Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

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Nowadays we don’t have switchboard operators, or at least not as many as when Stranger in a Strange Land came out, and the state would take custody of a 12 year old and her younger siblings right smartly if Momma was a single parent. That said, thousands of people everyday perform thousands of acts of kindness and even heroism without anyone forcing them to and sometimes in defiance of government edict. Xander Vento remains my particular hero, and no one could have ordered him to do what he did.

Albert Perez
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Clear speech. clear thought

Learn proper grammar. I had to delay reading an article when I read, “The report comes as the nation grapples with a rise in violent crime, particularly from guns.” We do not have violence “from guns.” We have violence by people using guns. Forget the pro-gun /anti-gun debate. We are talking a war against literacy and clear thought by people who ought to know better.

I keep hoping that as American English absorbs more words and concepts from Spanish, Americans will adopt ser and estar to replace to be. Yet it grows more and more obvious that our soi-disant ruling class opposes the intellectual and linguistic integrity to do so. If they are so deliberately imprecise in such an important debate as the one over gun rights, in the discussion of what other issues of national interest are they deliberately abusing our beloved English language to obfuscate the truth and attempt to block clear thinking?

Albert Perez
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security checks

One reason metal detectors were put in airports was the murder in the El Paso International Airport of a divorce lawyer by a person who had trouble with his (lack of) ethics.

In the Eighties and Nineties I regularly had to stop before entering the security area to have my knives measured (had to be less than 4″) when going to pick up people. My knives would then be returned to me. Led to me having to have all the blades for an exchange blade knife measured.

Security has become a bigger pain in the tuchus since 9-11. Remember having to hold my tongue when taking off a pair of new boots whose interiors were quite aromatic, the temptation to compare the smell to a poison gas attack was a minor torture. Fortunately I kept my mouth shut, and more importantly, whatever was making the inside of my boots malodorous faded away in a short time.

At least they are not restricting rings and shoe laces, yet.

Albert Perez
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