October 1999 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: Constitution, gun rights, et al
by Sean Roach 11 Oct '99

11 Oct '99

I got this in response to something I said here. I decided to pass it along to you. >Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 14:03:19 -0400 >From: Steven Furlong >Subject: Constitution, gun rights, et al > >force with trained leaders. You said you don't know the word to >descibe it.> > >Sounds like a militia. In at least some implementations, the private >soldiers, and I use the term advisedly, trained once in a while to >familiarize them with group movements, but didn't have any other >peacetime responsibilities. Officers were also "regular folks" but >they got more extensive training in tactics, communications, >logistics, and the whole shebang. > >That worked when the basic tools of war were the soldier's personal >long guns and horse-drawn wagons, and the scope of the militia was >much smaller, with all members of a company, including the leaders, >being drawn from the same community. I don't know that it would be >effective with today's complexity of weapons systems and logistics >systems. The scale of military operations is another problem. I have >some ideas on simplifying the technical systems. Bringing the scale >of military operations back to a militia level is a political and >social question, and I don't think it can be addressed in the US >without some major societal changes. > >I'm sending this via email rather than by posting to the c-punks >list because I'm not a subscriber to the list. It seems that I >_could_ post, but think it would be rude. Feel free to quote this >message if you want to post a response. ----- End of forwarded message from Sean Roach ----- I see the point he's making, I think it makes some assumptions that aren't realy valid though. At the federal level you have: army, navy, militia. All are managed by Congress unless they hand authority to the President. In all cases the funding and regulation comes from Congress. The states do get to appoint the officers of the Militia however. I assume this is under the presumption that such officers are more likely to refuse to follow federal orders if those orders are clearly outside the line. It's a sort of checks and balances. Now if we look at the section on states, that I claim gives the states the responsibility to keep an indipendant force in time of invasion, there is no stipulation as to who or how they are to be selected, organized, or funded; other than it ain't federal or state doing it. One could argue that this would then mean counties/parishes and then indipendant municipalities before it gets to individual citizens, but that seems to beg the question in my mind; not to mention they are not involved in the government of the US. It can't be federal because there is no delegate that directs the Congress to allocate funds for this use. It can't be the states doing the funding since they are specificaly prohibited from doing this, without permission from Congress, until an actual invasion or a situation that 'will not admit delay'. This implies the sherrif and associated folks going from house to house asking for help from the citizens as they see fit. Bubba and all his rowdies (those that haven't been co-opted by the federal forces so far) along with Grandpa and the two Jones' sisters ( :) ) getting in their pick-ups and going hunting. It seems to me that it is the lower civil authorities deputizing the commen citizen as a last ditch defence effort. I think 'deputized citizen' is a more accurate term to describe the participants of this last ditch effort to retain freedom. As to the claim of militia or citizen soldiers not being effective, there are plenty of bush wars going on right now that would argue contrary to this. Using poetic license; I suspect that if you got a squad of Texans chasing a group of non-US soldiers out in the bush of Texas we'd have 'em for lunch. The same holds for just about every other state as well. I can just imagine the results of a bunch of Russians (for example) trying to chase Cajuns in the swamps of Louisiana. Or American Indians in S. Dakota. They couldn't beat the Mujahadin and they sure as hell won't beat us on our home turf. Compared to a Dog Soldier the Mujahadin are amateurs. "Give me liberty, or give me death." -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDR: Constitution, gun rights, et al
by Sean Roach 11 Oct '99

11 Oct '99

I got this in response to something I said here. I decided to pass it along to you. >Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 14:03:19 -0400 >From: Steven Furlong >Subject: Constitution, gun rights, et al > >force with trained leaders. You said you don't know the word to >descibe it.> > >Sounds like a militia. In at least some implementations, the private >soldiers, and I use the term advisedly, trained once in a while to >familiarize them with group movements, but didn't have any other >peacetime responsibilities. Officers were also "regular folks" but >they got more extensive training in tactics, communications, >logistics, and the whole shebang. > >That worked when the basic tools of war were the soldier's personal >long guns and horse-drawn wagons, and the scope of the militia was >much smaller, with all members of a company, including the leaders, >being drawn from the same community. I don't know that it would be >effective with today's complexity of weapons systems and logistics >systems. The scale of military operations is another problem. I have >some ideas on simplifying the technical systems. Bringing the scale >of military operations back to a militia level is a political and >social question, and I don't think it can be addressed in the US >without some major societal changes. > >I'm sending this via email rather than by posting to the c-punks >list because I'm not a subscriber to the list. It seems that I >_could_ post, but think it would be rude. Feel free to quote this >message if you want to post a response. ----- End of forwarded message from Sean Roach ----- I see the point he's making, I think it makes some assumptions that aren't realy valid though. At the federal level you have: army, navy, militia. All are managed by Congress unless they hand authority to the President. In all cases the funding and regulation comes from Congress. The states do get to appoint the officers of the Militia however. I assume this is under the presumption that such officers are more likely to refuse to follow federal orders if those orders are clearly outside the line. It's a sort of checks and balances. Now if we look at the section on states, that I claim gives the states the responsibility to keep an indipendant force in time of invasion, there is no stipulation as to who or how they are to be selected, organized, or funded; other than it ain't federal or state doing it. One could argue that this would then mean counties/parishes and then indipendant municipalities before it gets to individual citizens, but that seems to beg the question in my mind; not to mention they are not involved in the government of the US. It can't be federal because there is no delegate that directs the Congress to allocate funds for this use. It can't be the states doing the funding since they are specificaly prohibited from doing this, without permission from Congress, until an actual invasion or a situation that 'will not admit delay'. This implies the sherrif and associated folks going from house to house asking for help from the citizens as they see fit. Bubba and all his rowdies (those that haven't been co-opted by the federal forces so far) along with Grandpa and the two Jones' sisters ( :) ) getting in their pick-ups and going hunting. It seems to me that it is the lower civil authorities deputizing the commen citizen as a last ditch defence effort. I think 'deputized citizen' is a more accurate term to describe the participants of this last ditch effort to retain freedom. As to the claim of militia or citizen soldiers not being effective, there are plenty of bush wars going on right now that would argue contrary to this. -- ____________________________________________________________________ When I die, I would like to be born again as me. Hugh Hefner ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDR: Constitution, gun rights, et al
by Sean Roach 11 Oct '99

11 Oct '99

I got this in response to something I said here. I decided to pass it along to you. >Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 14:03:19 -0400 >From: Steven Furlong >Subject: Constitution, gun rights, et al > >force with trained leaders. You said you don't know the word to >descibe it.> > >Sounds like a militia. In at least some implementations, the private >soldiers, and I use the term advisedly, trained once in a while to >familiarize them with group movements, but didn't have any other >peacetime responsibilities. Officers were also "regular folks" but >they got more extensive training in tactics, communications, >logistics, and the whole shebang. > >That worked when the basic tools of war were the soldier's personal >long guns and horse-drawn wagons, and the scope of the militia was >much smaller, with all members of a company, including the leaders, >being drawn from the same community. I don't know that it would be >effective with today's complexity of weapons systems and logistics >systems. The scale of military operations is another problem. I have >some ideas on simplifying the technical systems. Bringing the scale >of military operations back to a militia level is a political and >social question, and I don't think it can be addressed in the US >without some major societal changes. > >I'm sending this via email rather than by posting to the c-punks >list because I'm not a subscriber to the list. It seems that I >_could_ post, but think it would be rude. Feel free to quote this >message if you want to post a response. ----- End of forwarded message from Sean Roach ----- I see the point he's making, I think it makes some assumptions that aren't realy valid though. At the federal level you have: army, navy, militia. All are managed by Congress unless they hand authority to the President. In all cases the funding and regulation comes from Congress. The states do get to appoint the officers of the Militia however. I assume this is under the presumption that such officers are more likely to refuse to follow federal orders if those orders are clearly outside the line. It's a sort of checks and balances. Now if we look at the section on states, that I claim gives the states the responsibility to keep an indipendant force in time of invasion, there is no stipulation as to who or how they are to be selected, organized, or funded; other than it ain't federal or state doing it. One could argue that this would then mean counties/parishes and then indipendant municipalities before it gets to individual citizens, but that seems to beg the question in my mind; not to mention they are not involved in the government of the US. It can't be federal because there is no delegate that directs the Congress to allocate funds for this use. It can't be the states doing the funding since they are specificaly prohibited from doing this, without permission from Congress, until an actual invasion or a situation that 'will not admit delay'. This implies the sherrif and associated folks going from house to house asking for help from the citizens as they see fit. Bubba and all his rowdies (those that haven't been co-opted by the federal forces so far) along with Grandpa and the two Jones' sisters ( :) ) getting in their pick-ups and going hunting. It seems to me that it is the lower civil authorities deputizing the commen citizen as a last ditch defence effort. I think 'deputized citizen' is a more accurate term to describe the participants of this last ditch effort to retain freedom. As to the claim of militia or citizen soldiers not being effective, there are plenty of bush wars going on right now that would argue contrary to this. -- ____________________________________________________________________ When I die, I would like to be born again as me. Hugh Hefner ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDR: Constitution, gun rights, et al
by Sean Roach 11 Oct '99

11 Oct '99

I got this in response to something I said here. I decided to pass it along to you. >Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 14:03:19 -0400 >From: Steven Furlong >Subject: Constitution, gun rights, et al > >force with trained leaders. You said you don't know the word to >descibe it.> > >Sounds like a militia. In at least some implementations, the private >soldiers, and I use the term advisedly, trained once in a while to >familiarize them with group movements, but didn't have any other >peacetime responsibilities. Officers were also "regular folks" but >they got more extensive training in tactics, communications, >logistics, and the whole shebang. > >That worked when the basic tools of war were the soldier's personal >long guns and horse-drawn wagons, and the scope of the militia was >much smaller, with all members of a company, including the leaders, >being drawn from the same community. I don't know that it would be >effective with today's complexity of weapons systems and logistics >systems. The scale of military operations is another problem. I have >some ideas on simplifying the technical systems. Bringing the scale >of military operations back to a militia level is a political and >social question, and I don't think it can be addressed in the US >without some major societal changes. > >I'm sending this via email rather than by posting to the c-punks >list because I'm not a subscriber to the list. It seems that I >_could_ post, but think it would be rude. Feel free to quote this >message if you want to post a response. ----- End of forwarded message from Sean Roach ----- I see the point he's making, I think it makes some assumptions that aren't realy valid though. At the federal level you have: army, navy, militia. All are managed by Congress unless they hand authority to the President. In all cases the funding and regulation comes from Congress. The states do get to appoint the officers of the Militia however. I assume this is under the presumption that such officers are more likely to refuse to follow federal orders if those orders are clearly outside the line. It's a sort of checks and balances. Now if we look at the section on states, that I claim gives the states the responsibility to keep an indipendant force in time of invasion, there is no stipulation as to who or how they are to be selected, organized, or funded; other than it ain't federal or state doing it. One could argue that this would then mean counties/parishes and then indipendant municipalities before it gets to individual citizens, but that seems to beg the question in my mind; not to mention they are not involved in the government of the US. It can't be federal because there is no delegate that directs the Congress to allocate funds for this use. It can't be the states doing the funding since they are specificaly prohibited from doing this, without permission from Congress, until an actual invasion or a situation that 'will not admit delay'. This implies the sherrif and associated folks going from house to house asking for help from the citizens as they see fit. Bubba and all his rowdies (those that haven't been co-opted by the federal forces so far) along with Grandpa and the two Jones' sisters ( :) ) getting in their pick-ups and going hunting. It seems to me that it is the lower civil authorities deputizing the commen citizen as a last ditch defence effort. I think 'deputized citizen' is a more accurate term to describe the participants of this last ditch effort to retain freedom. As to the claim of militia or citizen soldiers not being effective, there are plenty of bush wars going on right now that would argue contrary to this. Using poetic license; I suspect that if you got a squad of Texans chasing a group of non-US soldiers out in the bush of Texas we'd have 'em for lunch. The same holds for just about every other state as well. I can just imagine the results of a bunch of Russians (for example) trying to chase Cajuns in the swamps of Louisiana. Or American Indians in S. Dakota. They couldn't beat the Mujahadin and they sure as hell won't beat us on our home turf. Compared to a Dog Soldier the Mujahadin are amateurs. "Give me liberty, or give me death." -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: An immediate way to end federal gun control?
by Steve Schear 10 Oct '99

10 Oct '99

At 10:32 PM 10/9/99 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: This is not new turf. In my view you are correct, but the federales have stolen the show through a number of legal shennagans and the refusal of courts to hold them to their constitutional mandates. For an excellent review of this topic, see Brannon P. Denning, Palladium of Liberty? Causes and Consequences of the Federalization of State Militias in the Twentieth Century, http://www.2ndlawlib.org/journals/denpall.html ----- End of forwarded message from Steve Schear ----- Actualy it's not the same thing at all. As to federalization of state militia's. This should surprise no-one since states can't keep troops of any form, even militia. The Constitution is also clear that there can be only *one* militia and it is a national or federal militia. Even Mr. Denning doesn't seem to catch the paradox because of his use of 'militias' in the plural. It also misses the point that individual rights to own weapons is *not* based on the requirement to have a militia. If the Constitution is taken as a whole the right of the individual to own and bear arms is in addition to both the federal military and militia. Also, his claim that membership in the Militia is universal is faulty as well, membership is voluntary but by no means mandatory as he implies. There are a couple of issues with the current implimentation of the National Guard as well. If it's the militia then there can't be 50 of them organized by state. If they're not the militia then the state funding that goes directly into them is unconstitutional. The reality is that at the federal level there are three military forces; army, navy, and militia. I am unaware of any assaults on federal gun control laws that use this line of reasoning; states are required to protect themselves against invasion or periods of domestic violence not dependant upon federal or even state resources and that this authorizes private ownership of weapons. If you can point to a summary of such a case I'd appreciate it.

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Re: An immediate way to end federal gun control?
by Steve Schear 10 Oct '99

10 Oct '99

At 10:32 PM 10/9/99 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: This is not new turf. In my view you are correct, but the federales have stolen the show through a number of legal shennagans and the refusal of courts to hold them to their constitutional mandates. For an excellent review of this topic, see Brannon P. Denning, Palladium of Liberty? Causes and Consequences of the Federalization of State Militias in the Twentieth Century, http://www.2ndlawlib.org/journals/denpall.html ----- End of forwarded message from Steve Schear ----- Actualy it's not the same thing at all. As to federalization of state militia's. This should surprise no-one since states can't keep troops of any form, even militia. The Constitution is also clear that there can be only *one* militia and it is a national or federal militia. Even Mr. Denning doesn't seem to catch the paradox because of his use of 'militias' in the plural. It also misses the point that individual rights to own weapons is *not* based on the requirement to have a militia. If the Constitution is taken as a whole the right of the individual to own and bear arms is in addition to both the federal military and militia. Also, his claim that membership in the Militia is universal is faulty as well, membership is voluntary but by no means mandatory as he implies. There are a couple of issues with the current implimentation of the National Guard as well. If it's the militia then there can't be 50 of them organized by state. If they're not the militia then the state funding that goes directly into them is unconstitutional. The reality is that at the federal level there are three military forces; army, navy, and militia. I am unaware of any assaults on federal gun control laws that use this line of reasoning; states are required to protect themselves against invasion or periods of domestic violence not dependant upon federal or even state resources and that this authorizes private ownership of weapons. If you can point to a summary of such a case I'd appreciate it.

1 0

Re: An immediate way to end federal gun control?
by Steve Schear 10 Oct '99

10 Oct '99

At 10:32 PM 10/9/99 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: This is not new turf. In my view you are correct, but the federales have stolen the show through a number of legal shennagans and the refusal of courts to hold them to their constitutional mandates. For an excellent review of this topic, see Brannon P. Denning, Palladium of Liberty? Causes and Consequences of the Federalization of State Militias in the Twentieth Century, http://www.2ndlawlib.org/journals/denpall.html ----- End of forwarded message from Steve Schear ----- Actualy it's not the same thing at all. As to federalization of state militia's. This should surprise no-one since states can't keep troops of any form, even militia. The Constitution is also clear that there can be only *one* militia and it is a national or federal militia. Even Mr. Denning doesn't seem to catch the paradox because of his use of 'militias' in the plural. It also misses the point that individual rights to own weapons is *not* based on the requirement to have a militia. If the Constitution is taken as a whole the right of the individual to own and bear arms is in addition to both the federal military and militia. Also, his claim that membership in the Militia is universal is faulty as well, membership is voluntary but by no means mandatory as he implies. There are a couple of issues with the current implimentation of the National Guard as well. If it's the militia then there can't be 50 of them organized by state. If they're not the militia then the state funding that goes directly into them is unconstitutional. The reality is that at the federal level there are three military forces; army, navy, and militia. I am unaware of any assaults on federal gun control laws that use this line of reasoning; states are required to protect themselves against invasion or periods of domestic violence not dependant upon federal or even state resources and that this authorizes private ownership of weapons. If you can point to a summary of such a case I'd appreciate it.

1 0

Re: An immediate way to end federal gun control?
by Steve Schear 10 Oct '99

10 Oct '99

At 10:32 PM 10/9/99 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: This is not new turf. In my view you are correct, but the federales have stolen the show through a number of legal shennagans and the refusal of courts to hold them to their constitutional mandates. For an excellent review of this topic, see Brannon P. Denning, Palladium of Liberty? Causes and Consequences of the Federalization of State Militias in the Twentieth Century, http://www.2ndlawlib.org/journals/denpall.html ----- End of forwarded message from Steve Schear ----- Actualy it's not the same thing at all. As to federalization of state militia's. This should surprise no-one since states can't keep troops of any form, even militia. The Constitution is also clear that there can be only *one* militia and it is a national or federal militia. Even Mr. Denning doesn't seem to catch the paradox because of his use of 'militias' in the plural. It also misses the point that individual rights to own weapons is *not* based on the requirement to have a militia. If the Constitution is taken as a whole the right of the individual to own and bear arms is in addition to both the federal military and militia. Also, his claim that membership in the Militia is universal is faulty as well, membership is voluntary but by no means mandatory as he implies. There are a couple of issues with the current implimentation of the National Guard as well. If it's the militia then there can't be 50 of them organized by state. If they're not the militia then the state funding that goes directly into them is unconstitutional. The reality is that at the federal level there are three military forces; army, navy, and militia. I am unaware of any assaults on federal gun control laws that use this line of reasoning; states are required to protect themselves against invasion or periods of domestic violence not dependant upon federal or even state resources and that this authorizes private ownership of weapons. If you can point to a summary of such a case I'd appreciate it.

1 0

Oct. 10 column -- "free market" in the skies?
by Vin_Suprynowicz＠lvrj.com 09 Oct '99

09 Oct '99

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 10, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Let's launch an 'all-armed, all-smoking' airline A number of readers wrote in response to my column of Oct. 3, about bored functionaries "randomly" rooting through my laundry and personal effects even after my bags have cleared our now-standard metal detectors and X-ray machines. Many noted that private airlines have a right of private contract, which should allow them to set any such requirements they please, since we passengers always have the right to patronize another airline. I'm familiar with the argument for freedom of voluntary contract. In this case, it's purest steer manure. Suppose I raised $100 million and proposed to start AirGanja, "America's only all-armed, all-smoking airline"? I'd beef up my on-board air conditioning so I could advertise that our air quality is better than our competitors' even if the passengers on either side of you choose to chain-smoke cigars. My "flight attendants" would hand out free marijuana in First Class once airborne, and politely offer each boarding passenger a metal magazine (or revolver speed-loader) full or any caliber ammo they choose, urging them to reload their weapons for the duration of the flight with my special color-coded frangible rounds, designed to blow the head off any hijacker without penetrating our pressure cabins. (Needless to say, "controlled" drugs could not be used until we're airborne, at which point we're out of the jurisdiction of any local prohibitionist deviants -- the precedent already having been set by the fact that no airline today will refuse to sell you a cocktail while they're passing over the dry counties of Texas or Tennessee.) Of course, I'd charge a 15 percent premium for these improved services. Either I'd grow rich -- forcing my competitors to start offering some of the same options and services -- or, if my idea proved unpopular with the paying public, I'd go bankrupt. That would be a free market in air travel, and you would indeed remain free to choose a "non-smoking, no guns," strip-search airline (if that somehow makes you feel safer) instead of mine. Chance the FAA would allow me to launch such a competing service? Pinch yourself; you're dreaming. If such suggestions now sound absurd, it's only because we've forgotten what it was like to live in a free country. The average train passenger in 1912 could easily have found herself seated opposite a fellow passenger armed with a loaded revolver (concealed or otherwise), smoking an Indian hemp cigarette, and carrying a hip flask of laudanum. In fact, your great-grandmother would probably have felt somewhat more secure under such circumstances, knowing this fellow American was prepared to resist any attempted train robbery, as well as to provide a sip of cough syrup should the baby (your grandfather) grow fretful. The fact that we find it unthinkable today that an airline might be allowed any such options only means we have grown used to living under a burgeoning variety of fascism, an economic system in which private corporations are allowed to keep private title to their properties and extract certain after-tax profits (providing they don't grow large enough to attract the attention of the "Anti-Trust Division"), but where all substantive decisions about routes, "security," and so forth are actually made on a "one-size-fits-all" basis by unelected government functionaries. To argue any part of the current scenario is a true "voluntary, free contract" between passenger and airline is like saying the Todt Organization's slave laborers in various cannon works in Nazi Germany had no right to blame the government for their plight, since they'd entered into a "voluntary contract" with their employer. ("Volunteer for this labor contract, or go to the death camps. Choose quickly.") "Voluntary contract," indeed. I'm free "to not use their service" -- and try to find a passenger train with regular service from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas? And how long do you think we'll be free from having our luggage searched and being require to show our "government-issued photo ID" on the trains and highways? Whoops. "Random highway checkpoint" stops are already part of the War on Drugs, aren't they? And reporter P.L. Wyckoff of The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported this week: "They haven't attracted the attention that drug searches on the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways have. But charges of racial profiling are being leveled on another busy battlefield in the drug war -- the nation's trains and train stations. "Larry Bland, a black Bethesda, Md., resident, says he had just walked off a train in Richmond, Va., in July when police told him they needed to search his bag because drugs were coming through the station and he 'fit the profile.' "Carlos A. Hernandez, a former Newark, N.J., policeman, believes he was singled out for a tense drug search of his Amtrak sleeper cabin coming back from Miami that same month simply because his name is Hispanic. ... "Civil libertarians and attorneys say that, whatever the truth for Bland and Hernandez, such cases are widespread. ... 'That is really just a sliver of what's going on out there,' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who prepared a national report for the American Civil Liberties Union on racial profiling on the highways. "Train searches 'have been going on for a long time,' agrees Georgetown law professor David Cole. ..." Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," available at 1-800-244-2224 or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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Oct. 10 column -- "free market" in the skies?
by Vin_Suprynowicz＠lvrj.com 09 Oct '99

09 Oct '99

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 10, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Let's launch an 'all-armed, all-smoking' airline A number of readers wrote in response to my column of Oct. 3, about bored functionaries "randomly" rooting through my laundry and personal effects even after my bags have cleared our now-standard metal detectors and X-ray machines. Many noted that private airlines have a right of private contract, which should allow them to set any such requirements they please, since we passengers always have the right to patronize another airline. I'm familiar with the argument for freedom of voluntary contract. In this case, it's purest steer manure. Suppose I raised $100 million and proposed to start AirGanja, "America's only all-armed, all-smoking airline"? I'd beef up my on-board air conditioning so I could advertise that our air quality is better than our competitors' even if the passengers on either side of you choose to chain-smoke cigars. My "flight attendants" would hand out free marijuana in First Class once airborne, and politely offer each boarding passenger a metal magazine (or revolver speed-loader) full or any caliber ammo they choose, urging them to reload their weapons for the duration of the flight with my special color-coded frangible rounds, designed to blow the head off any hijacker without penetrating our pressure cabins. (Needless to say, "controlled" drugs could not be used until we're airborne, at which point we're out of the jurisdiction of any local prohibitionist deviants -- the precedent already having been set by the fact that no airline today will refuse to sell you a cocktail while they're passing over the dry counties of Texas or Tennessee.) Of course, I'd charge a 15 percent premium for these improved services. Either I'd grow rich -- forcing my competitors to start offering some of the same options and services -- or, if my idea proved unpopular with the paying public, I'd go bankrupt. That would be a free market in air travel, and you would indeed remain free to choose a "non-smoking, no guns," strip-search airline (if that somehow makes you feel safer) instead of mine. Chance the FAA would allow me to launch such a competing service? Pinch yourself; you're dreaming. If such suggestions now sound absurd, it's only because we've forgotten what it was like to live in a free country. The average train passenger in 1912 could easily have found herself seated opposite a fellow passenger armed with a loaded revolver (concealed or otherwise), smoking an Indian hemp cigarette, and carrying a hip flask of laudanum. In fact, your great-grandmother would probably have felt somewhat more secure under such circumstances, knowing this fellow American was prepared to resist any attempted train robbery, as well as to provide a sip of cough syrup should the baby (your grandfather) grow fretful. The fact that we find it unthinkable today that an airline might be allowed any such options only means we have grown used to living under a burgeoning variety of fascism, an economic system in which private corporations are allowed to keep private title to their properties and extract certain after-tax profits (providing they don't grow large enough to attract the attention of the "Anti-Trust Division"), but where all substantive decisions about routes, "security," and so forth are actually made on a "one-size-fits-all" basis by unelected government functionaries. To argue any part of the current scenario is a true "voluntary, free contract" between passenger and airline is like saying the Todt Organization's slave laborers in various cannon works in Nazi Germany had no right to blame the government for their plight, since they'd entered into a "voluntary contract" with their employer. ("Volunteer for this labor contract, or go to the death camps. Choose quickly.") "Voluntary contract," indeed. I'm free "to not use their service" -- and try to find a passenger train with regular service from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas? And how long do you think we'll be free from having our luggage searched and being require to show our "government-issued photo ID" on the trains and highways? Whoops. "Random highway checkpoint" stops are already part of the War on Drugs, aren't they? And reporter P.L. Wyckoff of The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported this week: "They haven't attracted the attention that drug searches on the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways have. But charges of racial profiling are being leveled on another busy battlefield in the drug war -- the nation's trains and train stations. "Larry Bland, a black Bethesda, Md., resident, says he had just walked off a train in Richmond, Va., in July when police told him they needed to search his bag because drugs were coming through the station and he 'fit the profile.' "Carlos A. Hernandez, a former Newark, N.J., policeman, believes he was singled out for a tense drug search of his Amtrak sleeper cabin coming back from Miami that same month simply because his name is Hispanic. ... "Civil libertarians and attorneys say that, whatever the truth for Bland and Hernandez, such cases are widespread. ... 'That is really just a sliver of what's going on out there,' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who prepared a national report for the American Civil Liberties Union on racial profiling on the highways. "Train searches 'have been going on for a long time,' agrees Georgetown law professor David Cole. ..." Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," available at 1-800-244-2224 or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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