, in a perfect world, there would be no famines, but
we have to accept reality, right?

Nope. Governments start wars, not civilians. Murder is no
more "natural" and thus inevitable than dying from hunger or
tuberculosis. As a society, we can take definite steps to greatly
reduce the incidence of all of these things. It's true, we
mustn't
proceed through "scientific" management of human affairs, but rather
allow the free market system to foster civilized behavior.

(Ever notice that famines never happen in the capitalist countries?
When the US gets hit with a drought, the news features some
impoverished farmers. When a socialist country gets hit with a
drought, people start dying in droves.)

Uh oh, now I will be lectured that I am a naïve utopian who needs
to
get into the real world. Sure, freedom looks good in my silly little
thought experiments, but the sensible layperson looks at history, not
my fantasyland of pure laissez-faire.

Okay, I am willing to throw out theory and just let history speak for
itself. Let's look at the record of governments. The more
powerful
they've grown, the more terrible are their crimes. The worst
depression to ever hit the United States occurred shortly after the
creation of the Federal Reserve – an institution the purpose of
which
is to micromanage the economy and thus dampen the vicissitudes of the
wild-cat free banking system. People are starving and executed in
socialist countries, while they are fat and lazy in capitalist ones.

Who exactly is espousing the ridiculous argument here? I am saying
that if we create an institution of systematic violence, and hand it
over to professional liars, bad things are going to happen. Where am
I being naïve again?

Just as recovery can only come when the abused woman stops denying
her own responsibility for her horrible life, so too will we stop
wars and famines only when we admit that humans have been living a
tremendous lie for thousands of years.

The truth is scary. It is simply awful that all of this suffering
around us is largely preventable. I understand that. But we must have
the courage to accept this truth, to stop the cycle.

We must admit that Government Is Evil.

It's the only ideological position that makes any sense, says Bob
Murphy

Throughout history, there have been countless arguments advanced to
support the State. None of them has been valid. This essay will
address a certain class of these arguments, whose sleight-of-hand
consists in a definitional trick. My purpose here is not to make the
positive case for pure laissez-faire, but merely to show that each
pro-government argument is a non sequitur.

Anarchy is the absence of government, both in political science and
everyday usage (it is the first definition given by Webster's,
e.g.).
Chaos, in the context of social science, refers to lawlessness, or
the absence of a relative degree of regularity in human affairs. (I
say a "relative degree" because, obviously, virtually all humans will
always obey the `rule' of, e.g., avoiding someone with
leprosy or not
slaughtering every female in sight. The `laws' to which
lawlessness
is opposed are generally meant to imply the sometimes irksome rules
necessary for a civil society.)

It should be immediately clear that anarchy and chaos are distinct
things; you can have anarchy without chaos (e.g. groups of humans
from the Stone Age – if you subscribe to evolutionary accounts)
and
you can have chaos without anarchy (e.g. the French Revolution, if
you subscribe to historical accounts). Any argument that conflates
anarchy and chaos is thus invalid.

Before proceeding, I ask the reader to indulge me in a brief
digression. People often chide me for calling myself an anarchist,
rather than a libertarian. The term anarchy conjures up images of
atheist nuts who go around throwing bombs. Wouldn't it be much
more
palatable to make appeals for liberty, rather than for anarchy?

Sure it would; but I'm not running for class president. (I tried
that
once. I had the funniest posters an eighth-grader ever designed, and
I posted them in the bathroom, where everyone would be sure to see!
The other kids peed on them. I didn't win. Is that why I'm so
bitter?)

Also, the statists have had quite a time of stealing labels. The good
guys used to be the "liberals." No longer. The good guys used to be
the ones championing ever more "rights" for the individual. No
longer. The very word liberty has been raped, and I have no doubt
that libertarian can be perverted to mean whatever the ruling class
wants it to mean.

Aside from the danger of devious usage, there is also the legitimate
distinction that must be made between those who advocate a "night
watchman" state – which merely enforces property rights – and
those
who favor complete abolition of government. Many people of the former
group refer to themselves as libertarians. (They are inconsistent and
confused, of course, but that's okay. They'll come around.)

Thus, to avoid any possible confusion, I advocate anarchy, pure and
simple. (Also, it sounds tough to say you are an anarchist. Well, it
looks tough in print. It won't help you in a fight or anything.)

I should also mention that anarchy is not a good of itself; what I
really desire is the truly free society. It's just that, in my
opinion, only anarchy can achieve this. So, in terms of ethics or
morality, I would say the highest end is freedom. But in terms of
political science – dealing with forms of government – I
would say
the goal is anarchy. (To quote my friend's bumper sticker:
"There's
no government like no government.") This is somewhat analogous to the
approach of Friedrich Hayek, who believed in democracy as the best
means to a (relatively) free society. Although he was wrong in this
conclusion, he was not so naive as to worship democracy per se.

Lastly: Certain wise-alecks think they can refute my ideal
of "absolute freedom" with a flippant syllogism. One of my smug
conservative professors at Hillsdale College (which had a plaque in
the library espousing the ideal of "Ordered Liberty," which struck me
as akin to "Partial Pregnancy") offered an argument along the
following lines: You can't have absolute or total freedom,
because if
I'm free to kill you, then you can't be free to live.

This is the sort of strawman logic you expect from sophomore
philosophy majors (also prevalent at Hillsdale), which goes through
only on a twisted definition of freedom. Imagine the scene from Mad
Max, where Mel Gibson gets thrown into the cage to fight that huge
brute. (You know, when everyone starts chanting, "Two men enter, one
man leave!")

Now suppose the "referee" says to the combatants, "All right guys,
anything goes!"

My question: Would it be legitimate for Gibson, as he's getting
his
head smashed in, to complain to the ref: "Liar! You said anything
goes! I wanted to recite Hamlet!" Of course not. Yet this is
precisely the argument of my college professor.

So, when I say I desire a society of total freedom, I mean a society
where people respect the property of others. I do not mean the
physically impossible situation where two people both eat the same
piece of pizza, or where people have the "freedom" to jump over the
Moon.


Finally, on to my main point. One of the most frequent statist tricks
is the following: (1) The government assumes the responsibility of X.
(2) The government screws up horribly. (3) The government cites the
mess as proof of the necessity for government action.

(For example, after every plane crash, people demand the FAA gets
more funding. After the `accidental' bombing of the Chinese
Embassy,
an ex-CIA agent wrote an Op-Ed piece explaining that budget hikes
were necessary to update the maps. Imagine if Firestone, after the
recall fiasco, explained that it needed to raise its prices in order
to provide safer tires. I'm sure Ralph Nader would give them a
thumbs-
up.)

P.J. O'Rourke, in his funny book, Eat the Rich, has a chapter
called "Bad Capitalism," in which he says that a certain country
(Albania?) is the victim of a giant Ponzi scheme – i.e. you
can't
have too much economic freedom. Although O'Rourke doesn't
explain how
a Ponzi scheme can make the group as a whole poorer (the original
Ponzi, after all, got rich – that's why he started his
scheme), his
basic message is a good one, so I'm not too bothered by his
slight
error.

The same cannot be said for Ian Fisher, who wrote an August 10th
article for the NY Times entitled, "Somali Businesses Stunted by Too-
Free Enterprise." After detailing the thriving business competition
in Somalia, Fisher sadly relates:

What Somalia does not have is a government...[making] it the
world's
purest laboratory for capitalism. No one collects taxes. Business is
booming. Libertarians of the world, unite!

So it may come as a surprise that business people in Mogadishu, the
wrecked and lawless capital, are begging for a government. They would
love to be taxed and would gladly let politicians meddle at least a
bit in their affairs.

If everyone is willing to pay for protection services, what's
stopping them? Further, it's a bit fishy to describe a group of
warlords who use violent thugs to exact tribute as the absence of
government, since a government is, among other things, a group of
warlords who use violent thugs to exact tribute.

(I know, I know, the common argument against anarchy is that it would
entail the situation of warrior bands, and that I seem to be using a
definitional trick myself – but this article's already way
too long.
All I shall mention further on the Somalia example is this: Even if
it were the case that the Somalia situation can happen when we
overthrow "government," this alone would prove nothing. I can just as
well point to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and Pol
Potian Cambodia as examples of government gone bad. Take your pick.)

But the best comes from a recent haughty piece by that oh-so-clever
Paulina Borsook, who first quotes from her book, Cyberselfish:

Quiz: where would you want to do business in 2000? In Russia where
there's no regulation, no central government, no rule of law; or
in
Northern California where the roads are mostly well-paved and well-
patrolled and trucks and airplanes are safer than not...where people
mostly don't have to pay protection money, and the majority of
law-
enforcement personnel are not terribly corrupt or brutal?

This is classic. Now Russia is cited as an example of pure
capitalism? As a land of no central government?? Give me a break.
Borsook destroys her own argument by saying the law enforcement
personnel are not terribly corrupt or brutal. (We overlook what a
silly defense indeed it is to say, "The majority of people under my
proposed system will not be terribly corrupt or brutal.") By this she
is undoubtedly referring to the fact that relatively more police
officers in Russia are corrupt and brutal. Well then, we're not
dealing with anarchy, are we, Ms. Borsook?

(Oh yeah: People in California do pay protection money: They call it
T-A-X-E-S.)

Borsook then continues:

I will instead mention a recent nasty epidemic of food-poisoning that
just erupted at a Mexican restaurant in San Mateo county....Turns out
the restaurant hadn't been inspected in more than a year because
–
surprise! – it turns out budget cuts made it impossible to hire
enough health inspectors. But hey, government is the Great Satan and
we all believe in self-regulation and who needs taxes?

Again, I feel silly even pointing this out, but this sort of argument
is made over and over. Do you see what Borsook is trying to pull
here? She is ridiculing those who think the government does a bad job
regulating private industry. To demonstrate their error, she cites an
example of government doing a bad job regulating private industry.

Like I said, you hear this sort of argument anytime chaos erupts. So
Bob, you're opposed to government control, eh? Try telling that
to
the peasants in Colombia! Ho ho, Bob, you're for anarchy, eh? Why
don't you move to the Gaza Strip?

The Colombian case is exactly the same as Borsook's Mexican
restaurant. The Colombian government taxes its citizens in order to
provide police and legal services, and it fails miserably. We must
never confuse government's impotence with government's
absence.

And whatever else you want to call it – i.e. unwarranted
oppression
or legitimate defense of settlers – you certainly cannot describe
government soldiers shooting children as anarchy.

Are certain regions in chaos? Sure. In anarchy? I wish.

The pettiness! The pettiness! We are now at the stage where bitter
fighting erupts over the president-elect's nominees for cabinet
positions. Is John Ashcroft a racist? Did Linda Chavez illegally
employ an illegal immigrant in her home?

In Washington these questions are being treated as life-and-death
issues, preoccupying this power-obsessed city as questions of war and
peace or slavery and freedom once preoccupied our ancestors. If this
is what modern politics is all about, no wonder sensible people
ignore current events.

Squabbling has replaced debating. Unlike our ancestors, we don't
want
to discuss basic questions of political philosophy. Consider the
thoughtful economic columnist for Newsweek, Robert J. Samuelson. He
says he has generally opposed tax cuts: "The arguments against them
seemed overwhelming: the booming economy didn't need further
stimulating; the best use of rising budget surpluses was to pay down
the federal debt." But he has changed his mind: "A tax cut is now
common sense." We need it, he explains, to fight off a recession,
though he thinks George W. Bush's plan takes the wrong approach.

Samuelson speaks of "consumers" rather than individuals or citizens.
He thinks in terms of "the economy" and government management of it
rather than the principles of justice and property rights. He assumes
the goal of maximizing aggregate wealth rather than giving every man
his due.

In this he is, alas, all too typical of our time. The taxing power of
government is a given; there is no such thing as unjust taxation,
only tax rates so self-defeatingly high that the government itself
suffers along with "consumers."

I nearly wept, during the presidential campaign, when GWB said that
nobody should have to pay more than a third of his income in taxes.
It was the first time in ages that I'd heard a major political
figure
suggest that taxes may actually be unfair to the taxpayer. Suddenly I
knew how a slave picking cotton must have felt when he first heard
rumors of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Chattel slavery in this country was abolished in 1865 by the
Thirteenth Amendment. But tax slavery was instituted in 1913 by the
Sixteenth Amendment, which gave the federal government limitless
power to tax incomes. That is the chief reason most of us now work
nearly half the year just to pay taxes.

We are so inured to it that we don't raise the fundamental
questions:
By what right does government tax us in the first place? How much can
we be justly said to owe the government? Is there any point at which
taxation becomes tyrannical? And have we reached or passed that point?

It's tacitly assumed that a government has the right to tax as
much
as it chooses. Only pragmatic discretion limits government rapacity.
The taxpayer' s sole defense is an exceedingly feeble one: the
vote.
And that is offset by the fact that people who live off the taxpayer
can vote too.

Limitless taxation is the natural consequence of limitless
government. Spouses can be dumped, children can be aborted, parents
can be abandoned, but you can't divorce the state. It owns you.
It
may not take everything you have – even slaves have to be fed
– but
there is no defining line beyond which it recognizes taxation as
robbery. Knowing nothing of mine and thine, it's an enormous
parasite. Once it can take anything, it can take everything.

The irrationality, not to mention injustice, is appalling. The
taxpayer is charged trillions for "defense" he doesn't need,
"social
services" he doesn' t receive, and of course interest on a "debt"
he
didn't incur. Though his own tax "debt" is imposed without his
consent or contractual agreement, he is said to "owe" the government
whatever it demands of him.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is often quoted: "Taxes are the price we pay
for civilization." Then why don't higher taxes produce a higher
civilization? At one time most people assumed that chattel slavery
was necessary to civilization too, and would have thought it
foolhardy and utopian to abolish the institution. Others thought the
military draft was necessary to national survival. Given a chance,
experience proved otherwise.

Maybe someday Americans will wake up and realize that taxes are not
only excessive, but wrong in principle. And unnecessary – except
for
that part of the population that expects to be supported by others.

There are many curious aspects to the latest flag fracas. There is
the absurdity of the proposed change in our basic constitutional
framework by treating such minor specifics as a flag law. There is
the proposal to outlaw "desecration" of the American
flag. "Desecration" means "to divest of a sacred character or
office." Is the American flag, battle emblem of the U.S. government,
supposed to be "sacred"? Are we to make a religion of statolatry?
What sort of grotesque religion is that?

And what is "desecrate" supposed to mean? What specific acts are to
be outlawed? Burning seems to be the big problem, although the
quantity of flag- burning in the United States seems to be somewhere
close to zero. In fact, most flag burning occurs when patriotic
groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars
solemnly burn their worn-out American flags in the prescribed manner.

But if burning the flag is to be banned, are we to clap numerous
American Legion or VFW people in the hoosegow? Oh, you say that
intent is the crucial point, and that you want to outlaw hippie types
who burn U.S. flags with a sneer and a curse. But how are the police
supposed to figure out intent, and make sure that the majesty of the
law falls only upon hippie-sneerers, and spares reverent, saluting
Legionnaires?

But if the supporters of the proposed flag amendment are mired in
absurdity, the arguments of the opponents are in almost as bad a
shape. Civil libertarians have long placed their greatest stress on a
sharp difference between "speech" and "action," and the claim that
the First Amendment covers only speech and not actions (except, of
course, for the definite action of printing and distribution of a
pamphlet or book, which would come under the free press clause of the
First Amendment.)

But, as the flag amendment advocates point out, what kind of "speech"
is burning a flag? Isn't that most emphatically an action--and one
that cannot come under the free press rubric? The [p. 115] fallback
position of the civil libertarians, as per the majority decisions in
the flag cases by Mr. Justice Brennan, is that flag burning
is "symbolic" speech, and therefore, although an action, comes under
the free speech protection.

But "symbolic speech" is just about as inane as the "desecration"
doctrine of the flag-law advocates. The speech/action distinction now
disappears altogether, , and every action can be excused and
protected on the ground that it constitutes "symbolic speech."

Suppose, for example, that I were a white racist, and decided to get
me a gun and shoot a few blacks. But then I could say, that's OK
because that's only "symbolic speech," and political symbolic speech
at that, because I'm trying to make a political argument against our
current pro-black legislation.

Anyone who considers such an argument far-fetched should ponder a
recent decision by a dotty leftist New York judge to the effect that
it is "unconstitutional" for the New York subway authorities to toss
beggars out of the subway stations. The jurist's argument held that
begging is "symbolic speech," and expressive argument for more help
to the poor. Fortunately, this argument was overturned on appeal, but
still "symbolic arguers" are everywhere in New York, clogging streets
airports, and bus terminals.

There is no way, then, that flag laws can be declared
unconstitutional as violations of the First Amendment. The problem
with flag laws has nothing to do with free speech, and civil
libertarians have gotten caught in their own trap because they do in
fact try to separate speech and action, a separation that is
artificial and cannot long be maintained.

As in the case of all dilemmas caused by the free speech doctrine,
the entire problem can be resolved by focusing, not on a high-
sounding but untenable right to freedom of speech, but on the natural
and integral right to private property and its freedom of use. As
even famed First Amendment absolutist Justice Hugo Black pointed out,
no one has the free-speech right to burst into your home and harangue
you about politics.

"The right to freedom of speech" really means the right to hire a
hall and expound your views; the "right to freedom of press" (where,
as we have seen, speech and action clearly cannot be separated) means
the right to print a pamphlet and sell it. In short, free speech or
free [p. 116] press rights are a subset, albeit an important one, of
the rights of private property: the right to hire, to own, to sell.

Keeping our eye on property rights, the entire flag question is
resolved easily and instantly. Everyone has the right to buy or weave
and therefore own a piece of cloth in the shape and design of an
American flag (or in any other design) and to do with it what he
will: fly it, burn it, defile it, bury it, put it in the closet, wear
it, etc. Flag laws are unjustifiable laws in violation of the rights
of private property. (Constitutionally, there are many clauses in the
Constitution from which private property rights can be derived.)

On the other hand, no one has the right to come up and burn your
flag, or someone else's. That should be illegal, not because a flag
is being burned, but because the arsonist is burning your property
without your permission. He is violating your property rights.

Note the way in which the focus on property rights solves all
recondite issues. Perhaps conservatives, who proclaim themselves
defenders of property rights, will be moved to reconsider their
support of its invasion. On the other hand, perhaps liberals,
scorners of property rights, might be moved to consider that cleaving
to them may be the only way, in the long run, to insure freedom of
speech and press.