|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On December 1, 2003 Jay Leno on the U.S. Senate and Constitution Provocative recent remarks from the host of NBC's Tonight Show: On the U.S. Senate: "The Senate voted 97-0 for an anti-spam bill to stop those annoying things you get on your computer. The senators made it very clear that when you start misleading the American people and start taking their money over false promises, that's our turf, buddy!" On the effort to write a constitution for Iraq: "As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Think about it -- it was written by very smart people, it's served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we're not using it anymore." Sources: Future of Freedom Foundation's Email Update: http://www.fff.org -- Web Insider: http://www.web-insider.us/latenighttalkshowintros.html
Marijuana Arrests Continue at Record Levels New FBI figures show police arrested a near-record number of persons for marijuana use this past year -- despite the massive additional burdens placed on police resources by the War on Terror, Police arrested 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002 -- the fourth-highest number of arrests ever, and just a bit short of the all-time record of 734,498 marijuana arrests set in 2000. To put those numbers in some kind of perspective, in 1993 -- hardly a time of tolerance for marijuana use -- there were "only" 380,689 arrests. The FBI also notes that marijuana arrests accounted for nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. 88 percent of those arrested -- some 613,986 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 83,095 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses -- even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. "These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Stroup notes that this amounts to a marijuana smoker arrested every 45 seconds. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. According to the NORML, since 1992 approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming -- combined. Source: NORML, http://ww.normal.org (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.)
America-Hating Socialists Proven Wrong Even as the world's socialists were meeting in Brazil to rant against America and capitalism, reality interfered yet again. A new report showed how wonderful America and capitalism are. A "Declaration of Sao Paulo," approved by the 22nd Congress of Socialist International, attacked national sovereignty by denouncing attempts to "dismantle all forms of global governance, to minimize the role of the United Nations, to undermine multilateral institutions, to promote unilateralism and the consecration of the market, and to impose the will of the powerful to decide the future of mankind." Socialist International president Antonio Guterres, a former socialist prime minister from Portugal, naturally singled out President Bush. "It is obvious that with the present administration in Washington, a dialogue about this new vision is quite difficult," he huffed. "We have an answer: a coalition to create a new world order based on multilateralism for sustained economic development, free trade and the fair distribution of wealth." Other self-described socialist leaders, who of course were enjoying the lap of luxury during their junket, tried to outdo each other in attacking America and whining about the free market. Sorry, Antonio, the greedy socialists have been smoking that pipe dream for centuries, and their idea of "fair distribution of wealth," i.e., stealing whatever they feel like from the hardworking and successful and giving it to the shiftless, has never worked. Witness the annual ranking of nations' economic success. The United States is an impressive No. 2, and the costly war on terrorism is the main reason it didn't keep its No. 1 place from last year, according to World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report. Finland came in first this year, but the big story was the huge advances taken by the former communist countries of Eastern European. Escaping the yoke of socialist oppression proves once again to be the key to rising prosperity for the people. Asia's capitalist powerhouses did well too, with Taiwan ranking fifth place and Singapore sixth. Japan took 11th place and South Korea 18th. Germany was No. 13, France 26 and communist China 44 - way behind the free Chinese. And what about such communist paradises as Cuba and North Korea? We couldn't even find them on the list. Source: Insider Report from NewsMax.com (If you are not an e-mail subscriber, get Insider Report and other breaking news alerts by Clicking Here.)
"Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil -- only evil -- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs." -- U.S. Congressman Roger Q. Mills, 1887.
Thanks to Max Weismann of The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas for sharing this important information with us. Not to be outdone by all the redneck, hillbilly, & Texan jokes... You know you're in California when...... 1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none is visible. 2. You make over $300,000 and still can't afford a house. 3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English. 4. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Breeze. 5. You can't remember...is pot illegal? 6. You've been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor. 7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian. 8. You know which restaurant serves the freshest arugula. 9. You can't remember...is pot illegal? 10. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears. 11. A low speed police pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast. 12. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the US 13. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps. You don't even notice. 14. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30am at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney. 15. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment. 16. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into S & M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag. 17. You can't remember...is pot illegal? 18. Its barely sprinkling rain and there's a report on every news station: "STORM WATCH 2003." 19. You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy Banks himself is teaching the 4:00pm Tae Bo class. 20. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cells or pagers. 21. It's barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents. 22. Hey!!!! Is Pot Illegal???? 23. Both you AND your dog have therapists. 24. The Terminator is your new governor.
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites So Much for Federal "Justice," by Jacob G. Hornberger: Those who are still operating under the quaint and innocent notions that the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are antiquated technicalities in the new era of the so-called war on terror and that federal officials can now be trusted with the omnipotent power to do the right thing in their quest to impose justice on people might want to consider what happened in a federal district court in Texas recently. The Absurdities Underlying Multiculturalism, by Walter Williams: For the multiculturist/diversity crowd, culture, ideas, customs, arts and skills are a matter of racial membership where one has no more control over his culture than his race. That's a racist idea but it's politically correct racism. It says that one's convictions, character and values are not determined by personal judgement and choices but genetically determined. In other words, as yesteryear's racists held: race determines identity. 'Censorship' of the Reagan attack-film?, by Brent Bozell: Across America, people who love Ronald Reagan and appreciate the mountains he moved as our leader for eight years sent out a blitz of e-mails, phone calls and petitions protesting CBS's plan to air "The Reagans," a vicious, dishonest piece of "researched" character assassination. Former CIA agent was hung out to dry, by Eric Margolis: The case of former Central Intelligence Agency officer Edwin P. Wilson recalls the words of the great American thinker, H.L. Mencken: "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." The Wilson case has outraged me for 20 years. Muslims Are Good Folks, by Charley Reese: I wish more Americans had an opportunity to get to know Muslims. Then they would not be susceptible to the silly anti-Muslim propaganda that is floated by some right-wing Christians. Tobacco chief doubts that smoking kills, by Auslan Cramb: The first chief executive of a British tobacco company forced to defend his product in court yesterday refused to accept that "smoking kills". Gareth Davis, the chief executive of Imperial Tobacco, agreed that there was no such thing as a "safe cigarette" but said there was no firm proof that smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer. Beware the thought police, punishing words not deeds, by Matthew Parris: Like a splinter, a small injustice can enter the body politic almost unnoticed. Only with time does the invasion begin to inflame. It can happen that only after a story has left the news does a sense of its injustice steal upon us. Conservative Crack-Up - Will libertarians leave the Cold War coalition?, by W. James Antle III: Ask a roomful of well-read conservatives to identify the political theorists who most influenced them, and some of the following names are likely to come up: Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Richard Weaver, F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk, and Milton Friedman. That it would seem so natural for men from disparate philosophical traditions to appear together on such a list is a testimony to the success of the postwar American Right in forging a coherent national conservative movement out of traditionalist and libertarian elements. This makes the emerging signs that this conservative-libertarian consensus is starting to unravel all the more problematic for the Right. What Businessmen Should Learn from Homeschoolers - Lessons from the CBS 'News' Assault on the Mind, by John Lewis: The CBS 'news' program "The Dark Side of Homeschooling" was a dishonest assault against individual freedom and independence. But the homeschoolers refused to remain "compliant," a lesson that businessmen should heed. The Other Campus Revolution of the 60's - Realignment on the Right, by Daniel McCarthy: An untold tale of the late 1960's is the story of how the American Right split in two at the end of the decade, a fission that produced conservatism and libertarianism as they exist today. Trust the Professionals, by Joseph Sobran: You've probably seen the bumper sticker: "Against abortion? Don't have one." Pithy. It always makes me think of another possible bumper sticker: "Against slavery? Don't own one." Abortion advocates resist talking about what is being aborted: a kid. They call it a "fetus," which sounds like a technical medical term, nice and abstract. They also resist using the word kill, which is what abortion does to the kid. They prefer phrases like termination of pregnancy, a painless, bloodless euphemism. The Roots of Governments' Budget Crises, by Tibor R. Machan: Budget crises -- at the federal, state, county and municipal levels of government -- are routine these days. Although there may be one or two years of surpluses, in most regions they are followed by many years of deficits. If governments were judged by the standards of private firms, most of them would be bankrupt.
|
|
|
Newsletter Front Page |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.