Dear Tony:

I appreciate your frustration. Even when we anti-statists are right there doing our best to help with big sharp box-cutters, our statist friends still can't think their way out of their cardboard containers.

Right now Fox News is interviewing a young veteran who is regretting the fact that for most people Memorial Day is all about cookouts, beaches, and blockbuster movies, though it's supposed to be a somber affair when we "solemnize the sacrifice" on the part of those who gave their lives so we could enjoy our "freedom."

I want to say, first of all, that the more of those glorious freedom-saving wars the Union fights, the less freedom we actually have; and, second, guy, leave hard-pressed ordinary folks ALONE with the modest diversions available to them!

But then I think what a fine thing it would be if we did have a somber holiday "solemnizing the sacrifice," assuming we could couch the sacrifice in terms of sacrificing to Moloch.

I should probably post some observation to that effect tonight or tomorrow (I'm going to one of those frivolous cookouts this afternoon), even though it's nothing I haven't written before.

Wtm

Sent from Tom's iPod.

On May 30, 2010, at 12:24 PM, apivetta@aol.com wrote:

"The reason is that I take seriously all those warnings from grumpy old War Conservatives: that the more women and confessed homosexuals the military is saddled with, the less unit cohesion, mission focus, and combat effectiveness it can maintain. Well, excellent! Let's choke the imperial legions with hurt feelings, discrimination complaints, assault investigations, pregnant soldierettes, queer diseases, and romantic melodramas in the midst of battle, say I."

Dear Tom:

I go through a similar thought process with my more statist friends who come around to my position with respect to drug (re-)legalization. They may, e.g., finally apprehend that drug prohibition, not drugs per se, is what's responsible for generating drug-related crimes against life and property. They may even buy my arguments regarding individual sovereignty and the natural right to put the substance of your choice in your own body. But they invariably ruin their epiphany by throwing in something along the lines of "yes, you're right, plus if drugs are legal, the State can tax them!"

No, no, no! The State has preserved sufficient levels of disorder just taxing income, retail transactions, luxury items, booze and cigarettes and what-have-you! Taxing drugs is a good reason to oppose legalization, not favor it! What does it take to get through to you people?! Do I have to grab you by the shoulders and shake you?!

Tony Pivetta
Royal Oak, MI

Here's the link: http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/astronomer-copernicus-reburied-as-hero-in-poland/19487644. The Headline: "Copernicus Reburied as a Hero--500 Years After the Fact." The first two paragraphs read as follows:

"Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero today, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

"His burial in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a church canon and doctor indicates how far the church has come in making peace with the scientist whose revolutionary theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun helped usher in the modern scientific age."

All of which leads the casual reader to believe Copernicus was condemned as a heretic by the Church, persecuted, defamed, scourged, dropped in a vat of boiling yak oil, and then buried in a pauper's grave. Stupid, Evil, Dogmatic, Corrupt, Venal, Obscurantist, Backward, Bloody Whore of Babylon! Buried (not reburied!) deep in the report, however, the not-so-casual reader will come across this not entirely irrelevant tidbit:

"Copernicus' burial in an anonymous grave in the 16th century was not linked to suspicions of heresy. When he died, his ideas were just starting to be discussed by a small group of European astronomers, astrologers and mathematicians, and the church was not yet forcefully condemning the heliocentric world view as heresy, according to Jack Repcheck, author of Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began.

"The full attack on those ideas came decades later when the Vatican was waging a massive defense against Martin Luther's Reformation."

Yes, and that "full attack against Martin Luther's Reformation" had something to do with Vatican defensiveness in the face of the Reformation's Sola Scriptura innovations. Protestants accused the Church of playing fast and loose with Holy Writ, permitting "human accretion" to undermine the essentials of the Christian faith, and it so happens the Bible implied--see, for instance, Joshua 10:12-14--that the sun revolved around the earth. Only irrefutable scientific evidence could trump a biblical precept, and neither Copernicus nor Galileo was able to attain it. That they failed to attain it was not the Church's position but that of their peers in the scientific community.

The article concludes as follows:

"Copernicus had, however, been at odds with his superiors in the church over other matters.

"He was repeatedly reprimanded for keeping a mistress, which violated his vow of celibacy, and was eventually forced to give her up. He also was suspected of harboring sympathies for Lutheranism, which was spreading like a wildfire in northern Europe at the time, Repcheck said.

"Copernicus' major treatise--'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'--was published at the very end of his life, and he only received a copy of the printed book on the day he died--May 21, 1543."

This is a remarkable, though very much par for the course, piece of journalism. In our politically correct age, you can't go wrong slamming Catholics, evangelicals, Germans, southern whites, the Euro-Christian tribes in general, heterosexual males or Muslims. Let's hear it for enlightenment and sensitivity!

Rand Paul and the Teabaggers are racist, homophobic and no doubt anti-Semitic. Even their slavish devotion to Israel is more a reflection of their anti-Islamic prejudices than any admiration for the Jewish people. But not even this zany band of haters can shake a stick at the Amish.

The Amish, you ask? Yes, the Amish! Oh sure, they come off as decent and folksy and quaint with their simplified lifestyles and dignified ways. But they're separatists! They contribute to their community and their community alone—building homes, raising barns, and tilling the soil for each other, educating their segregated Amish young in their segregated Amish schools. Do you see these muscular mystics contributing to the black or Catholic or gay communities? Fat chance! They openly disassociate from those communities! They discriminate against them!

I'm all in favor of freedom of religion and the First Amendment and all that crap, but how did a church that practices such invidious discrimination ever secure its BATF approval? Letting the Amish run free in our midst—where they freely choose not to run free in our midst—is a sure recipe for Balkanization. Armed camps are bound to spring up, and we'll be at each other's throat — killing, stealing, and raping without end. It's an outrage, I tell you!

Do you hear me, federales? We want dynamic entry, psy-ops, tanks, CS gas and flash-bang grenades! We want Showtime! If the Department of Imperial Mischief ... er, uh ... Defense can shrug off the Vietnam Syndrome, isn't it about time you guys shrug off Ruby Ridge and Waco? Now get out there and bash some Amish heads!

Shane Solano has written a concise anarchist critique of the institution of government. The Ventura County Reporter has seen fit to publish it. We live in interesting times.

The irony is that the statists (Democrats, Republicans, liberals, neocons,fascists, communists, etc.) call the anarchists utopian. As if there's something practical or realistic about putting your faith in a protection racket.

Tony

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/power_to_speak/7876/

Gosh, Tony, I don't get the logic here -- if anarchists would prevail they would, by definition, install anarchy. Anarchy would very quickly lead to someone, whether foreign or domestic, bringing 'order' to the chaos, usually by rather brutal means. The former anarchists would then be forced to choose some government/gang to hopefully reinstall some degree of peace and personal liberty; this usually requires a few thousand people to die and a large chunck [sic] of whatever economy the anarchists previously had. If and when things stabilize, some anarchist will start talking about the evils of big government, etc., etc. Then the madness can begin all over again. Sheesh . . .

Mike

"Install" anarchy? I've traveled in anarchist or quasi-anarchist circles for 25 years, and I've yet to meet an anarchist argue for the installation of anything by anybody. It is the statists who are doing all the installing. They're forever installing their centralized mayhem apparatus and calling it peace.

What do anarchists want? Quite simply this: that the rules of common human decency (e.g., "Thou Shalt Not Kill," "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness") apply across the board. But the State owes its very existence to an exemption from the rules of basic human decency. Its employees draw their salaries from funds extorted from the taxpaying masses.

The State invokes the Greater Good to justify the extortion. It creates monsters it alone can destroy. The State claims that if it doesn't go around threatening everybody's life and property, we'll go around threatening each other's life and property. As if the State could actually protect us if freelance criminality were as ubiquitous as it claims. As if human interactions weren't largely self-policing. As if the State weren't the greatest and most disordered monster of them all--"a gang of thieves writ large," as Rothbard called it.

I'll take my chances with the freelance criminals. Their acts are localized and sporadic. I can take measures to avoid them and protect myself. Criminal government is quite another kettle of fish. Its criminality is centralized and ubiquitous. To add insult to injury, it claims to protect my rights by violating my rights. What a racket.

Tony

In my edition of Webster's New World Dictionary( New World indeed!), the first definition for anarchism is "the theory that all forms of government interfere unjustly with individual liberty and should be replaced by the voluntary association of cooperative groups." I think it is a common misconception that the application of this theory, anarchy, necessarily implies political disorder, violence, and lawlessness – indeed the historical evidence to the contrary appears to be scant.

This sad fact places on the shoulders of true anarchists an immense responsibility for care and diligence lest we arrive at chaos and violence, a state of affairs ironically much like our current situation. The anti-federalists, who nearly prevailed in the constitutional debate, opposed our current Constitution and feared the tyranny of a central, powerful government.

In many ways their fears have been justified. Anarchy is not a system to be installed – it is a way of life to be instilled, guarded, and, above all, nurtured.

Chuck