THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 269, May 2, 2004
Morons Marching

EDITORIAL MATTERS:

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Say, is it getting drafty in here?

A BIG issue this week, including an article from L. Neil Smith that he wrote two years ago and lost on his computer ... could have been written yesterday. It is getting drafty in here. This issue could have been even bigger, but I had to draw the line somewhere. At least that's what we always say.

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Ken Holder
Your Mr. Ed

Letters to the Editor
Letters from Roy J. Tellason, Rocky Frisco, Manuel Miles (aka Kapt Kanada), Frank Ney, James J Odle.
• FULL STORY

Thumbs Up (their arses)
by Carl Bussjaeger
Unless you run a big-time organized RKBA group, you most likely know that liberty and RKBA activist Jeff "Hunter" Jordan is facing a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon with a license (yes, you read that correctly), and has been fired by Verizon for doing so. In researching the firing, I learned that Verizon has an official (and obviously strongly enforced) victim disarmament/safe criminal policy. I called for a boycott of Verizon Communications.
• FULL STORY

May Day Madness
by Caleb Paul
May Day—that one day a year when a sizeable proportion of the mentally ill members of society gather in force and inflict themselves and their nonsense upon the sane population. Normally, this wouldn't bother me as such, but this year, I had the misfortune of running bang smack into the parade in London and having to fend these fools off. Until that moment, I hadn't realised the irony of the eight eastern European nations (plus Cyprus and Malta) joining the EU today on 1st of May. If anything, these eight former Communist countries (and many more are clamouring to join the EU in the next few years) highlight just how irrelevant and anachronistic Communism really is. Of course, eastern Europeans will soon find out all about what's wrong with the EU, but that's another matter.
• FULL STORY

Dupes, Chumps, and Traitors
by Russell D. Longcore
I watch with some perverse amusement as the various media writhe over the Pat Tillman story. For the uninitiated, Mr. Tillman left a promising career in the National Football League to become an Army Ranger deployed in Afghanistan. He was killed in action within the last few days.
• FULL STORY

Planes, Trains, and the Free State Project
by Alan R. Weiss
When Amanda Phillips, President of the Free State Project, and I picked up George Phillies in Worcester in Amanda's Piper Warrior II, I had figured out that the secret to keeping my breakfast down while flying small planes was to remember to breathe, look around, and realize people had been flying little planes for a very long time. The technology, in other words, is pretty well-sorted out. Flying to speak with the Vermont Libertarian Party Convention, we had to fly over the very statist Massachusetts, into the much-less-statist New Hampshire, only to cross over the border into the moderately statist-but-taxed-to-death Vermont. From the air, after awhile, it all looked the same—green rolling hills, some occasional "mountains" of about 3000 feet or so, and lots of blue lakes.
• FULL STORY

The Most Sincere Form of Flattery
by Amanda Phillips
Imitation is—no doubt. People can admire you, compliment you, envy you—but to try to imitate ... wow! It is a vote of confidence and adulation. It warms the heart! The Free State Project (FSP) is worthy of imitation. It has had a remarkable life so far. Begun as the brainchild of Jason Sorens in a discussion forum, it has grown into the full-fledged movement for liberty it is today. The FSP forums are an unending source of discourse on liberty and discussions on how to attain it. Across the country, members work on spreading the word. It has achieved the major milestone of getting five thousand people signed up. It has arranged for the vote amongst its members to select the state to liberate.
• FULL STORY

My Struggle with 501(c)(3)
by Jean Alexander
I started out very firmly against 501(c)(3) for the Free State Project. I was unyielding in my belief. I didn't understand how we could justify using government to get less government. I didn't like the idea of the loss of privacy I thought (c)(3) brought about. I didn't want to give any more information to the government than was necessary. I'd heard that (c)(3) status could open us up to serious harassment by the IRS. I thought we could get by with less money and/or ask the membership for regular donations. I wasn't clear on why we needed more money. I thought people should be willing to donate to FSP without the tax benefit. And then, unexpectedly, I was put into a position to help make decisions about the future of FSP.
• FULL STORY

The Kaptain's Log
I Refused To Be Conscripted
by Kapt Kanada, aka Manuel Miles
With all the talk about the reinstatement of conscription ("the draft") in the USA, I find myself thinking back to a letter which came in the mail one day long ago, in a land far, far away... "You are hereby directed to report to Los Angeles Induction Center No. 6," the letter began. It was from the Selective Service Commission. The time was 1968. The US empire was waging war against the Vietnamese, and it needed lots of cannon fodder because the war was being lost.
• FULL STORY

Enemies of the State
by Jack Duggan
Since it's being studiously avoided by the print and television media, there is no effort to expose and strangle the UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT (HR 163/S 89), which violates the 13th Amendment, in its crib. The UNSA language mandates that all young people, "including women," between the ages of 18 and 26 "...perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes."
• FULL STORY

You Go First: The Peace Amendment
by L. Neil Smith
The idea is probably as old as the Pharaohs, maybe even as old as Homo Erectus. Whenever and wherever old men have sent young men off to die, sooner or later someone has suggested that the old men should go first. There are two reasons for this, I think. The first is that, unless you're running an empire of some kind—which we Americans are not supposed to be doing—and you're fulfilling a Manifest Destiny you imagine that you have, to reach out and steal everybody else's life, liberty, and property, finding yourself involved in a war represents a serious failure on the part of a nation's political leaders. In fact they've screwed up bigtime, and there ought to be a price to pay for that.
• FULL STORY

Is Everybody Lying?
by Lady Liberty
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column called "Is Anybody Listening?" In it, I detailed some correspondence I'd received from my Congressional Representative. I had written to Washington to ask that Congress make no laws or permit no regulations that would infringe free speech. It is my contention, I wrote, that the market place—including boycotts of networks or stars—would provide what is arguably the most effective check and balance we could have on any expression some might consider offensive. The letter I got back said my Representative agreed with me, and that legislation to increase fines for broadcasters and other methods of controlling expression were being considered accordingly.
• FULL STORY

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