Daniel Webster on our coming draft

“Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself?

“Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty? Who will show me a Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it?…

“A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.” – Daniel Webster, speech in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1814.

Why We Fight- by Justin Raimondo

Why We Fight- by Justin Raimondo

War centralizes political authority and economic power, investing all power in the state – and assigning obedience, rather than freedom, to the top rank in the social hierarchy of values. This, for libertarians, is the crux of the matter.

All States are necessarily aggressive, first and foremost against their own citizen-subjects. They exist by plundering producers and redistributing the loot to their precinct captains and supporters. The State is perpetually at war with those it robs and regulates. An apparatus especially designed to maintain a monopoly of violence in a given geographical area, it is the perfect war-fighting machine.

Aside from the question of whether such an institution is a necessary evil, or should be altogether abolished, all libertarians must agree that the power of the State should be severely limited – and not only within its own borders but also beyond. As Murray N. Rothbard put it in "War, Peace, and the State":

My comment:

Justin Raimondo makes this excellent description of the libertarian argument against war, one can of course follow the URL to the entire article but I warn you Justin for all his sterling qualities tends to ramble on. My observation is that war is not just the health of the state as Randolph Bourne observed, war is in fact the state.

Modern war as we know it could not exist without the state. They are one and inseparable the State is War and War is the State.

We must find a way to bind this beast before it puts an end to us all.

Full Auto: Dear Liberal Friend

Full Auto: Dear Liberal Friend:

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Full Auto: Dear Liberal Friend

Well I've been having a struggle to put my feelings regarding results of the presidential election if you can call it that down into words that make any sort of semblance of sense.

The essay I've failed to write so far would be mostly aimed at my democratic friends and loved ones as is this essay by the incomparable Tuccille.

So check out this snippet, please? And maybe read the entire thing.

"Dear Liberal Friend;

I feel your pain. You just suffered through an election in which your side lost and a politician you despise was returned to the White House at the head of a triumphant band of congressional allies. Now you fear that the 'enemy' administration will use the power of the state to shove its alien values down your throat.

Of course I sympathize. As a libertarian, I've spent all my life suffering through disappointing election returns. Each turn of the political wheel brings new laws and bureaucracies that exist to impose values on me that I utterly reject. The difference between me and you is that I never have high hopes on election eve, so I feel resignation instead of despair. Oh. Another difference is that some of the alien values shoved down my throat in the past were yours. Whoops! I guess now you know how it feels. "

Heads on sticks a motief a theme. Fire and caldron.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

So I am always a bit late in a few I'll doubtless have something about my thoughts on teh recent shcam called the election.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Pumpkins
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Its hard top argue with the classics
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

For this Halloween I thought I'd stick to the classic head on spikes motief for my pumkinag
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

The Barbie head, how else does one find a little white Nisan Pickup Truck in a parking lot?
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

Puppy in the morning.
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

More Puppy
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004

More Brindel
cpyrght John Sebastian 2004