When I was young, the USSR was famous for horribly twisting history to make themselves look like the great and mighty ones. They even made jokes about it on the original Star Trek. But here was clear evidence that history – in America – had been altered. In this case, parts had not been added, but they most certainly had been taken away. That rather shook my view of history, as it had been taught to me at school.

And now I’m 60, I do know
That most of what I’m told ain’t so.
So, if you want me to be couth,
You’d better tell the bloody truth.

But, as I say, this will not last forever. Whenever it is that the hypnosis breaks, those who have been using it as a slave drug will have a problem.

And that may be why they’re in such a hurry to build a fast, cheap tyranny.

Once humanity turns again, the elite life-skimmers will need the ability to remove troublemakers quickly and easily, and to lead with it on the nightly news… presuming that anyone still watches the insulting drivel. There are signs of humanity waking up, after all.

With the rise of the state, statesmen became possible—men whose vision embraced truly grand adventures and enterprises in exploitation, oppression, plunder, and mass mayhem. And from the greatest statesmen the greatest empires might spring. What sorrow we must feel as we contemplate the bleak counter-factual of history without the great Roman Empire: we cannot begin to imagine any stateless society able to put even a tenth as many severed heads on pikes along the roads or to nail even a tenth as many men on crosses to endure prolonged suffering before they gratefully expire. Likewise for the great Chinese, Persian, Mongol, Aztec, Inca, and other empires that fill the pages of history, giving vivid color to what otherwise would have been a humdrum human experience of little more than economic, artistic, and literary creativity and peaceful cooperation, spiced with meaningless and petty acts of kindness and compassion toward one another. No individual, no family, and no gang could have wreaked such havoc as the great states and, a fortiori, the great empires. Only man’s ultimate achievement in social organization—the state—could have done the job.

First question: Now that tyranny and its accompanying economic destruction have come so far, do you believe that there is likely to be any peaceful solution for restoring freedom? If so, what solutions do you envision? And specifically how do you see them working?

If this seems like no big deal, you might be wrong. Consider that everything good about modern civilization was invented by people who really needed to focus to get the job done. What happens to a world-class engineer or entrepreneur when he or she has to syphon off more brain energy to satisfying Safeway's marketing strategy instead of designing new products? Now multiply that times a hundred because every retailer, website, and business is trying to complicate your life too.

The “commercial syndrome” has its principal home among peoples who trade or produce for trade (though it is not coextensive with, or limited to, the world of business). The linchpin of the commercial syndrome is honesty, for the very good reason that trading systems don't work without a good deal of trust, even among strangers. Because traders' prosperity depends on making reliable deals, they set great store by policies that tend to create or reinforce honesty and trust: respect contracts; come to voluntary agreements; shun force; be tolerant and courteous; collaborate easily with strangers. Because producers for trade thrive on improved products and methods they also value inventiveness, and attitudes that foster creativity, such as “dissent for the sake of the task.”

“Guardians” are modern versions of the raiders, warriors, and hunters who once made their livings through sorties into unknown or hostile territories. Today's guardians (usually more concerned with administering or protecting territories than acquiring them) are found in governmental ministries and bureaucracies, legislatures, the armed forces, the police, business cartels, intelligence agencies, and many religious organizations. Guardians prize such qualities as discipline, obedience, prowess, respect for tradition and hierarchy, show of strength, ostentation, largesse, and “deception for the sake of the task.” The bedrock of guardian systems is loyalty. It not only promotes their common objectives, but it keeps them from preying on one another. They are wary of, even hostile to, trade, for the reason that loyalty and secrets of the group must not be for sale.

Socialists, for example, could have the communal ownership of the means of production, and the subordination of the individual to society, which they so greatly desire. They could, if they wish, tax the productive out of existence for the sake of the lazy and dishonest. Within their own communes, of course, and without affecting anyone else. How long those communes would last, is a subject for debate. The history of New Harmony, Indiana, may be a pointer.

Greenies could have their own communes too. They could hug trees as often, as hard and as long as they like. They could give up all use of energy and mechanical transport, and could wear masks to sequester the carbon dioxide they breathe out. If they wish, they could also wear green pointy hats with the word “Denier” on them. And population control freaks could be allowed a special right to kill themselves and their children without further penalty.

What would life be like without discovery? From the moment we are born, discovery plays a vital role in our development as human beings. We discover our limbs and how they function. We discover our strength and how to wield it. We discover movement, communication, and relationships. I firmly believe that discovery is as important to our survival as is food, water, and protection from the elements. As we age, if we are not continually engaged in discovery, how happy can we really be? How content can we be in life?

Dr Gabb made these points:

• That sweeping consitutional and other changes since 1997 have made it impossible to be a conservative in the old sense;
• That a modern conservative must be a revolutionary - that he must first pull down the existing order of things and then establish a new order of things worth defending;
• That this new order of things must be heavily libertarian, and its creation must involve reaching out far beyond the normal traditionalist communities, to make often unusual alliances.

Deck the halls with lots of lolly,
Falalala la, lala la la.
‘Tis the season of green folly,
Falalala la, lala la la,
We’ve just got a fat new grant,
Lies to tell and fear to plant,
So we’re feeling rather jolly,
Falalala la for Climate Change!

With sounds of celebration the family ate its Christmas Eve meal. For Harry the rest of the evening passed in an atmosphere of inner joy, a feeling that good deeds give to those who do them. Christmas Eve ebbed away with that mutual feeling of devoutness that only an old propaganda documentary on TV can give people.

Well, folks, this is it. Friday it’s all over. Zap. Kaput. This weary old Earth and all of us with it — gone.

Even though I don’t believe a word of it, sometimes I think it couldn’t happen to a more deserving planet.

To overcome the fears people naturally have to be honest with each other, you have to show people that it turns out OK when they expose these ideas to sunlight. And you have to do it over and over again, because it’s so easy for us to fall out of genuine, open communication. Thus, having No Politics starts at the top of your organization. Look for CEO’s who force daylight through the organization.

How are we doing on these issues? I spoke with some radical libertarian friends—it’s fun musing as to which one you would abolish first, if you could—and here is the basic take:

One reason for my optimism that education will be better is that I think we are rapidly coming out of the notion that education should be about social engineering rather than about learning. When schooling was treated as a vehicle to promote equality, standards suffered. If universities are forced to take less able students to promote equality, standards will inevitably fall. I see many signs in the UK that people now want their children to receive a good education rather than one used to promote social equality.

I think we are actually just at the beginning of what the communications revolution will bring us. The fact that we can communicate rapidly on a global basis multiplies the number of interactions we can have. If we look at the Enlightenments and Renaissances of previous ages we finds a pattern in which relatively isolated societies were thrown into sudden contact with many others. It was the silver empire of Athens, the merchant princes of Italy, or the Scottish traders given access to the British Empire by the Treaty of Union.

That relatively sudden extensive contact brought comparison and contrast with other cultures, which proved fertile ground for creativity, and an explosion of talent followed. The communications revolution brings that on a wider scale than previously, and it is happening quickly.

The current economic difficulties faced by Europe and the US did not arise from any inherent failure in the economy, but from mismanagement and political interference. No features suggest they need permanently impair the ability to invest in increased production, or to produce increased quantities of the goods and services people will wish to buy.

We are indeed using resources, but our ability to extract new sources is advancing faster than our rate of use, meaning that they are becoming relatively more plentiful, and therefore falling in price over the decades. Two things happen as we use resources. If they become more scarce the price rises, motivating us to find new sources of supply and to use less. We also develop cheaper substitutes.

Environmentalists whose agenda is behaviour change have raised scare campaigns over GM foods, yet GM crops have been in widespread use now for many years without adverse effects. Far from posing a hazard to our future well-being, they stand to make a huge and positive contribution to it.

What’s a “political?” One that has yearnings
To wipe out your wealth and to steal all your earnings,
While spouting deceptions and lies fear-instilling,
And trashing your rights, spying on you, and killing.

In fact human beings are as asset, not a burden. Their creative intelligence has created opportunities for many people to live more rewarding lives well above the subsistence level that was the lot of their predecessors. Human ingenuity and technical skill have given us wonderful cities in which to interact and co-operate with our fellow humans. Their intellect and creativity have given us buildings that lift the spirit, literature that inspires, music that elevates the soul, and paintings that convey insights into the human condition.

Freedom needs nothing so much as Americans returning to character. The nation of joiners needs to join with each other instead of with government in order to resume the administration of civil society. At the same time and at every juncture possible, people need to privatize their own lives by removing government from their actions, attitudes and expectations.

The lights of America will be lit again, one by one, by individuals who reclaim the business of society while privatizing their own lives. There is no need for darkness.

Quite simply, Dissolution is a nonviolent declaration by a citizen that they are no longer subject to the involuntary, arbitrary rule of external political bodies; that any attempt to extract money, impose rulings or laws or fines is to be considered an intolerable violation of that person. The beauty of Dissolution is that it makes real what so many libertarians and voluntaryists talk about in theory. But what it would it look like in reality? Can you really imagine yourself doing it? Like, for real?

Observing the audience reaction was instructive. At first, various people started nodding their heads in nods of profound understanding, though you could see that their brain cells were beginning to strain a little. Then some of the techies in the back of the room began to giggle. By the time I finished, unable to get through the last line with a straight face, the entire room was on the floor in hysterics, as by then even the most obtuse English professor had caught on to the joke. With the postmodernist lit crit shit thus defused, we went on with our actual presentation.

(Editor’s Note: This essay is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator, http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/. Enjoy.)

19 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the balanced, publicly-funded birds the Lord Govt had made to sing news to the economy. The serpent was on the AM band. He said to the retail sector, “Did Govt really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

20 "Only yours, serpent," said the retail sector.

21 “Don't be a wuss,” the serpent said to the retail sector. 22 “For Govt knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will wise to Govt's scam.”

(2) The American conservative

What is right, and what is wrong?
GAHD is right, and he’s so strong,
If ya disbelieve GAHD made ya,
U.S. troops will come invade ya.

Friendly societies still exist today, providing financial services and thriving on an ethos of mutuality, economy and community. However, they are held back from their vast potential by the nanny state that pervades our society under the guise of ‘wealth redistribution’, in reality providing an inferior service than could be achieved privately, increasing our reliance on the state and discouraging charity and community values. Many in the UK and elsewhere see state welfare provision as the backbone of our country and fervently expound its virtues, because they have never known anything else. But a look back into history shows that privately owned welfare societies worked in the past, and could work for us once again.

The whole prospect compelled me to re-examine the efficacy of the political process as a means to liberty, and I’m beginning to think that this state sanctioned mechanism for change may not actually be the most appropriate means for our desired end. Perhaps it’s time to rethink all this- to demote on our priority list the stopgap measures of the political process and to begin fervently pouring our talents, energies and monies into a ‘targeted capitalism’, if you will. Liberty lovers everywhere intentionally targeting state-monopolized resources and disintegrating those monopolies through the capitalist process. These means are by nature decentralizing and can be pursued while completely disregarding the will of power. Enough of this pleading with our oppressors not to oppress us so much! Let’s stop being depressed victims of the state and instead start imagining all the endless opportunities its incompetencies create! In the process, we can be around people we like, create wealth by offering real value for the masses, live adventurously, with a clean conscience, and most importantly, live free.

Obama; I need to borrow a couple more $Trillion.
Jintao; A couple?
Obama; OK, 5. Maybe 6. Let’s make it 10.
Jintao; You’re in pretty deep… collateral?

teacher says to trained pro: “I have been asking you for your tardy homework for more than a year? I am losing my patience. Where it at?

trained pro: “My dog ate my homework”

teacher: “Why didn’t you tell me that a year ago?”

trained pro: “We just bought the dog last week.”

Serious soul-searching and house-cleaning must take place if the academy is to rehabilitate its reputation. Standards must be tightened, publication of experimental data must be made mandatory and peer review in the soft sciences must mean something. We hope that the documented loss of public trust in science serves as the much-needed wake-up call for reform, because until our elites acknowledge that they have a problem, there can be no solution. That acknowledgement begins with the acceptance of a truth as simple as it is deeply disquieting:

Marc Hauser wasn’t some kind of one in a million exception. He just got caught.

The past 30 years or so have been an age of endarkenment. It has been a period in which truth ceased to matter very much, and dogma and irrationality became once more respectable. This matters when people delude themselves into believing that we could be endangered at 45 minutes' notice by non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

It matters when reputable accountants delude themselves into thinking that Enron-style accounting is acceptable. It matters when people are deluded into thinking that they will be rewarded in paradise for killing themselves and others. It matters when bishops attribute floods to a deity whose evident vengefulness and malevolence leave one reeling. And it matters when science teachers start to believe that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.

The Comforting Lie has taken many forms, more often than not invoking an absurd and improvised sense of patriotic duty or supreme mandate from an unknowable higher power. In its principal form, The Comforting Lie enables us to believe stories which our senses and inherent capacity for reasoning cannot normally accept with integrity. It makes the impossible appear natural, and the inconsistent seem logical. It dulls the finer senses of the observant empathetic intellectual and encourages him to ignore the blood-stained elephant hiding in plain sight.

All change happens in individual hearts and minds, only. Usually in many isolated individuals; each independent, and often unaware of the others.

From each individual it spreads to more people until there is a group which has adopted the change around each. Eventually the groups grow to the point where they mix and mingle and distinctions between them get fuzzy, and then the whole society has shifted. Suddenly everything is different and few people even realize a change has happened. Or if they realize it, they don’t know how it happened.

Nelson: “Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco.”

Hardy: “Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments.”

Nelson: “In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the mainbrace to steel the men before battle.”

Hardy: “The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. Its part of the Government’s policy on binge drinking.”

I’ve found in general that the enduring books that deal with the big new ideas of their time are always written to be approachable by the general reader. The writer wants the reader to understand the ideas being presented because he loves those ideas. They’re his children. They go to some pains to describe the context in which the idea exists, previous ideas in the area and other current and competing ideas in the area. They nearly always manage to present the big idea in a form that’s both accurate and simple.

After I quieted, Michael smiled once more. “So, we are back to my first offer to you. I am Michael of the Seraphim from Seraph-2, and I invite you for a ride in my Seraphimobile. We are the best short-haul pilots in the Galaxy. We’ll get you where you need to be as fast as Galactically possible, but we never make any of our passengers feel sick or scared. And this ’mobile is very comfortable for humans.”

I was sold – except for one thing. “How will you stop the criminal gangs that call themselves governments from firing missiles at us?”

“They can’t see us,” said Michael. “This ’mobile is in quiet mode. It is impossible to see or otherwise detect it at distance, unless the pilot deliberately projects an image – as I did for you.”

“OK, but what if they detect something they can’t see, which moves? Won’t they fire missiles at the hole they can’t see?”

Michael was about to reply, but at that moment a dog came round the corner of the path. I looked at Michael, picked up my rucksack, trotted over to the ’mobile, and got in.

Balzo of the Avor’I of Avoran-2, senior project manager for the Company for Galactic Advancement, stood at ease behind his desk, and regarded Professor Bart Vorsprong of the Department for Species Emergence, who relaxed in a climbing-frame before him.

Imagine the scene. On one side of the desk, Balzo, showing his lizard ancestry by the gnarlings on his face and by the dark green colour of his skin, contrasting with his light blue robe. Yet also standing almost two metres tall, upright on his highly developed hind legs, making him look rather like a kangaroo. On the other, Bart Vorsprong, six metres long and about the same number of centimetres wide, light green in colour, closer to the anaconda than to any other Earthly species.

Balzo spoke. His voice was a deep bass, and his language not as different from human languages as you might have expected – for evolution often finds parallel paths.

“Welcome, Bart,” he said. “The Board have read ur report on the Hoomans. They have asked me to set up a project to help the Hoomans reach Junor Galactic status. U are our top expert on Hoomans. Will u jon this project as consultant?”

Your Editor is proud to announce the publication of his first novel, "Going Galactic."

It is, as you would expect from the title and the cover, science fiction. And it's libertarian. Very libertarian.

I want to make it unequivocally clear to everyone that I am prepared to make the grand sacrifice and become a senior advisor and/or executive of this fund, I have all the right qualifications:

1. I have a couple of degrees and lots of experience in stuff,

2. I am prepared to accept a large untaxable salary,

3. I am prepared to work up to three days per month,

4. I am prepared to travel, as long as its always first class and 5 star hotels,

Truth exists. Only lies are invented. – Georges Braque

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. – Hippocrates

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and giving to them only that degree of credibility which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure the world from most of the ills from which it is suffering. – Bertrand Russell

The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows.

Cheap flights will remain one of the main positives about living in Europe.

Pope Benedict's failing health (he looked absolutely shattered in his Christmas address) will become more of a talking point.

AGW alarmists will continue to lose ground. A major politician in a big country will take on the Green lobby. (Well, we can hope so).

AMERICAN VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

Yes, I know, Henry IV by Willy Shakes, it's "first we kill all the lawyers". But tempus mutandis and all that and I'm afraid that the time has come to cleanse the land of bureaucracy. Simply attack with fire and sword and chase anyone with a clipboard into the wilderness.

With Thanksgiving days away, you know that means the Christmas lights will be out. And with them will be the bell ringers and their Salvation Army kettles. But libertarians and liberals may well wish to keep their change to themselves. Even conservatives should think twice. The Salvation Army is not exactly a charity, as many people assume. It is a religious sect and a fundamentalist one at that. It is part of the Religious Right and it has an agenda like they do.

Poverty today has similar roots: it's very hard to find a poor country with a good government. Where there is poverty and famine today, it's a consequence of bad government, not a Malthusian food shortage. And this also presents an opportunity for tremendous improvements in the lives of all humans: if, somehow, those bad governments can be improved, a billion brains are waiting to be unlocked. Having lots of people isn't an obstacle to more human flourishing. On the contrary: it's the best way we can achieve it.

Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. We cannot shine the light of truth if we hide it under a basket. We cannot be the men and women who care enough to save our friends if we don't care about the truth.

Here, I think, is the reason why living today is such hell. As they sense the new way spreading, the politicals and their cronies retreat more and more into the old way. They behave more and more aggressively, more and more dishonestly, more and more unjustly, more and more harshly towards innocent people.

As a result, they are more and more losing their credibility among good people today. And once they lose credibility, all they have left is resort to brute force. But the more force they use against innocents, the more hearts and minds they will lose. And that will spread the Copernicus moment wider and wider. No wonder they are scared.

Some commentators tell us that the fear, which the politicals and their media today constantly emit, is meant to make us all frightened too, and so to give them a way to (falsely) justify evil acts in the name of protecting us. But I think it goes deeper than that.

I think the lovers of tyranny are scared. Really scared. And I think they have good reason to be scared.

In summary, when we pass from the old way of doing to the new, tyranny is replaced by freedom. War is replaced by peace. Poverty is replaced by prosperity. Sham equality is replaced by moral equality. Bad laws and flawed justice are replaced by honest law and objective justice. And a restricted future is replaced by a growing and probably unlimited future.

Now here’s a thought. Could it be that the political system, which has organized human societies for thousands of years, has reached its breaking point? Could what we are living through today be a battle between the old way of doing things and a new way, a way of human progress and improvement? Could our relatively sudden movements forward, like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, be the times when the new way is winning? And could the times of madness, like today, be the times when the old way is fighting back?

4. Implosion: Nothing works. Nobody will join my Surefire, Guaranteed Plan for overthrowing bad government and restoring the nation Our Forefathers built for us. Screw the government. Screw all those loser bums who won’t get off their butts. I give up. From now on, I’m just taking care of Number One.

Ayesha Siddiqa points out in his insightful “Military Inc” monograph that military engagement in business disrupts discipline by creating an avenue for senior military officers to focus on material gain through their interaction with civilian contractors and financiers rather on “force cohesion”. Using copious examples from Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt it is amply demonstrated that corruption is an inevitable canker when a regimental institution is invited to sample the profit motive. There is a complete clash of values.

We don’t deny that there are still some countries where what the Ghana Armed Forces is promoting remains somewhat still in vogue. Iran, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea are the best examples of countries that have until recently defied the military de-commercialisation trend.

People tell me that being consumed by hatred can be good, if you hate the right people. But the more I see hatred in action the less I am convinced by such advice. Instead I see people consumed with hatred becoming less and less able to distinguish between potential victims.

When you are in an unfamiliar city, cabbies are lifesavers. They often work more than 12-hour days just to get by. Encumbered by the licensing and cartelization that infect almost all taxi industry, these heroes put in the extra effort just to move people safely from point A to point B. Business travel, vacationing, and carefree nights on the town are made possible by these heroes.

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".

Which means that the creators of that particular piece of intellectual property can give away their digital creation online while making a significant amount of money selling associated non-digital creations in realspace. And they can do it at essentially no cost to themselves, since the drawing has already been created in the process of producing the webcomic. That is one example of what I think of as the tie-in approach to dealing with the death of copyright—the same principle that lets me put books up on the web for free and make a significant amount from being paid to give public talks, an opportunity in part created by people reading my books.

In a really democratic system public money cannot be misused as is the case under the present state-welfare model. Instead, accountable, transparent sovereign communities will employ people, as they see fit via consensus decision-making to produce whatever things the individual concerned AND the community in question agree need producing. Employment will probably still be available in a (transformed) job market, but alongside this there will also be the option, via local assembly sovereignty of gainful ecological, soulful, dignified employment in a community of each worker’s choice. And because each sovereign empowered local community will now produce its own unique culture (rather than the homogenisation of townships we see presently) everyone will have a huge choice of work options, with different priorities in each diverse community. No longer should anyone feel forced to labour in an alienated way.

In short, I have no wish to be a master or a slave to anyone else. I shall work entirely for my own pleasure, choosing for myself where I contribute to others. I shall live entirely for myself, doing only what makes me happy and fulfilled, which can only be achieved – by anybody – by bringing happiness and fulfillment to the lives of others. To this end, I shall be utterly selfish and individualistic – doing what I myself believe in and rejecting the demands or pleas of other people that I shall work or live for their Grand Design. My life does not belong to them; it belongs to me.

Experts say all this structuring and control is destroying childhood. It increases stress, anxiety and depression and destroys any sense of independence. It is, in reality, turning out kids who yearn for Big Brother to take care of them in every way, even at the cost of freedom.

There is a sense in which the 1970s really were the beginning of a new age of human liberation. They saw the birth of the two technologies of abundance — the desktop computer and cheap numerically-controlled machine tools — which will eventually free us from the grip of the corporate state and its artificial scarcities.

The apparent reaction of the decades since — neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus, Reaganism and Thatcherism, the jackbooted police state of the Drug War and War on Terror, the neocons’ wet dream of a Thousand Year Reich enforced by the Sole Remaining Superpower, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — can be seen as a desperate rear guard action by the corporate state, the death throes of a dying system, a last-ditch effort by the forces of artificial scarcity to suppress the forces that will destroy them.

"Who's paying you to say this? The dairy industry? The cattle ranchers?"

"Nobody's paying me! Just use your senses! I'm smaller!"

"This is the worst case of denial I've ever seen. I'm afraid we're going to have to institute a fat-and-trade system. Every time you consume fat, you'll need to pay me a stiff fine. Or you can buy a fat credit from another tubbo who's willing to go without butter for a week. It's the only way to stop you from getting larger."

"I AM NOT GETTING LARGER!"

"Yes, you are. It says so right here in my computer data."

A look into these dark hearts reveals an outlook of doom and gloom in a world of finite wealth, resources and possibilities. A world of infinite despair. They look upon mankind as a resource for their use, property meant to serve them. They see us as greedy and stupid, livestock meant to be domesticated and whipped into submission. One can only imagine the corruption they see in their own putrid souls. They forget that wealth is a human creation. They forget that humans have innovated throughout history to get to this point. They forget that human beings are marvelous creatures with the capacity for infinite imagination and innovation. We just need the liberty to forge our own lives free from government intrusion and restriction and I have faith that the marvels mankind will create will surpass the most awe inspiring we have accomplished thus far in our history.

The White House announced Monday that this year's Easter Egg Roll will be "more environmentally friendly," including eggs made with wood certified by an environmental activist organization and packaging "to minimize waste and environmental impact."

Whether the state has any legitimacy that can rightfully bind men and women to its coercive authority, is a question that can never be foreclosed to humans by prior examples of its affirmation. No more so can the writings of Plato, or Hobbes, or Locke, or Marx, or Jefferson, or the Constitution, set the boundaries of the inquiries or expectations that free minds may consider and act upon. That Lincoln was able to mobilize the violent and destructive energies of the state to suppress the efforts of those who sought to secede, carries no more of an unalterable principle to which succeeding generations are bound, than did earlier tyrants who pillaged, decreed, and slaughtered in pursuit of their ambitions over the lives of others.

One of the problems all of us face is how to figure what things we read are true and what are false. This has always been a hard problem and still is. But the internet sometimes makes it easier, makes it possible, from information we can obtain at first hand, to judge whether a particular information source can be trusted.

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Now this idea that objectivity is impossible because whenever one attempts to know anything, one needs to make use of various tools or instruments, such as one’s eyes, mind, a microscope or a telescope, is based on the belief that a tool must always impede the process for which it is used. But that’s very odd. Not only does it undercut the claim itself–after all, that claim, too, came from using one’s faculties of understanding–but it assumes that everything used to learn actually impedes learning. So true learning is a kind of mindless, senseless learning. Go figure!

The JofUR solicits any and all types of manuscript: poetry, prose, visual art, and research articles. You name it, we take it, and reject it. Your manuscript may be formatted however you wish. Frankly, we don't care.

The good news is that more and more people are discovering the virtues of libertarianism every day. They are achieving the “breakthrough” that enables them to see the welfare-warfare state for what it is: an immoral and deadly paradigm that is threatening the freedom and well-being of the American people. They are shifting toward the libertarian paradigm, along with its foundation of morality, liberty, private property, and a limited-government republic. When a critical mass is reached, the change toward the new paradigm could come very suddenly and unexpectedly, much like when the Berlin Wall came crashing down.

Institutional systems tend to resist these dynamic processes of change, particularly those to which their rigid foundations lack resiliency to make creative responses. The established order insists on maintaining the status quo because it is the status quo. When cultural, economic, or political constancies are suddenly disrupted by novel forces, the institutional hierarchy is quick to react. Wars, the burning and hanging of witches and heretics, political purges, the persecution of minorities, torture, the execution of men and women charged with treason, concentration camps, genocides, police states, and other institutionalized forms of terror and violence, are among the better-known examples of existing power structures insulating themselves from energized influences they have been unable to co-opt to their purposes. When so confronted, established authorities become desperate, and resort to any means they deem necessary to reinforce their foundations of power. The purpose underlying such tactics has been to counter destabilizing influences by instilling a sense of fear among those they rule. The subject classes learn to fear not only the external forces purported to be threats to their well-being, but the established authorities who demand their obedience.

57. And finally, if all opinions are equal, how come a liberal who disagrees with a conservative is open-minded, but a conservative who disagrees with a liberal is a bigot?

I remembered an old trick invented in the fifth century B.C. by Socrates. Instead of telling people what he thought was true, Socrates asked seemingly simple questions that put his opponents on the path of finding the truth for themselves. Seeking genuine knowledge rather than mere victory in an argument, Socrates used his questions to cross-examine the hypotheses, assumptions, and axioms that subconsciously shaped the opinions of his opponents, drawing out the contradictions and inconsistencies they relied on.

Private police protection might be by subscription. Private police could patrol neighborhoods, help their customers burglar-proof their house, etc. Those who wished such a service could pay for it themselves or as a package deal with other neighbors. Some San Francisco areas, for example, do this even today, to make up for the limited protection public police provide.

A pilot study is underway testing a prototype version. Kevin Olgermester-Stubb, an Obama supporter and one of the first users of the new system, remains enthusiastic. "I was pretty sure they wouldn't allow me to use real beef hamburgers for my Memorial Day picnic, but they did - as long as I served an equal number of veggie burgers and my guests arrived by hybrid vehicles. It's nice to be part of the solution for a change!" he said glowingly.

4. Do not try to conform or find agreement with others. You may be the first to be observing a new phenomenon and you may risk missing credit for the discovery.

5. Criticism must be scientific, respectful, constructive, positive, and unbiased. Otherwise it must be done privately.

“Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Kulula Airlines."

In the 1960s, the world was going to be destroyed by fossil fuels, by running out of fossil fuels, by acid rain, by overpopulation, by pesticides, by famine, and by Global Cooling. But what actually happened was that fuel production went up, population growth rates fell in every nation (except Kazakhstan, thanks a lot you idiot Borat), pesticide use dropped off with the invention of BT crops, food production went up until recently (we still produce more crops every year, but they are drained off to make ethanol and not to feed people), acid rain was overblown, and you know what happened to Global Cooling (it’s still a huge threat as far as anyone knows, one good asteroid or volcano and it’s Fimbulwinter for sure! I mean, ummm, everyone believes in global warming so there won’t be any more Ice Ages, because, ummm… Al Gore, QED. Take no notice of my pack of Malamutes, they’re just show dogs. Really. They mainly guard the snowmobile, anyway.)

A key obligation in a scientific misconduct case is to correct any affected publications, and our confidentiality policies do not conflict with this obligation. In this case, after accepting the findings of the committee, I immediately moved to have the record corrected for those papers that were called into question by the investigation. The committee’s report indicated that three publications needed to be corrected or retracted, and this is now a matter of public record. To date, the paper, “Rule learning by cotton-top tamarins,”Cognition 86, B15-B22 (2002) has been retracted because the data produced in the published experiments did not support the published findings; and a correction was published to the paper, “Rhesus monkeys correctly read the goal-relevant gestures of a human agent,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, 1913-1918 (2007). The authors continue to work with the editors of the third publication, “The perception of rational, goal-directed action in nonhuman primates, ”Science 317, 1402-1405 (2007). As we reported to one of these editors, the investigating committee found problems with respect to the three publications mentioned previously, and five other studies that either did not result in publications or where the problems were corrected prior to publication. While different issues were detected for the studies reviewed, overall, the experiments reported were designed and conducted, but there were problems involving data acquisition, data analysis, data retention, and the reporting of research methodologies and results.

I then ask the question that is the title of this piece: "What's wrong with prostitution?" Today's Puritans - you know the sort, they bleat about smoking, drinking and eating meat - claim it's rape in disguise. If it is rape then it's rape and not prostitution, if it's not rape it's consensual conduct between two adults and none of anyone's business.

On 6th July you are cordially invited to join the Kingsmead and Southgate School Players, and the AGON Theatre team for a free show, and interactive public debate about the power of the media and the world of beauty, celebrity and fame.

Darlings, Lights, Cameras, Action, Revolution!

The PFS was not supposed to compete with the Mises Institute or LewRockwell.com. It was not supposed to be a think tank or another publication outlet. Rather, it was to complement their and other efforts by adding yet another important component to the development of an anti-statist intellectual counterculture. What had disappeared with the break-up of the original JRC was an intellectual Society dedicated to the cause. Yet every intellectual movement requires a network of personal acquaintances, of friends and comrades in arms to be successful, and for such a network to be established and grow, a regular meeting place, a society, is needed. The PFS was supposed to be this society.

On the libertarian side, the cooperation with conservatives was motivated by the insight that while libertarianism may be logically compatible with many cultures, socio-logically it requires a conservative, bourgeois core culture. The decision to form an intellectual alliance with conservatives then involved for the libertarians a double break with the “establishment libertarianism” as represented, for instance, by the Washington DC “free market” CATO Institute. This establishment libertarianism was not only theoretically in error with its commitment to the impossible goal of limited government (and centralized government at that), it was also sociologically flawed with its anti-bourgeois—indeed: adolescent—so-called “cosmopolitan” cultural message: of multiculturalism and egalitarianism, of “respect no authority,” of “live-and-let-live,” of hedonism and libertinism. The anti-establishment Austro-libertarians sought to learn more from the conservative side about the cultural requirements of a free and prosperous commonwealth. And by and large they did and learned their lesson. At least I think that I did.

Essentially, this was also my first impression when I came in contact with the MPS and this impression has been confirmed since. The MPS is a society in which every right-wing social democrat can feel at home. True, occasionally a few strange birds are invited to speak, but the meetings are dominated and the range of acceptable discourse is delineated by certified state-interventionists: by the heads of government funded or connected foundations and think-tanks, by central bank payrollees, paper-money enthusiasts, and assorted international educrats and researchocrats in-and-out of government. No discussion in the hallowed halls of the MPS of US imperialism or the Bush war crimes, for instance, or of the financial crimes committed by the FED, and no discussion of any sensitive ‘race-issue,’ of course.

Well, the government felt sorry for these people and decided to build a fence around the town to protect them from the wild animals. The town folk were furious. They said that they were safer with the wild animals roaming the streets because it kept the criminals out of town. They refused the fence, preferring the lions on their lawn to the thugs in masks who would break into homes in the dark and slaughter people for a few dollars, or rands as the case may be.

Then, a farmer spokesman stood up, tipped his hat back and said, ‘Son, I don’t think you understand our problem. Those dingos ain’t fu….’ our sheep – they’re eatin’ ‘em.’

Four Ministers will be responsible for the climate. The Ministers for Cold will be Mr. Snow and Mr. Frost, the Minister for Heat will be Mr. Power, and the Minister for Rain will be Mr. De Wet.

The Minister for Exclamations will be Gordon Bennett.

The Minister for Losing Data will be... what was his name again? He will also be the Minister without Portfolio, having left it in a taxi.