Friday, February 27, 2004
Immigration ~ Immigration ~ Einwanderung
Immigration ~ I'll make it short and loud. One of the two or three main topics everywhere these days is immigration, a fact as old as humanity and a problem as old as territorial governments. To show that it is a fake problem or only as far as other conditions make it one, I inaugurate a new section on this website, simply called Immigration. It will give you a wealth of insights. On each of my six main websites I wrote a few lines of introduction. See the list of these introductions at the end of this entry and maybe read them first. For individual sovereignty instead of collective one!Immigration ~ Je serai bref, mais sonore. Un des deux ou trois principaux sujets d'actualité ces jours-ci de par le monde, c'est l'immigration, un phénomène aussi vieux que l'humanité, mais un problème aussi ancien seulement que l'existence de gouvernements territoriaux. Pour montrer qu'il s'agit d'un faux problème ou seulement dans la mesure où d'autres conditions en font un, j'inaugure une nouvelle section sur ce site simplement appelée Immigration. Elle vous fournira une profusion d'aperçus nouveaux. Pour chacun de mes six principaux sites j'ai écrit quelques lignes d'introduction. Consultez la liste de ces introductions à la fin de cette inscription en trois langues de mon journal de bord et, si vous le voulez, lisez-les d'abord. Pour la souveraineté de l'individu à la place de la souveraineté collective!
Einwanderung ~ Ich werde mich kurz fassen, aber laut genug sein. Eines der zwei oder drei Haupt-Tagesthemen derzeit überall auf der Welt ist die Einwanderung, ein Phänomen so alt wie die Menschheit selbst, aber ein Problem nur solange es territoriale Staaten gibt. Um zu zeigen, daß es ein Scheinproblem ist oder nur insofern eins als noch andere Bedingungen herrschen, die es zu einem machen, eröffne ich eine neue Rubrik auf dieser Website, die ich einfach Immigration nenne. Sie wird Ihnen eine Fülle neuer Einsichten bieten. Auf jeder meiner sechs Haupt-Websites habe ich paar Zeilen Einführung dazu geschrieben, deren Aufzählung am Ende dieses dreisprachigen Eintrags steht. Vieleicht mögen Sie sich diese ja als kleine Vorspeise zu Gemüte führen. Für die Souveränität und Selbstbestimmung des Individuums statt kollektiver Bevormundung!
- butterbach.de "AKTUELL"
- butterbach.lu "enert dem kiishtebaam"
- butterbach.net/exterritorial.net "CB's notewok"
- butterbach.net/gay "merrygayhorny"
- butterbach.net/lmp "John Zube's Weblog"
- panarchism.info "The Exterritorial Imperative"
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 11:27 AM GMT+1 [Link]
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
A Special Note from the White House
From: The White HouseTo: The American People
Oh, sorry, it's actually from Jonathan David Morris :-)
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 05:06 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Sunday, February 22, 2004
The Newdow Case on the Pledge of Allegiance
New content on my Op-Ed page about the Pledge of Allegiance case presently before the U.S. Supreme Court. A short article by Attorney Rex Curry with incredible links in it, revealing little known little big things. It shows that aping the worst of America instead of the best is not new under the German sun. Don't miss those pictures!With a special dedication by me to all those many non-Americans who have always considered it a bit exaggerated, not to say more, to see behind each desk, as an unimaginative background for those persons mainly who like to be photographed and interviewed without saying much, that omnipresent vertical pole with that flag hanging down. There never seems to be any wind around, not the meteorological one, not the one of truth... ;-)
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 09:05 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Thursday, February 19, 2004
...little Washington?
Or "...little Washington can do"?
From http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-19-04.html the following lines (Why prohibitions on Internet gambling won't work by Koleman Strumpf, Cato Institute):
- "With the steady rise of commercial activity on the Internet, Congress has been moving toward a formal prohibition of online gambling. While such policies might spring from a moral viewpoint, they are unlikely to succeed in limiting online betting. Because Internet gaming operations are often located outside of the U.S., there is little Washington can do to restrict their actions."
Is there really little Washington can do? Then please explain me why since a couple of years countries even like Denmark and the Netherlands, not to speak of other European ones, suddenly pile up new laws and court decisions blueprinted by the Bush Administration. I do not believe in a coincidence.
And "Washington" could always invade us if we do not obey! :-)
PS: Otherwise the Cato Institute article is quite sound, though not of the most radical libertarian sort, which would be more weary of regulation by laws. Why not let full freedom, a real free market, just happen? Because that would preclude the chances of government to make a nice cut on gambling, horny as it is for tax money needed for invasions, oops, for defence. Against criminals. A matter of definition. Aren't there enough laws already to deal with true criminals (not those just acting "illegally", the perpetrators of victimless "crimes" and such)? Thieves, robbers, murderers! Etc. Then these laws should be applied!!! Oh, that would deprive us of our cherished gobierno (all three branches probably), that gubernaculum only needed by sheeple. Well, then of course, we will have to keep it. Who wants to be so mean as to deprive children of their nannies, in the absence of Mother Liberty?!
PPS: Hey, wouldn't the demise of that gobierno not also make disappear a few think tanks..., for lack of funding? But maybe we would not need those anymore? °/°
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 02:55 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Further to Tittygate...
A top-notch piece of Hungarian tongue in cheek humour (reminding me of George Mikes) I heartily recommend for some healthy smiles and laughs, but also for its deeper implications:Zero Tolerance for Bare Lemon Bumps!
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 12:43 PM GMT+1 [Link]
NEW HAMPSHIRE
"There's no better place for freedom-loving Americans than New Hampshire... New Hampshire was the state chosen by signed FSP participants in a vote that took place in August and September 2003. It was chosen because it has the lowest state and local tax burden in the continental U.S., the second-lowest level of dependence on federal spending in the U.S., a citizen legislature where state house representatives have not raised their $100 per year salary since 1889, the lowest crime levels in the U.S., a dynamic economy with plenty of jobs and investment, and a culture of individual responsibility indicated by, for example, a lack of seatbelt and helmet requirements for adults."I am quoting these few lines from the website of the Free State Project for a reason. Firstly, to draw your attention again to that tremendous project. Secondly, especially for all those not living in the United States and not likely to ever move there: how about catching the one or other of your "representatives" in your country and lock them up for a week or so in a barren monk's cell in some Catholic or Orthodox convent and have them meditate upon those few basic and striking indicators mentioned, while you can do the same, sitting comfortably in your armchair at home... :-)
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 10:02 AM GMT+1 [Link]
Please follow this animeld to here.
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 09:32 AM GMT+1 [Link]
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Tittygate or Ticketgate?
Getting a ticket for speeding or for virtually sucking a nipple? Come on, America, become grown-up, and stop making an issue out of things that in Europe would make any bigot or old churchy type lady yawn. In the German city I live in, any toddler can see any day as many titties he wants, should he want to, in the windows of any newsstand and elsewhere.For the deeper meaning of it all, read two new columns on my Op-Ed page:
- Censorship Is Not Solution for Trashy TV
by Wendy McElroy - The Road to Tyranny is Poorly Paved
by Jonathan David Morris
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 03:36 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Monday, February 16, 2004
Hell, no, she won't go!
by L. Neil Smith"I narrowly avoided getting drafted myself, during the Vietnam war. Ironically, worrying about the draft -- I don't play well in groups, I can't place my life in the hands of others, and I won't take orders from somebody dumber than I am -- gave me an ulcer, and the ulcer got me out of the draft. I whistled 'Alice's Restaurant' all through the physical. But now, I'm told, the sons-of-bitches want my daughter. There are no adequate words to describe my disgust at having to go through this all over again. The word is that, unsatisfied with sending their storm troopers to over 160 nations, unsatisfied with crushing helpless Third World countries and murdering their women and children, unsatisfied with ripping off their oil, the Bush Administration is cranking up the Selective Slavery system. Only this time, they want to take girls, as well."
http://www.rationalreview.com/lnsmith/021604.shtml
The webmaster dedicates this quote to a certain type of butch dykes, to a certain type of leftist feminists, to a certain type of wide-spread idiots, namely those who were upset when I recently published a few lines on my German website (that were later re-posted on ef-news and then published in print in the magazine "ESPERO") where I said, among a few other things along the same line, that the state is a murderer, without using the word.
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 08:36 AM GMT+1 [Link]
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Cooling Down the Abortion Debate
By Wendy McElroy. Her latest column is online now on my site, as always on Tuesdays, but, starting next week, this will be moved to Wednesdays. Thus Wednesday will be your Wendyday from now on!Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 10:31 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Jonathan David Morris
As announced, today is the start on my Op-Ed page of a new syndicated top column: "JDM vs the World" is a weekly column, published pretty much every Tuesday. From politics and current events to issues of culture and idiocy, when JDM laces 'em up it's no-holds-barred and no topic out-of-bounds ~~ so keep your hands up and protect yourself at all times.
Jonathan David Morris is a political satirist based in New Jersey. A strong believer in small government, JDM often takes aim at oppressive taxes, entitlements, and laws, writing about incompetence at the highest levels of culture and government. Headstrong, stubborn, and fearful of tyranny, you can catch his weekly ramblings at Read JDM and his column "JDM vs the World" also on BUTTERBACH.NET and EXTERRITORIAL.NET.
Jonathan received an Award for Exceptional Writing in 2000 from Monmouth University Department of Communication, and earlier, in 1997, the Monmouth University Honors Program Paper of the Year award. His work is syndicated in print by The Aquarian and online by, at the moment, twenty distinguished websites. His radio appearances are with WGHT 1500 AM North Jersey
The non-American, but English reading, visitors of this site (whether they are the largest or only the second-largest group among my audience, is difficult to decide on the basis alone of what my log files reveal) should be aware of the following. Sometimes they may not be able to follow every detail of Jonathan's articles. But with such a rich diet, they will have had enough to eat if they swallow only part of the varied menu offered. There is a reason for this. Let us hear the author himself explaining:
"I am, indeed, aware that my writing is tailored to an American audience. I tend to focus on the American news scene because it's the scene that I know. But I also do it because I feel the libertarian concepts I talk about aren't going to be understood by most people unless I relate them to everyday events. So that's what I try to do.
Of course, I also make a lot of references to American pop culture. I do this because I am first and foremost a storyteller, and as such I like to think of myself as a keeper of the modern American cultural tradition. Maybe people will read my articles 100 years from now, maybe they won't. But, if they do, I want to provide them with as much context as possible."
Now enjoy item #1 CBS and the FCC: Is America Big Enough for Both?!
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 09:46 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Friday, February 6, 2004
Want to be "among the most informed people on the planet when it comes to political matters"???
I bet you want!!!
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The why of it
Our philosophy here at RRND isn't complicated. We don't concern ourselves with self-serving claims of "objectivity." We're libertarians and proud of it. Many of our commentary links are also to libertarian or pro-freedom articles; the rest are to "other sources" that we think libertarians will, or at least should, find interesting for one reason or another. And we feel free to editorialize by adding notes or crafting our own headlines in the news section.
We're libertarians, and our product is intended for a libertarian audience. That's that.
However biased we may be, though, we _do_ believe that the proper function of a publication like ours is to keep you informed, and we do our best to achieve that. Tonight, I came across a perfect example of why we need to do what we're doing.
The top news story in this edition of RRND is "US Army admits to killing Iraqi child." The source I chose for that story is Al-Jazeera, the much-maligned, but actually rather fair-minded, Arab news network headquartered in Qatar.
We run some stories from non-US sources, even though our audience is mostly (I estimate in excess of 90%) American. One advantage of foreign sources is that most of them wear their politics on their sleeves, like we do. The Guardian (for example), for example, is an unabashedly leftist publication. So is the New York Times (for example). The Guardian doesn't claim to be anything but an unabashedly leftist publication. The Times likes to pretend, outside the confines of its editorial pages, to be dispassionate and non-partisan in its coverage of news.
We know better, of course ... but the pretense distorts the coverage. The Guardian will be selective in the facts it cites and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it, but you _know_ that there's an angle to the story. The Times will subtly distort its "factual" stories to get the same result, while touting its non-existent neutrality.
But I digress. Why, you ask, would I pick Al-Jazeera as the source for the day's top news story? Why not a good old reliable American source like the Washington Post or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution?
The answer: Because the American press isn't covering the story. The only account I found on any nominally American source was Yahoo!'s mirror of an AFP (a French bureau) story.
Let me make this clear: The Australian press is covering the story. The Indian press is covering the story. The Malaysian press is covering the story. The Lebanese press is covering the story. Singapore, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Oman ... papers in all of these countries are covering the story.
But the American press? Not one word, if Google searches on several keywords is any indication. I didn't find accounts on the sites of CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other American newspaper. I didn't find an Associated Press brief. I didn't find a Reuters story. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
When the war in Iraq began, I laid down an editorial line for RRND: Combat deaths in Iraq will be our top story whenever we know about them. Not because "if it bleeds, it leads" -- we're not a newsstand publication that needs a big headline to attract a buyer -- but because the war is the top story of the day until it ends, and the dying is, or should be, the top story of the war. It's the essential fact of conflict. People die. And the people paying for the conflict should know about its effects. Not just US combat deaths, either. Last time I looked, we all bled red. Whether the war is right or wrong, those who fall beneath the sword are equally dead, and we've decided that we have an obligation to keep those deaths in our readers' minds until this thing is over.
So color me offended. The armed forces of the United States kill a 9-year-old boy (a killing which I'm prone to believe was, indeed, accidental, but which leaves said boy no less dead), then try to buy his family off for $2500 ... and the free press of a great nation ignores it.
This is a particularly egregious example of the American press's silence on important stories, but it's not the only one by a damn sight. I'm sure we don't catch all of those suppressed stories ... but we try. And we'll keep trying.
That's what we're here for. I like to think that RRND's readers are among the most informed people on the planet when it comes to political matters. I also like to think that RRND is partially responsible for keeping them so informed.
I'll wrap this up, of course, with the customary "send money" note. If what I say above makes sense to you, I hope that it also explains why it's important for RRND to survive and thrive. I still have two copies of Ilana Mercer's _Broad Sides_ to give away to our next two $100 donors (see yesterday's issue for instructions), and our premium page still abounds with cool swag for donors who don't care to throw _that_ much cash our way. Here's the URL:
http://www.rationalreview.com/news/premiums.html
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review
So far Tom. I will of course not dissuade you either from donating to RR, but I mainly want to persuade you to subscribe. Here is the link:
http://www.rationalreview.com/news/#news
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 09:32 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Thursday, February 5, 2004
New authors and texts on my Op-Ed page!
While my new Op-Ed page is still in construction to become the central access point to all articles and essays by guest columnists published on this site (not yet all authors who have previously published texts on this site that could fit in here are listed as per today), the choice and the quality is already appetizing enough for you to take the plunge and exert that frenzied click on the Op-Ed page/Guest columns link on top of this home page, just below my individualist exterritorialist logo. Make it a habit!
Wendy McElroy
She is represented with the largest number of essays so far. Her weekly column is must reading for all of us. Her latest column, on one of the most unbelievable (oh no, it is so believable unfortunately in our system of society and government!) scandals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, is, as always, to be found on top of her list of contributions.
Jonathan David Morris
Jonathan David Morris will start being syndicated on my site next Tuesday. Do not miss him! More on him later here in my CB's notewok.
Rex Curry
His short articles [I needed something to counteract John Zube's tapeworms... ;-)] are online since today.
Rex Curry is a lawyer in Florida, a sixth-generation Floridian, and a life-long resident. He also has a degree in journalism and has been published worldwide. His predecessors helped settle Key West back when Florida's government was virtually non-existent. The Curry Mansion (home of Florida's first capitalist millionaire) is still on the local tour.
And he is a hunk!
Not the only one on my Op-Ed page, by the way. :-)
Ken Schoolland
His already listed essays on immigration, libertarian gems if ever there were, will be next to go online. On this there will be much more to be said. But later.
Brad Spangler and Thomas L. Knapp
It looks as if, after I will have added to the Op-Ed page the previous publications of these two on this site, especially important new essays will be forthcoming.
And there is much more to come. Totally new authors to be discovered, proven ones and even a couple of authors not among us anymore but whose articles will fit in in a way that you would assume that they are our living contemporaries, if I did not tell you.
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 11:50 PM GMT+1 [Link]
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Latest news from Albania
Demonstrations and protests in Tirana!
See latest addition on my Albania page.
Posted by Christian Butterbach @ 09:49 AM GMT+1 [Link]
