The word Jefferson obliterated. (Alternative link if the WaPost link gives you trouble.)
Category: Resistance
Sometimes you need to say “no” to Big Brother
Can our Dear Leaders actually put a “kill switch” on the Internet? No doubt, they’d love to. No doubt, if uber-authoritarian Joe Lieberman has his way, they’ll set up a plan to do exactly that. But is it possible? Or is this just more wishful thinking from powermad damnfools who believe the Internet is “a series of tubes”? Denny Hansen, my editor at S.W.A.T. magazine, has asked me to write an article on that subject. I have opinions. But they’re of the “everybody has one” variety. I have a little bit of knowledge. But I know this blog is read…
Monday, I posted about Freedom Outlaws and was overwhelmed with intriguing responses. (I swear, this blog has the best comments section.) One surprise: Very few people objected when I added “Cockapoo” to the list of Outlaw types. True, long-time reader Jim B. accused me of insulting the adorable dogs. He may have a point there. And a couple of folks made cogent arguments against the Cockapoo strategy. But to my surprise, most seemed even to consider it not even an issue — and one person chimed in to proclaim his own Cockapoo identity. When RagnarDanneskjold asked whether the Mental Militia…
“Freedom Outlaw.” The term came up here a few days ago. It’ll arise again and again on this blog. If you’ve been hanging out in my vicinity for a few years, you probably know what I mean by it. If not, you might be puzzled or even offended by the notion that people who believe in freedom are (or should be) criminals. Thought I’d stop this morning and define some terms. So this is mostly for people who haven’t heard it all before. A Freedom Outlaw is (loosely) somebody who cares so much about freedom that he or she will…
So. You think government’s a joke? In Iceland, they know it is. “Two lessons from a rogue ex-cop.” Love that Barry Cooper. “A casino run by the banks, for the banks.” Well said. Darned well said. But there are billions of billions of reasons to be cheerful, anyhow. Or 85 of them. I think this op-ed says it all about Monday’s disaster at sea. Via Jim Bovard: Right to the end, I was about to say that this New Yorker article on Julian Assange and his heroic WikiLeaks was brilliant. It’s an intimate portrait of a secretive man, his world,…
Got this note last night from my beloved former veterinarian up in the Pacific Northwest: I thought this may make you smile. I had a visit … from an outlaw last night. Someone left a note attached to a $100.00 bill shoved in the front door of the clinic. The note said, “I had some extra cash while passing through, please use it to care for an animal in need.” It was signed “Colton Harris-Moore AKA the barefoot bandit.” [My receptionist] found it and was busy trying to figure out which client left it when I came in. After reading…
P.T. reminded me that today is the birthday of the late, great (and sometimes rather quirky) Karl Hess. She pointed me toward his 1969 Playboy article, “The Death of Politics.” Yeah, bits of it are dated now. But even those parts give an interesting look at the way politics and government never fundamentally change, even as the world shifts around them. If I have one hero in the ranks of libertarians and market anarchists, it’s Hess. Whatever else the man did, he seriously tried to live by his principles and implement them in the real world.
I don’t know Larken Rose but I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a fine writer and a hardcore thinker, and he’s clearly a man who lays his own life on the line for what he believes. I don’t agree with everything he says here. But he asks some damnfine questions. Do good, upstanding citizens have a moral obligation to allow themselves to be oppressed, harassed, terrorized, assaulted, and wrongfully detained or imprisoned? Most people would say “no.” But would most people actually mean it? There are many examples of “law enforcers” treating innocent people like dirt. Random…
Does it seem to you that the world is about to shatter? That there is so much wrongness that “the centre cannot hold”? Ah well, a lot of us have had that feeling since we became aware of the Lies Our Civics Teacher Told Us. It’s dogged me on and off since Nixon removed the last gold backing from the dollar. The fall became inevitable then; we doomsayers just expected it to come quicker. But come it must. And these days, as mainstream economists continue to tout the return of prosperity while we watch catastrophe rolling onward with our own…
Two quick things: 1. In England a broke & jobless writer takes to the trees in an experiment in low-cost, low-impact self sufficiency. Very creative. 2. I think Joel “did” 419 better than I: “It’s Interesting Times Day!” And a third: 3. Radley Balko also does today proud.