In other news, watching Notre Dame get embarrassed by LSU will be a lot of fun

Grab your cup of coffee, or if I finish this that late in the day, your favorite adult beverage, have a seat, and prepare to see the world through a bunch of cranky libertarians’ eyes…

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Phil for Humanity starts us off with A Solution for Politicians. I’ve got a couple to add, mostly in the same frame of mind as the joke starting with “What do you call 20,000 politicians at the bottom of the ocean”, but Phil’s already touched on my voting strategy this November: anti-incumbent.

To solve this problem, I believe that we should re-elect no one. No person should be allowed to run for a political position while being in a political office. As a result, politicians will be more connected to the outside world since they will periodically be the outsiders, and this would leave plenty of room for new politicians with new ideas and noble goals to take office. Therefore, career politicians will become a thing of the past and political corruption should decrease.

Please remember on election day: RE-ELECT NO ONE!

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The esteemed Peter Porcupine, a founding father born about 200 years too late, asks Should Talk Be Cheap? Considering that Hahhvahhd is inviting a humanitarian sure to win a Nobel Prize for peace in the near future, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, there will undoubtedly be state-provided protection for Khatami. While it’s certainly Hahhvahhd’s right to bring in whoever they would like to speak, who should foot the bill? Internalize the externality, Hahhvahhd. How do you like dem apples?

Gov. Romney has had heads of state visit before, and must know the cost of the security details incumbent upon such an operation. Porcupine suggests that he present his alma mater, Harvard University, with an invoice, payable in advance, for these services and thus take the burden entirely away from the taxpayers for the school’s repellent misjudgment.

Porcupine is certain that Harvard and its endowment will be pleased to foot the bill for what the university is pleased to refer to as, “the tradition of the free exchange of ideas that is a central part to the life of the University.” Perhaps the school will learn that not all exchanges are free.

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Cody Herche Legal Redux looks at 9/11: a place in the law. Whether we like it or not, whether the changes follow the limits proscribed in the Constitution, or whether those changes are long-term benefits to our world, law changes. Typically those changes in laws are responses to major changes in society or major events like war. Cody looks at some of the ways that 9/11 impacted this process, and how the law has changed as a result:

While there are several other events that have dramatically impacted the way laws are administered both here at home and abroad, the above serves as a suitable introduction to the 9/11 terror attacks.

As we near the 5th anniversary, the “wood anniversary” for all my guy readers, we should pause to reflect on the legacy the infamous attacks have left on our legal system. How is the law different today because of 9/11 and the resulting War on Terror?

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The big doing of the blogosphere for the 5-year anniversary of 9/11 was the honoring of the 2,996 folks who died in the attacks. Taking part was Tracy Coenen of Sequence, Inc., who profiles John Patrick Tierney, a firefighter who lost his life that day:

Johnny was a new firefighter, with only 8 months on the job. He graduated from the academy in July 2001, and his new assignment with Ladder Company 9 in Manhattan began only six weeks before the tragedy. His mother said that he wanted to be assigned to Manhattan “to be where it’s busy and he could learn the job and really get out there.”

While still on probationary status, Johnny had his five minutes of fame. He was pictured in a newspaper fighting a fire in Queens. This was Johnny’s first fire.

On September 11, Johnny was finishing a night shift with Engine 33, that was to end at 9:00 a.m. He was supposed to go home, but was so dedicated to his job that he stayed to help. He jumped onto a fire truck that was so crowded as it headed toward the World Trade Center, he had to sit on another firefighter’s lap.

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Mapmaster of The London Fog tells us about Pro-poverty activism in public education. It seems that in Ontario, a new school popped up to “instill a passion for social justice and humanitarianism in the students”. They don’t teach you basic logic and history, because that might make you understand that a passion for social justice and humanitarianism is a lot less likely than individual freedom and capitalism to generate positive results. And in publick edukashun, we’re all stuck paying for it, and not only with our dollars:

If parents want their children to have a facile and fruitless education in this sort of mindlessly celebratory dalliance with a pop-lite expression of a criminal ideology, I am defenseless. But not only am I and every other Ontarian forced to directly subsidize this fantastic debasement and enervation of children’s minds through the publicly-funded education system but we will also be condemned to subsidize just as directly their future NGO or civil service aspirations or else otherwise unemployable welfare prospects. Of the cost to civil society and political conversation in this country, it is incalculable and will exact far greater tolls than only taxes.

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Lisa, also of The London Fog, brings you the next group of authoritarians looking to control you for your own good, with The Obesity Messiahs. In addition to pointing out how taxes on fatty foods actually hurt the poor by making it less likely that they can even afford to eat, she puts her finger squarely on the nature of government. Create a problem trying to fix a problem, try to fix that problem while creating new ones, and so on and so forth:

From the government’s perspective, it is more “cost-effective” to increase taxes on shit that people actually want, while at the same time forcing taxpayers to subsidize tofu and granola consumption. And if the sugar farmers suffer from the increased taxes on sugary food, they too will be eligible for subsidies, just like the tobacco farmers. As for “after-school physical” activity, why not just devote even more of the school day to jumping-jacks? So long as the marginalized minority is the minority, they are entitled to more rights than the majority.

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The Atlantic Review gives us a snippet of the Speech of Hope, which “set the course for American-German relations 60 years ago”. After WWII, the question of what would happen with a nation who had started two World Wars in a short period of time was brewing. Some were worried about the future of Germany, and the “Speech of Hope” helped to calm the noise:

Some critics argue that there is a dearth of gratitude in Germany for America’s monumental support for the country’s reconstruction. I think that gratitude is not only ubiquitous but a vital component of postwar German identity. Yet in recent years some Germans have forgotten what America is — a land of diversity and debate, of writers and innovators, of checks and balances – and that it deserves a measure of confidence in turn.

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Over at The Liberty Papers, I relayed a story about a coworker and his roommate. If The Government Won’t, Who Will? is the story of a debate over gay marriage. It highlights a classic mistake, where people on the left act as if the government is the provider of our rights, not the protector of those rights. We don’t need government to recognize marriage at all, but that’s a difficult point to get across:

But his roommate just simply could not see it. She could not understand that a marriage could be a marriage without a license from the government. She could not understand that society doesn’t require government to stick its grubby fingers into every one of our institutions to give them some sort of legitimacy. This sort of blindness is one of the major barriers to people moving towards small government. They’ve lived with government intrusion deep into their personal affairs for so long that they can’t even imagine life without it.

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One Man Bandwidth: An American Professor in China tells us about an editorial cartoon depicting Chinese President Hu Jintao, resulting in the cartoonist being fired. It could be worse, though, this may be a sign of progress. Years ago, his punishment would be much more severe…

A few months ago I was altering a picture of Mao in Photoshop. I thought it would be funny to bald my friend Geoff and have him presiding over Tiananmen square in Beijing. But, when Ms. Yue caught sight of my laptop in Starbucks she let out an uncharacteristic shriek. She implored me to erase the photo right away. She was genuinely concerned that I might publish the shot and subsequently get deported or. worse yet, jailed for my transgression. I did not know, but it should have been clear to me, that defacing a cultural icon (manufactured or not) was beyond taboo.

A cartoonist after he drew a weeping Chinese President Hu Jintao, learned the same lesson this week the hard way: According to Reuters Kuang Biao’s cartoon HERE of a weeping Hu replying to a letter of the daughter of a mainland professor who died of overwork (aged 48) caught the eye of PRC censors and the reaction was not as benign as Ms Yue’s response to my screw-up. He was summarily sacked.

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PurpleSlog, responding to one of the things that is also my own pet peeve, tells us Democracy != Elections, Modern Democracies are… and gives us a list. While I’d take issue with using the word “democracy”, as the principle of majority rule makes it ambiguous, it is clear that modern free nations have elements much wider than simply voting to describe their society. Telling us why we should promote the nation-state he describes as a democracy, he gives us these points:

* Democracies don’t fight each other (Democratic Peace concept)
* Democracies don’t mass enslave/murder their citizens (Death by Government concept)
* Democracy gives individuals their best chance at achieving their personal goal, whether those are economic, entrepreneurial, familiar, artistic, etc. (maximizing human potential and return on human capital)
* Democracy enables prosperity
* Democracies are future focused and constantly getting better at the above.

In a second post, he outlines SLOE/Future, giving a template to any politician who wants his vote:

Security –> from bad guys: transnational, national and local

Liberty –> free to organize and associate etc as one wants (includes religion, contracts, etc)

Opportunity –> all humans should have lots of opportunities to achieve there potential (opportunity creating stuff = good stuff)

Enrichment –> of wealth, knowledge, experience etc, for all members of ones community (local, national, global). All humans should be uplifted by the exercise of liberty and opportunity maximization

Future Oriented –> No status Quo! I want 200 year life spans, cheap limitless energy, asteroid mining, orbital communities and mars settlements – a better future of all humanity!

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The Ogre highlights another attempt by government to get their hands on the internet, with his post The ADA Screws Some More. In an effort to ensure fairness and accomodation to all of humanity’s creatures, a Federal Judge has said that the Americans with Disabilities Act should apply to web sites… Great… Next they’ll be trying to protect the Illegal Immigrants with Disabilities…

That’s right, all the “accomodations” that are required by the ADA that often crush competition, destroy freedom, and force private companies to go out of business are now supposed to apply to the internet. Government is really angry that they don’t have control over the internet, and they’re doing all they can to GET control.

In this one specific issue, the complaintant is actually crying and whining because one company’s web site doesn’t have alternate text for some images. For those who don’t know much about web stuff, that’s an element of a tag — when you use the IMG tag, you’re “supposed” to include a section that says ALT=”imagename” or something. And now, according to this judge, if you do not include it, you’re in violation of the ADA and subject to huge fines.

The ADA: yet another horrible law that does nothing more than grow government and crush freedom. Well, the case is being overseen by a San Francisco Federal judge — and they absoultely despise anything to do with freedom.

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Stephen Littau from Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds remembers 9/11 with Never Forgive, Never Forget. Stephen takes a look at today’s political climate, wondering how we ever got to a point where we are so divided over the prospect of fighting terrorism. As much as I hate to say this, I think that many Americans have forgotten, and that it may be tough to keep our resolve without another attack occurring. Stephen’s post is a great reminder to keep that from happening:

Well believe it. Welcome to the America of 2006. It’s an election year. It is a time when honest discussion on the threat of Islamofascism is nearly impossible. But you know something? Bin Laden’s henchmen did not care if they killed Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, or even other Muslims. These Islomofascists only wanted to kill Americans. I am certain that the passengers of United Flight 93 had a diversity of political opinions but they had one goal: to stop the hijackers from hitting their intended target. We should keep that in mind as we move forward.

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Greenman Tim from Walking the Berkshires gives us a history lesson in Patriotic Covers. After receiving some collectible material from his family, he posted with some pictures and descriptions of Civil War-era patriotic memorabilia. Good stuff, and I highly suggest you check it out.

NOTE: I left off an excerpt, because it would be out of context without the pictures.

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Hell’s Handmaiden tries to determine who will win The battle for the mind of North America by looking at the conflation of journalism, corporate media, and the government. He points to a corporate-sponsored YouTube sensation “Lonelygirl15″, a recent case of the government fueling anti-Castro propoganda through the media, and the ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11″ as examples of how powerful interests are trying to control information to mislead us. I’m reminded of a mantra I also once heard on TV: “Trust no one.”

NOTE: Again, the nature of the entry didn’t lend itself to an excerpt.

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Preparing for November, RG Combs of Combs Spouts Off tells us about The GOP’s Wrong Turn. He is feeling the worry that a lot of us are these days, after having watched the GOP leave their fiscal conservatism and expand their social conservatism, it’s tough to stomach voting for them as a party. But when it’s considered a vote against their opposition, it may just make sense:

Personally, I think a good portion of that turnaround isn’t due to anything the GOP did — it’s disgruntled Republicans looking at and listening to the country’s leading Democrats, and saying, “Whoa… are these folks for real?!?” — and then swallowing real hard and deciding that the good-for-nothing, unprincipled Republican who they had no use for a few weeks ago may be tolerable after all.

I can understand that. I hate that things are that way, but I can understand it. My best-case scenario for this November’s election is that the Republican base is just pissed enough to badly scare and chasten the GOP, and maybe get some of them listening to people like Sager (or even Gingrich) — but that we avoid having to live with Speaker Pelosi. [shudder]

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Similar to RG Combs above’s sentiments, Divided We Stand, United We Fall is a blog devoted to the prospect of divided government with All we are saying, is give divided government a chance. They even have a catchy hook!

Can’t you just imagine William Niskanen picking up a guitar and singing a duet with Yoko Ono while sitting on a bed in a Montreal Hotel: “Give divided government a chance”? Um. Nevermind. Neither can I. In the article Niskanen repackages and freshens some of his previous work on divided government. Ok… All Together Now! Take off those suit coats… Loosen those ties… Roll up those starched white shirt sleeves… Hands in the air, sway to the beat, lets hear it people! Sing along!:”All we are saaaying, is give divided government a chance.”

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Celebrating Constitution Day, Matt Barr of the Socratic Rhythm Method brings us a Constitutional Quiz! I’m going to have to warn you though, it’s actually quite difficult. I thought I knew a lot until I took a look at this quiz! Here’s a sample:

6. The General Welfare clause, according to the Supreme Court:

A. Has no legal force and effect, being part of the Preamble
B. Is a limitation on the power of Congress to spend on local projects
C. Authorizes New Deal-type legislation during widespread economic depression
D. Is an expansion of Congress’s powers enumerated in Article I

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Last, but not least, we have the snark and satire patrol. Ion Zwitter of Avant News tells us that there are still Nearly 21 Million Iraqis Not Yet Killed or Wounded. Heck, that’s like most of them, isn’t it?

“I think massaging the facts in this particular manner really helps put the whole so-called Iraqi insurgency, quagmire, civil war, catastrophic disaster or what-have-you into proper perspective,” Gerald Bulpuppit, spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld’s secret task force on fact massage, said. “What this says is that nearly 21 million Iraqis are doing very well, particularly if you discount the nearly universal absence of reliable food, fuel, water, electricity, government, security, or the extremely high likelihood of getting killed or kidnapped.”

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And that’s all she wrote. Tune in next week at One Man Bandwidth, a bit of a juxtaposition of the Carnival of Liberty being hosted from China!

A couple of good entries:

OK so I’m not really a cowboy gives us his thoughts on Tough Love. I highlight this because it has expressed some of the things I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. I wonder why it is that I look at all my friends who are on various mood-stabilizing drugs for anxiety, depression, etc, and yet somehow I’m the stable one who doesn’t. The only rationale I can find is that I was challenged my whole life. I was expected to perform, and when I didn’t, my parent’s disappointment tought me lessons. I think that one of the crucial flaws about my generation is that too few of us were ever challenged. Too few of us have had to taste the pain of failure, because parents and loved ones tried to shield it from us. When you do that, you only make things worse.

We accept that the immune system is strengthened by exposure to pathogens, that muscles only grow when stressed to their limit, that without gravity, bones do not grow strong. But far too many of us deny the importance of being pushed to one’s limits when it comes to personal growth.

The key to a child’s success is not their diversity training, their self esteem, or their ability to use large words. It isn’t in making them ‘feel loved’, or in the clothes they wear. It isn’t in being passed along to get a meaningless high school diploma. It won’t be found in a four year degree either. People will only realize their potential when their success is contingent upon their own efforts.

The second post that caught my eye was Matt Barr’s discussion on The most powerful man in the country, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Overall, it’s a very good post about the overreaching our Supreme Court has undertaken trying to right social wrongs where they have no jurisdiction. However, I do think there is one mistake:

Contrary to what I gather is popular belief, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Founding Persons didn’t sit around wondering what would happen if something went sideways and say, “I know! We’ll have a Supreme Court who can strike it down!” If it even occurred to them that the Supreme Court might be in a position someday where it could erase laws from state codes they had considered and validated 15 years earlier, they would have blinked a couple times at how ludicruous the hypo was but then noted that Congress could take away the Court’s appellate jurisdiction any old time it wanted. Checks and balances.

Unfortunately, this isn’t quite true. Judicial nullification of laws that were unconstitutional was widely considered to be a legitimate and inherent power of the judiciary. It wasn’t spelled out in the Constitution because it wasn’t considered something they needed to. I’ll agree with Matt that they likely didn’t think the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction extended to state rulings (at least until the 14th Amendment). Nor would they have looked favorably upon the idea that the Court can write rulings which compel the legislature to write legislation, or the way they’ve completely disregarded the plain meaning in their “interpretation”. But judicial nullification on Constitutional grounds is and was considered a legitimate and inherent exercise of judicial power.

Check it out over at the Socratic Rhythm Method.

Matt likes to present themes with the Carnival, and this week is a Fiona Apple theme. Each post is preceded by lyrics from a Fiona song, including a link to the actual song, which can be played. Very interesting. I’m sure Matt and his therapist have some things to discuss about Fiona Apple, but for the rest of us, it’s an excellent Carnival presentation.

Two posts stuck out in my reading:

Lisa at The London Fog is doing a little census civil disobediance up there in Canadia. It appears that the Canadians desire to know all sorts of arcane information about where Lisa lives, how much money she makes, how she raises her children (which I think she doesn’t have), etc etc. While I’m sure Lisa lives a tremendously interesting life, one which we could all learn a great deal from, I share her worry about providing such information to the government.

But “Wait!!”, you say, “that’s for those silly folks up in the Great White North”— or as I like to call it, America-Lite— “and we won’t have that here in the US!” Think again. We’ve got the American Community Survey. If you choose not to fill it out, the DOJ can fine you between $100 and $5000. You can be damned sure that if one of these packets show up at my door, it’s not being responded to by me. If people show up at my door looking for this information? That’s too bad, you’re not getting it.

Second is the Pubcrawler with The Death of the Electric Car. Two things about this post. First, he goes into a discussion of why electric cars currently aren’t cost-effective. Overall, this is a pretty good analysis, because even counting the range issues, there are battery-replacement issues, and the technology just isn’t quite mature enough yet. In addition, he does quite a bit to explain why it’s the private sector working to solve these problems, not the government, when everyone in the media is wondering why “the government” doesn’t do more. But I think the second part of his post, trying to compare the new Tesla electric car with normal cars, misses the point. I think Tesla Motors is not trying to make a car that is competitive with normal cars. They’re building toys. It’s an electric sports car, made for the super-rich. It may do a lot to help the technology progress, but it’s not intended to replace a family sedan, it’s intended to go into these guys’ garages.

One bit I found was this post about “Illegal” Music Downloading, in which he argues that downloading shouldn’t be illegal, just uploading. I guess we can just throw out all the laws we currently have against “possession of stolen goods”, huh?

I submitted my post over at The Liberty Papers, Patrick Henry on the Constitution. If you want to see what one of our eloquent founding fathers (and an anti-Federalist) had to say about the Constitution, head on over.

A few days later, the Life, Liberty, and Property blog community was born. Started by a small group of bloggers irate over one Supreme Court decision, the community has now bloomed. Now boasting nearly 150 members, it serves as one of the core forces in the blogosphere for mobilizing libertarians to act on issues affecting us. Perhaps Kelo may be our Stamp Act, and the egregious violation of what our entire country perceives as essential liberties will result in us gaining the strength to win those liberties back.

Shortly after the formation of the LLP community, we asked ourselves what more we could do to bring attention to the constant battles between freedom and government. At the time, we suggested hosting a blog Carnival, a place where each week’s best liberty-oriented posts would be collected. I was given the honor of hosting the first Carnival of Liberty, which we aptly posted on Independence day. I have again been given the honor of posting the anniversary edition. Kelo may have slipped below the radar, but the battles for liberty rage on, as we saw our Senate debating whether or not to take our rights to freedom of speech just last week. The anti-liberty forces have taken no rest, and thus we must not either.

I would like to take a moment to thank Eric and Quincy, without whom the LLP community would never have gotten off the ground. Unfortunately for us (although not for him), Eric had to stop blogging due to a grand new career. Quincy, too, has largely stopped blogging, although I’ve seen him leaving comments here or there. Thankfully, though, Doug has taken over the reins, and the LLP group is stronger than ever.

So without further ado, it’s time to light this firecracker!

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First, some shameless self-promotion. Last week, Doug highlighted one of of my posts in his presentation of the Carnival. That post was part 1 of 2, and part 2 is here: The Legitimacy of Government.

Next, I’m going to do the same as Doug. I had intended to follow strict chronological order with the posts, but this one deserved more. Matt Barr over at New World Man has a post titled Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor. I can honestly say that after 20-odd postings, this one hit me right between the eyes. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what the Founders really did. And about what I’m doing in life, now that I’m approaching 30. Apparently, Matt’s been thinking about the same things. It makes you wonder, what drives your life? The Founders had something, do you?

This really tells us why the Declaration should be celebrated as having the effect of independence without a treaty or a Constitution or whathaveyou. Better men than we pledged everything they had — a not inconsiderable amount of stuff, by the way — to the cause of indepenedence. Their fortunes, their honor, and really, their lives were forfeit if it didn’t work out. If we can look ahead 15 years and see an actual nation with a Constitution and a bicameral Congress and a President and all that, it’s because those men committed themselves to the cause on July 4th.

What cause have you committed yourself to lately? Immigration reform? Painting the map red? Supporting the emasculation of an Islamic jihad network? Peanuts. Make something, something that squares with and exalts the dignity of man, that makes generations, hundreds of millions, free and prosperous; and say that if you destroy this, you destroy me. Then you’re on the right track.

hell’s handmaiden gives us Shooting the Cat… yet again. It does appear, though, that no cats were harmed in the making of a wonderful post defending freedom for the sake of freedom:

Free people pay a price. Freedom demands it. A guilded cage is immensely safe. But those inside it are not free. A totalitarian system– xenophobic, locked away from the outside– can provide impressive protection for its people, but that protection is only from outside forces. That protection is not of liberties and there is no protection from government itself, which, if one recalls history, was a primary concern of our founders.

The Debt Free blog examines the issue of the United Nations gun-grabbing proclivities, in Should the United Nations Determine Your Civil Rights? Even if you’re for gun control, ask yourself if you want to accept that at the price of giving your freedom to the boys at Turtle Bay:

However, if you examine the big picture, you will come to the realization your personal feelings vis-a-vis the 2nd Amendment are missing the broader issue. The issue is weather or not we, as U.S. citizens, want unelected representatives of other nations deciding our fate in any measure.

Unwilling Self-Negation gives us an interesting piece of satire titled My Name is Aliya Ehteram & I am an Adulteress. I believe this is what is meant by the “honor” of being a Muslim woman?

Stephen Littau of Fearless Philosophy for Free Minds, who was one of the first LLP members after Kelo, gives us The State of Property Rights One Year Later. Unfortunately, it’s not that good. There are positive signs, but it is clear that government doesn’t want to give up this power.

Francois at The Radical Libertarian gives us the “What If” Disease. Francois is a market anarchist (about as radical as a libertarian can get), and takes on several of the statist criticisms of anarchy, which fall under the “what if?” category:

In short, the error of the statist arguments discussed above lie in their confusion between the state and agencies in a market anarchy. In a market anarchy, there can be no such thing as a state by definition. Individuals in a market anarchy, therefore, are subject to extremely different incentives, ones which are based on personal freedom and responsibility. This means that the total depravity and irresponsibility or the state cannot be imputed to such individuals.

One Man Bandwidth exposes the insanity of a still-unfree society in THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A PUBLIC EXECUTION TO START OFF AN EDUCATIONAL EVENT IN CHINA. I can’t say it any better than this:

Dave reports, via a Shanghai newspaper, that three drug dealers were executed yesterday after hearing their sentences read out in front of 1,300 Shanghai residents who were invited to a university campus to witness an object lesson on the ills of narcotics: Remember! Drugs don’t kill people, drug enforcement agents kill people.

Mensa Barbie interviews George Washington in The Interview: “Father of our Country”. The fact that we libertarians often need only revive the words of the Founding Fathers to construct an argument about modern issues shows just how forward-thinking those men were.

Dan Melson of Searchlight Crusade, who works in real estate, gives us another look at eminent domain in Kelo: One Year Later. With his knowledge of the real estate business, it puts into much better perspective just how badly the ordinary citizen gets screwed in the eminent domain game, and offers his suggestion on how to fix it:

Indeed, the point of this is to make it worthwhile for the condemning agency (or developer) to offer a good price for a voluntary sale. If they’re paying legal and evaluation expenses for both sides, not to mention employee time tracking and coordinating and documenting the necessity, and because of this, the suit’s victim can stop them from getting the property on the cheap, it becomes the most cost effective thing to do to offer a price where the owner will want to sell – voluntarily – in the first place.

Peter Porcupine takes aim at the writers for the man in tights with Truth, Justice, and the American Way. While Superman is now fighting for “all that stuff”, rather than the American Way, Peter Porcupine, explains cynically why that just might be appropriate:

So by all means, let’s bring our children to see another voice mocking the once noble ideal of Truth, Justice and ‘all that stuff’. Let us instill them at the earliest age possible with a sense of shame and stamp out any patriotism that they may feel. After all, that is the new American Way.

Sonja at The Atlantic Review tells us how folks are Importing the American Spirit of Civic Responsibility to Germany. While some view America as the haven for dog-eat-dog capitalism, others are starting to realize that we have a civic society, and in many cases without government support:

Defying traditional European prejudices, American society is not based purely on the survival of the fittest. Quite on the contrary: public engagement here is much more common, volunteer services for the underprivileged are diverse and creative, and public-private partnerships usually work more smoothly than in my home country. The Körber Foundation in Hamburg has set their minds on importing this spirit of civic responsibility to Germany with their competition called USable. Every round, overall prize money of $180,000 is awarded to good ideas and best practices people have picked up in the U.S. to be realized in Germany, too. There is also a special text competition.

Michael Hampton of the Homeland Stupidity blog explains how the Surgeon General clouds tobacco smoke issue. It appears that the actual report didn’t ever claim secondhand smoke to be anywhere near as dangerous as the Surgeon General claimed in his press conference. But since most people only read what the news media reports, it’s unclear whether he’ll get away with it. Michael does bring up a very important point, much like the statement that conventional wisdom is often wrong:

In his speech, Carmona spoke of the “scientific consensus” regarding secondhand smoke. Yet there is no such thing as scientific consensus. When someone says that phrase, they’re about to lie to you. Science does not work by consensus. It works by experiment. Either a hypothesis can be demonstrated to be true, or demonstrated to be false, or when neither is the case, more research is needed.

Jon Swift, in an beautiful display of snarkiness, suggests that we Declare Supreme Court Justices Enemy Combatants. After all, since some folks believe Bush can unilaterally declare people as enemy combatants, with no judicial oversight, where’s the problem. And if he does, how can these justices fight it?

Undoubtedly, these terrorist-sympathizing Justices will go to court in an attempt to fight being designated enemy combatants. But if the case makes its way up the Supreme Court, they will be forced to recuse themselves, allowing for the other four justices to uphold the ruling. Then these justices can be taken to Guantanamo or an undisclosed location and held until hostilities have ended; that is, when terrorism has been completely eliminated from the face of the Earth.

Lisa of The London Fog has submitted four posts this week. The New Truth Replaces the Old Truth, again, “They aren’t engineering society to anybody’s benefit” but their own, A Course In Miracles, and Publik edyoocashun.

Likewise, RG Combs of Combs Spouts Off has submitted two posts this week. First, he asks what might have happened: Financial privacy: what would Kerry do? It seems that the financial monitoring Kerry advocates is far stricter than those Bush implemented. Yet Bush is accused of violating civil liberties. Would the accusations come if Kerry were in office? Second, he points out that Reading Hamdan: now, that’s torture. It appears that it’s 185 pages of twisted logic. Which, with the house of cards our “living constitution” jurisprudence has become, isn’t a surprise.

Principled Discovery gives us a story about Something to Be Proud of. Not all occupations are identical, and sometimes the threat we protect people from is much greater than the threat they feel we bring:

But the summer of 1994 was the first time I remember feeling a strong sense of pride at my national heritage and the principles upon which our nation was founded. I was in a small suburb of West Berlin, just a brief walk from where the Berlin wall once stood. I opened up the Berliner Zeitung to find a full page spread thanking the American miitary as they prepared to withdraw from the American quadrant. America’s military presence had been continuous and visible since 1945, but we had never treated Germany like an occupied country. The harrassment, violence and even rape suffered by East Germans at the hands of the Soviet Union was unheard of in the American sector. Heartfelt memories of the Berlin airlift were shared. My friend’s parents told me of their fear when the Soviet Union first closed off Berlin. And tears welled in their eyes as they told of the arrival of the first packages. As America, an occupying military force, prepared its withdrawal, the people of Berlin thanked us for establishing and preserving their own liberty.

Doug of Below the Beltway, following up on several posts about the Flag, free speech, and flag-burning, and points out Congress’s Next Victim: Our Right To Contract. Congress wants to blast a hole in the ability of Homeowner’s associations from setting rules, in this case requiring an HOA to allow you to display a flag.

Over at the Liberty Corner, Tom Anger spends a little time Parsing the Vote on the “Flag Burning Amendment”. He wonders why it is that those 34 nay votes really chose to protect free speech. A few, he says, are clear, but quite a few may be motivated more by the desire to see flags burned than the desire to allow freedom of speech. Can you guess which ones?

I’m sure that many of the Democrats voted nay for the same valid reason as that of Senators Bennett and McConnell. But many others, I am equally certain, voted the way they did for one or both of these reasons:

—They can no longer find it in themselves to believe that America, in spite of its faults and mistakes, is better than its enemies.

—Their partisanship so consumes them that they oppose the Republican president’s efforts to defend America — of which the flag is a reminder.

I won’t name names. That’s an exercise for the reader.

In a post over at The Liberty Papers, I announced the opening of Brad’s Smoking and Bare-Knuckle Boxing Emporium!. I argued that when entering into private agreements on private property, some things that would be violate rights in the outside world become acceptable. I use this as a defense against the pro-smoking-ban crowd claiming injury on private property from cigarette use.

I think there’s another problem with that analogy. To go on with the “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose”, what if I wanted to start my own little “Fight Club”. I buy a little store, set up a boxing ring, and everyone who wants can come in and get into a fistfight.

Assault is illegal. But if I have consenting adults fighting in my ring, are anyones rights being violated? And if so, how is the sport of boxing (or football, or any other contact sport) any different? It’s true, it might not be knife-throwing, but I think there’s undoubtedly be the occasional injury in my “Fight Club”. And the normal rules, if I remember the movie correctly, is that you come to “Fight Club”, you fight; there are no spectators.

TF Stern reminds us of several unsung verses of the national anthem in his post First Verse Only, Please. While I’m not a believer, I agree with TF that the effort to “cleanse” our history of any mention of Christianity is not useful for anyone. TF brings up the “separation of church and state”, which he points out does not exist in our Constitution:

The separation of church and state which has been spoken of so forcefully by those who would deny our history is a stone wall being erected by those ungrateful reprobates who would deny our Father in Heaven credit for having established this great land, the author of liberty; it’s the stone wall in their hearts and minds, not one that is in the Constitution of the United States of America.

Carola over at deep qt has fled the urban for the suburban, and responds to those who thinks she lost her soul in the process with O My Suburbia. Without thinking she’s been replaced by a drone from the pod she mentioned, I’ll let her explain:

But sometimes, when I sit on the porch and watch the joggers, kids on bikes and old people out for strolls with equally old dogs, I shudder to think how sedentary and unhealthy demon Kar has made suburbanites. Take me for instance. Kar now carries me to my favorite supermarket. A local outlet of a vile mega chain. It’s several miles away and features a large stock and low prices. In urban days I shopped at another store with similar advantages. It too was several miles away. But then I walked or used public transportation. How I miss those bracing hikes through rough terrain with arms full of grocery bags. Made more exciting by the chance that the bottom of a bag might drop out. Who knew what might explode on the sidewalk and mingle with the existing impasto? A quart of milk? A jar of jam?

Doug, writing at The Liberty Papers, asks whether Thomas Jefferson was wrong, and that it is Mitt Romney who really knows The Source of Our Rights? You see, Romney said that rights are determined by majority rule. I guess that makes slavery alright, as long as enough people vote for it, right? Funny, though, both Doug and Jefferson might disagree:

If there is one idea fundamental to the American Republic, it is the idea that individual liberty derives not from the will of the majority — whether that be the majority of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusettes or a majority of the members of the Supreme Court — but is an inherent part of who we are. Individual rights do not need to be recognized by the state to exist, they exist because we are free human beings and if the state fails to recognize them it is the oppressor.

Tom Wright at the Wrightwing also takes on the Flag Burning debate. He pointed out the two previous times the constitution was used to deny rights, rather than protect them: the three-fifths compromise and the 18th Amendment:

Both of these attempts to restrict rights through the Constitution led to violence and death. It could be argued that Prohibition still does, through the never abandoned idea that simply banning something potentially harmful, can make society all better.

And last, but most certainly not least, The Bull Speaks provides his birthday wishes to the nation on July 4, 2006. It’s an apt way to end the 52nd Carnival of Liberty, the one-year anniversary of its inception, and the 230th Birthday of the true land of the free:

Just like they did in the Lexington Green on April 19th, 1775, for the following eight years, and for the two centuries since, Americans have willingly fought and died for Freedom. Let us not forget that we, too, once wore the yoke of Tyranny. We threw it off at great cost. Proving that Freedom is a worthy Cause cost us much more during the years from 1861 to 1865. Liberty was tried by fire – and was proved True. In 1917 we took that Truth to Europe. Again in 1941 we went to Europe, and to the Pacific, to fight for the Freedom of Mankind. Though those wars were won, the Fight for Liberty continued in Korea, Vietnam, the long Cold War, Kuwait, and today in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Forever Faithful, our Heroes continue to protect us and our Constitution from “All enemies, both Foreign and Domestic”. The Founding Fathers knew one Truth about the fight for Liberty most of us have long forgotten:

It is a fight that will never end.

Have a happy holiday, everyone. I’d point out that it’s more than just grilled food and cold beer, but you already knew that. And make sure to check out Homeland Stupidity next Tuesday, where the Carnival will be hosted.

Also interesting is Homeland Stupidity’s post, Make Mine Freedom. Michael embeds a 1948 propaganda short film from YouTube that you need to take a look at. Good stuff.

Next week, the Carnival will be coming back to The Unrepentant Individual. I hosted the first one, on July 4, 2005. This Tuesday, we celebrate our 1-year anniversary!

In the meantime, go check out the Carnival of Liberty, posted over at Indian Cowboy’s blog. It’s a lighter-than-usual week over there, so you should be able to power through the whole carnival. Go and read, or you’re a bad libertarian. After all, only dirty, smelly, hippie socialists don’t read the Carnival of Liberty!

Luckily, I was able to get this post, over at The Liberty Papers, done and posted before my clumsiness got the better of me. It looks back at history, asking whether politics today are any more nasty than the politics of the past. Check it out.

That post was included in the Carnival of Liberty #47, up today at the New World Man. I haven’t had a chance to go through and read everything over there yet (it’s a busy day), but I highly suggest you do so. He’s got an Indy 500 theme, to the extent that he even referenced the Purdue Marching Band with my post. I’m glad it wasn’t Notre Dame, or I’d have had to beat him senseless with a shillelagh. And, of course, with the Indy 500 theme, there are pictures of Danica Patrick throughout the post, so I really suggest you head over and visit!

In other news, I introduced my neighbor to homebrewing yesterday, as he brewed a basic IPA, and I brewed my Stone Ruination IPA Clone. He hasn’t even had a taste yet, but I think he’s hooked on this hobby!