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L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 471, June 8, 2008

"Party like it is 1773"


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Letters to the Editor

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[Letters to the editor are welcome on any and all subjects. Sign your letter in the text body with your name and e-mail address as you wish them to appear, otherwise we will use the information in the "From:" header!]


Letter from A.X. Perez

Letter from L. Neil Smith

Letter from Robert Jackman

Another Letter from A.X. Perez

Letter from Paul Bonneau

Letter from Rex May

Another Letter from Robert Jackman

Yet Another Letter from A.X. Perez

Another Letter from Paul Bonneau


Make 'em Honest

From time to time L. Neil Smith and others complain about the unconstitutionality and illegality of Federal police forces. While I'm willing to reluctantly concede that maybe, for very limited purposes, under extreme circumstances, the Federal Government needs police forces, these police forces should not be able to write regulations that have the force of law (as do the BATFE and SEC, for example) and have their own administrative courts.

So, let's, for the sake of argument, concede that the Federal government needs multiple specialized police forces. Then it is necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment creating these police forces, sans the power to write regulations that have the force of law or run their own administrative court systems.

If enough people feel we need federal police forces with interstate authority we can amend the Constitution to meet this perceived need. However, these bodies should have strictly limited and defined powers, not the extralegal (both Constitutional and statutory) powers they now claim and exercise frequently.

A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com


Gun manufacturers continue to aid gun banners

Read this:

www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/5674

L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com


Dubya is Bobby Brown

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IlE8yAmW3E

This belongs at the top of Art and Entertainment!

Robert Jackman
juliusno1776@yahoo.com


A Pox on PC

I'm sure most of you have read the "Your starship captain might be a redneck if..." website (So take a time out and Google it already if you haven't.).

I will take oath that in the original version I saw about eight years ago or so one of the gags was "Your starship captain just might be a redneck if he says that the Kobyashu Maru Exercise is the best target practice he ever had." This line has been expurgated from most if not all extant versions.

The curse of political correctness. Back when before the WC channel came out KTLA (Channel 13 Los Angeles) broadcast a version of Fiddler on a Roof with the bottle dance and most of the Hasidic references (if not all, I'm just a well edumacated goy married to a beautiful goyl) removed. They did this more than once. They also Broadcast a censored version of The Selfish Giant removing references to the Crucified Christ. I read in Wikipedia that some Methodist Churches cut a verse from Lord of the Dance because they consider it antisemitic.

The problem is that last I heard Shalom Aleichem was a Hasidic Jew and Fiddler on a Roof is supposed to be a profoundly Hasidic story and The Selfish Giant is a story about Christian salvation, to which the Crucifixion is essential. More importantly, I've always taken "the holy people" who "said it was a shame" to mean selfrighteous hypocrites of which there is a surplus both Jewish and gentile.

We progress from butchering tales to missing the point of tales to dumping a warning to improve our behavior. Oh well, many of the readers of this article are non believers, the folly of believers is at best good for a gag.

But what happens when the NRA is less militant than it should be about protecting gun rights because it wants to not be politically threatening? what happens when the Libertarian Party's platform gets watered down to avoid scaring away voters.

It is one thing to expect people to avoid making bigoted remarks in public. It is another to expect people to deny who they are or what they believe to avoid giving offense. It is a third when you stand for nothing to avoid offending people.

A pox on political correctness!

A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com


To the Editor:

Re: "Yet Another Letter from A.X. Perez"

A.X. Perez writes, "I realize not all of the readers of TLE are happy with the Fourteenth Amendment. It is however, part of the Constitution as it is currently written," and "I know a lot of you all out there don't particularly care for the Fourteenth Amendment."

It's not a matter of not caring for it — although to be honest, I don't much care for an amendment that makes the document internally inconsistent. It's a matter of whether the Fourteenth is a part of the Constitution at all. Anyone who looks into the history of ratification (or lack thereof) of the amendment can plainly see that the Fourteenth has exactly as much validity as, for example, the McCain-Feingold "Incumbent Protection Act", or the Patriot Act. That is, none, other than that created by illegitimate government thuggery. So, to make a constitutional argument based on the 14th being in the constitution is fallacious.

If "anchor babies" are going to be protected, then they will be simply because people in government want it so, not because they have any constitutional rights via the Fourteenth.

Paul Bonneau
2.paulbx1@dfgh.net


Re: "Yet Another Letter from A.X. Perez"

A.X. Perez is wrong and Lamar Smith is right. The 14th does not apply to children of illegal immigrants and was never intended to. It was written so as to make it impossible to deny citizenship to former slaves. "Subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is the point. If it doesn't add a qualification other than being born here, what does it mean? Anyhow, children of Mexican citizens are Mexican citizens wherever they're born. Just check Mexican law.

Anyhow, it's a moot point. Open borders is the policy of the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Libertarians. When we become Aztlan, none of the parties will have any justification for their existence.

Rex May
rmay@mac.com
www.baloocartoons.com
baloocartoons.wordpress.com

[Of course, will Aztlan be any worse than what we've got now? "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss" — Editor]


Let me help You Said the Cat to the Mouse

www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0749277620080607

I smell a bailout plan complete with Argentine style IMF Austerity thrown in. Get ready for "The Rape of Pittsburgh" Or Long Beach, etc.

Let's Hope it happens on Hillary or Obama's watch. John McCain would work just as well, only He would manage to get our guns if he was in office as the NRA would be sleeping at the Guard Gate, to let in their favorite Devil.

The other two clowns would only enrage gun owners. There being no choice, I plan to not vote as it only encourages them.

Robert Jackman
juliusno1776@yahoo.com


After Very Careful Consideration

I am neither for the fillibusters (original meaning: military adventures of questionable legality) in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am for the Constitution of the United States of America and I am for any action consistent with that Constitution taken to protect it and the nation it creates.

I am for the well being of the soldiers we have sent into danger in those places. I am for the well being of the people of Southeast Asia and their enjoyment of governments that can effectively protect their rights and beliefs. For better or worse in Iraq and Afghanistan these are the governments created by the US's adventures in their land.

I am against the success of terrorists. Their leaders are wannabe (And Wahabi, gotta go for for the pun) tyrants, and the grunts are mugs who willfully disregard evidence that they're being played for fools (for that matter so are most of their enemies.).

The people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the US have already paid a terrible price as a result of the acts of terrorists, local tyrants , and the ill planned adventures of the current administration in the US. It is time to make sure we get what we pay for in the form of abetter hold on peace and freedom.

Somehow I have trouble believing that the political leadership of the nations involved are up to deliver on wat has already been bought and paid for.

A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com


Re: "Can there be a better time to STOP VOTING?" by Dennis Wilson

I read Dennis Wilson's article about not voting with interest, even though it's hardly the first thing on the subject I've seen.

I do have a couple of quibbles. It is clear that someone not agreeing with Dennis' position does not mean that person has not thought things through. Rather, it means he has come to a different conclusion.

And, just because government proclaims something (claims inferred from voter turnout) does not mean we must act in a way to make that proclamation (very, very slightly) less plausible. Voting in self defense is just that, and it implies nothing at all about the voter's view of legitimacy of government, even if government claims it does.

I'm surprised Dennis did not take this self-defense argument to its logical conclusion: that it is also an act of self defense to not vote. The question then is, which act (voting in self defense, or not voting is self defense) is most effective — given that either way, government or its media lackeys get to interpret and/or make up the results.

I suspect the whole idea of self defense, in this context, makes little sense.

I'm thinking Dennis is correct in his main argument though. That's why I'm not voting this time around. Not even if there is a tax measure on the ballot? Hmmm...

Paul Bonneau
2.paulbx1@dfgh.net


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