The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

Today is Memorial Day, as every American should know. Let's all take a moment from our BBQs, DUIs, and DIYs to remember all those men and women who died or were left mentally and/or physically scarred so you didn't have to. Also, let us never forget those leaders of ours who have launched wars that were stupid and unjust.

Now I leave you with a quote from a recent E-mail I recieved:

"That's so true let's say "boo" to you-know-who! :D
~ADB

A. P. wrote:

> "When governments fear the people there is liberty.
> When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
> - Thomas Jefferson
> ______________________________________________________________________
> A. V. P
> President
> Cashflow ATM, Inc."

According to CNN, Democrats in Congress are worried that a renewal and expansion of USAPATRIOT Act provisions related to FBI investigations could endanger civil liberties. Well of course, you morons. My question is, will any real action come out of this, and if the DNC was in the RNC's shoes, would they do anything different? Probably not, but they'd have better PR skills about the whole thing.

In other news, I've been thinking about writing a short book or some other like printed publication. I'll have to look into the buisiness details of all this, but the topic will be about the libertarian ideal, what America (the people and the government) are doing wrong, and what we can do to get on the right track. Long story short, it will be a lot like the material we publish on Phoenix of Light- Firey and controvercial, but intelegent and well thought-out as well. Stay tuned for more information!

This week, DownsizeDC's "Read The Bills Act", which is meant to force federal legislators to read what they're voting on prior to doing so was officially launched and send to the offices of all House and Senate members. This is definately very good news! But, as always, we all need to keep the pressure on. To do this, visit this page and fill in the simple info and/or log in to the site. If you're a regular libertarian reader/activist, you know the drill!

Libertarians of the world unite!!
(Just without all those pesky communostatist overtones :D)

The last couple days have been spent in part making some small technical changes to the way searh engines interpret this site. Also, the site search link (above) has been updated so that it actually works again. Finally, you may notice that this blog's title has been changed to "The Liberty Lamp". I did this in honor of LP Presidential candidate and educator, Michael Badnarik, and because it better describes what the Phoenix of Light Network is all about.

In less fortunate news, the damn "RealID" bill passed, and the FDA has approved the use of implanted chips (using RFID of course!) in patients to track their medical history. Fortunately, the State Governor's Association is likely to challenge the RealID law in court. Maybe if we keep at it, it will die and go to hell once and for all. Libertarians of the World Unite! ;)

Can you say "fascism", anyone? Perhaps you should read Orwell's 1984.

Well, readers, it's official. The totally outrageous "RealID" provision of the Iraq military/Asia Tsunami relief spending bill is going up for a vote in the US Senate NEXT TUESDAY! Follow the title link to send your senators a fax, or visit DownsizeDC.org to send them an e-mail urging them to say "No" to this bill. The Senate is our last hope, as the stupid House has approved it, and President George "Senor Spineless" Bush will doubtlessly sign the bill into law! Better yet, send an e-mail AND a fax, like I did. Be cool. Everyone's doing it, don't be a loser! ;)

...And you still have a log in the other. Although religion is a topic you don't commonly hear about in libertarian circles (at least not for its own sake), the Bible does have some good advice that could really help people in America today. Next to the "Golden Rule", I would say that the best suggestion you could get from the Scriptures is this:

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"



The most effective, though arguably one of the hardest things "society" needs to do is to take these words to heart, and mind their own problems first instead of whining about others' issues. Why do you think we have so many crappy laws in America and elsewhere today? More than anything, I would argue that this state of distrust, fear, and dysfunctionality stems from the fact that most people can't seem to mind their own damn buisiness. As a result, we're left with a cycle of perpetual finger-pointing, in which no one's problems are solved because every accusor is in denial of his or her own problems.

Based on this premise, which has both logical and theological backing, we can make a sound argument that libertarianism as an actionable political and personal philosophy is the one and only way to resolve the vast majority of the issues we face throughout the world today.

This could quite possibly be one of the greatest websites ever! "What is it", you might ask. Well, to put it in a way that's safe for minors, Live Nude Cats, or "LNC" is a gato-centric site partially dedicated to very humourous fake feline related porn. A marvelous monument to inuendo, the cats have their genitalia censored out, and they come complete with potentially risque captions (depending on how far you look into it). They even (I'm not lying!) sell branded clothing, including some of these sexy little panties for da ladies :D

Fun for the whole family, except those under 18 months of age, as dictated by the homepage. Check it out today!

Early this morning, I finally realized that something screwy was going on with this DNS domain name. I updated the server information between 2 and 3AM PST this morning, so hopefully it will be completely operational by this time tomorrow. As of now, it generally seems to work, but subdomains are still down and e-mail is being retarded (MX record probably not valid yet).

In the meantime, check out Grub, an open source project sponsored by Looksmart, of all companies. Put simply, Grub is a distributed computing screensaver for Windows and Linux that helps spider the Web. The goal of the project is to maintain the most complete and up-to-date database of the WWW possible. A bonus for volunteers is that your own website(s) can be spidered first, so you're guaranteed to always have the freshest database entries, and hopefully more hits.

First, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy Cinco de Mayo! Give those historic Mexican rebels some credit for kicking out the French Napoleonic invaders! For those who are no doubt confused, September 16th is Mexican Independence Day.

Now for some important action information. For those of you who are familiar with the ongoing fight against the stupid National ID card push, your efforts are needed yet again. It looks like the bill has been embedded within another omnibus (slick willies!) bill that the Senate will take up soon. Check out the PatriotDebate forum thread linked to above and get the latest details. Don't forget to petition your state Senators and forward the info on to your friends, family, and co workers. I've already gotten a response from my senator's office, and though she's being a you-know-what and is in support of the idea, at least this shows that they are listening and can be swayed to vote no yet again.

Salud a todos, y hasta luego.

It looks like another big win for California privacy! This past week, Sacramento legislators voted to ban those evil little RFID units from state-issued ID cards, including drivers licences, DMV-issued ID cards, etc. The bill has a few flaws, though, as it allows RFID to be used in some circumstances. However, now that it is generally verboten, at least shady looking applications can be challenged in court. Though certainly not the norm by any means, I'm glad that the legislature has been so quick to ban something, as they always are. Now for other things, like firearms, that's another story...