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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
Posted December 10, 2002 This is Justice? -- Gun Control Out of Control Tony Martin, a 55-year-old farmer, was asleep in his farmhouse. He hears a noise &endash; it's the sound of breaking glass. He's startled, but also prepared, since his rather ramshackle dwelling has already been broken into six times. Since his village is too small to have any local police, he knows he has to defend himself and his property. He grabs his shotgun and creeps down the stairs. He sees the intruders! He fires! One intruder is dead; the second is wounded. Both intruders have long criminal records. End of story? No, just the beginning of the nightmare. The man protecting his house lives in England, a country whose law does not provide for the right to protect yourself, but assumes that, in the event of attack, the victim must retreat. The man who was protecting his property is sentenced to life in prison. The man he shot, but who survived, is sentenced to 3 years, but serves only 18 months. The kicker? The thief, once released, is given 5,000 pounds by the government so he can sue the man he was trying to rob. The thief is now the victim! And the real victim is serving a life sentence in prison. Did we make this up? No, it's a true story. See the November issue of Reason magazine to learn more about the English experience with strict gun control: Gun Control's Twisted Outcome: Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S., by Joyce Lee Malcolm.
Posted December 10, 2002 Esquire Survey: Reagan Greatest American, Clinton 'Most Loathsome' Even Esquire magazine, known for its chic liberal bias, reports that a new survey of its readers finds Ronald Reagan the "greatest living American." Topping Esquire's list of "most loathsome living American": Bill Clinton. Esquire's "Survey of the American Male," appearing in the January issue, quizzed nearly 2,000 men about everything from politics to the stock market to "sexiest woman in America" (winner: "my wife"). See: http://esquire.com
Posted December 10, 2002 Update on the Mandatory Seat Belt Issue We have received the following update on the Mandatory Seat Belt Issue from Bill Holdorf, the author of the article Help Restore Liberty - Repeal Seat Belt Laws which was published some time ago by The Radical Academy. His memo says:
Bill Holdorf
Posted November 2, 2002 Another Libertarian Wins Nobel Prize On October 9, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded George Mason University libertarian economist Vernon L. Smith the Nobel Prize in economics. The 75-year-old Smith is known as the founding father of "experimental economics," and he received the award -- among the world's greatest honors -- "for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms." Earlier in his life Smith was a socialist, but he rejected statism and socialism in favor of liberty and libertarianism. In an interview with Reason magazine, Smith explained the thinking behind his conversion: "For me, libertarianism is tied to a certain set of recognitions: that all organizations have the problem of decentralized information, that decentralized mechanisms are the best way to organize that information to produce good outcomes, and that the best results come when the individual is free to make his or her own tradeoffs while aggregating information. That's true whether we're talking about politics or economics or even social interaction. The best systems maximize the freedom of the individual, subject to the constraint of others in the system." Other Nobel-prize-winning libertarian economists: Milton Friedman, Friedrich A. Hayek, and James Buchanan. The above information provided by James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government. Much more about Smith's views and accomplishments can be found in this interview at http://reason.com/hod/fe.ml.smith.shtml.
Posted November 2, 2002 China Dramatically Steps Up Repression China's president, Jiang Zemin, may have enjoyed some Texas barbecue with the president at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. But in between the ribs and slaw, one point of discussion should have been China's continuing repression of basic human rights. Britain's BBC World Service has recently confirmed that for months, Chinese authorities have been banning its broadcasts in Mandarin, Uighur and Tibetan languages. And, Richard Richter, president of U.S. Radio Free Asia, wrote in the Washington Post that "Chinese authorities are tightening control" over news and information. "They're working harder to block the Internet and jam Radio Free Asia [RFA] and Voice of America [VOA]. China has also barred RFA from stationing any reporters on its territory and rebuffed VOA's bid to increase the size of its tiny Chinese staff." (China Reform Monitor) At the same time, China is increasing religious repression against Christians. Time magazine interviewed Bishop Joseph Zen, the new leader of Hong Kong's 227,000 Catholics. Bishop Zen stated that he is still banned from visiting China's official and unofficial Catholic bishops and seminaries because of the Hong Kong Catholics' loyalty to the pope. The bishop also said that he is not optimistic about the Vatican reaching an agreement with the Communist government, "Because" he observes, "at this moment they [the Communists] are tightening [control over religious believers]. Beijing has no intention of making any concessions. They will not grant any freedom to the Church... For us, the underground church is the lawful church because it is united with the Holy Father in Rome." Bishop noted that repression against the underground is so strong, "it's becoming more difficult" to maintain links with it. Source: NewsMax News Alert. To subscribe, visit http://NewsMax.com/email.shtml.
Posted November 2, 2002 Congressman Ron Paul Denounces War with Iraq Congress Ron Paul (R-TX), the only libertarian in Congress, defied GOP leadership once again during the vote on whether to grant President Bush broad power to wage war against Iraq without Congressional approval. See his speeches regarding this important issue.
[We discovered this item on the Internet and since there was no attribution and no copyright notice, we decided to share this with you. It does give us something to think about.] How Did We Ever Survive? Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors,or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!) We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight...we were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cellular phones, personal computers, Internet chat rooms . We had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it? We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility.
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