I just submitted this letter to my local newspaper. It succinctly explains the often-overlooked scientific arguments that support the pro-life position. If you like this letter, feel free to use as much of it as you want in your own letter to your local rag.

Mrs. Samurai

Dear Editor:

Let me first state that I support neither Kerry nor Bush in the upcoming election. (My candidate, Libertarian Michael Badnarik, sadly won’t be on the NH ballot.)

A letter in last week’s issue defending Sen. Kerry’s apparent contradiction when it comes to abortion claimed that determining when life begins is a religious issue, and therefore each person should be free to make their own “choice.” This commonly-used argument oversimplifies the abortion issue by ignoring the fact that there is compelling scientific reasoning against abortion. After all, there are even atheists who are pro-life.

Science, not religion, tells us that from the moment of conception a fetus has a complete set of human genetic material. We have identified no point in the pregnancy or birth at which something else is added to transform “tissue” to “a human being.” To allow abortion assumes that there is at least a period in a pre-born’s time in the womb that it does not deserve the same protection as an older fetus or someone who is outside of the womb. This is a serious assumption! Particularly when scientific advances have consistently moved our ideas of when a fertilized egg becomes a full human-being in one direction only – towards the point of conception. There is the life of a (potential, to some) human being in the balance, and we err on the side of murder?

That the pre-born baby needs the “life support” of the womb for awhile shouldn’t affect her status as a human being. After all, an infant is still completely dependent on others for survival, and that doesn’t make it our choice whether or not to let her live. To use another analogy, let’s say a person is on life-support in the hospital, but it’s almost certain that he will fully recover within 9 months’ time. Most, if not all, would agree that it would be unthinkable to unhook him from that life-support.

Just because pregnancies sometimes occur in difficult situations doesn’t change how we should view our options. Lots of humans can cause difficulties in our lives – mentally ill family members, special needs children, elderly parents with dementia, etc. There are various ways we can cope with these situations, but murder is not an accepted one. I think we’ve only gotten away with abortion all of this time because, unless we have an ultrasound, we can’t see the baby, so we can pretend it’s not a real person. Unfortunately, many young women who undergo abortions never hear these arguments, but later realize with guilt and sorrow the truth about the “choice” they made.

I just learned that Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Presidential candidate, will be on the ballot in 48 states. I was delighted that my party was going to have such a strong national presence in this upcoming election but was also curious about which two bonehead states excluded him from the ballot. Turns out they are Oklahoma and, to my eternal shame, my very own Live-Free-or-Die New Hampshire! I confirmed this depressing news at the New Hampshire Secretary of State website. You can read lots of good discussion on how this happened here.

Ralph Nader, however, did make the ballot in New Hampshire (but also not Oklahoma–what the hell is the problem with those nutty Okies?). Although I disagree with Nader on several key issues, he is absolutely a league above the Tweedledumb vs. Tweedledumber choice the we have with the R’s and D’s and he is a candidate with integrity. As Justin Raimondo observed, beneath his leftist garb, Nader has a glimmer of the Old Right in him.

So, cheated out of the option of voting for my ideal Libertarian Presidential candidate, I will settle for casting my vote for a man with whom I don’t agree 100%, but whom I trust and respect. Although it’s true that he doesn’t have a prayer of being elected, the idea is to send a message to the Beltway Bandits telling them that we’re wise to their one-party scam masquerading with two different names. Can you imagine the shockwaves that would ripple through those spineless thieves in DC when third party candidates rack up just 5% of the vote? Let’s make ’em crap their pants!

If you’re in New Hampshire, vote Nader for President. Outside New Hampshire (except Oklahoma), vote Badnarik. And if you live in Oklahoma, just stay home on November 2 and boycott the faux-election.

I gotta say, when I hear someone screeching with religious fervor for either Bush or Kerry, I just shake my head at the poor, blind dupe: yet another sheeple led to the info-slaughter by Big Media working in cahoots with Big Gubmint to create the illusion of a real choice. From a Libertarian perspective, Bush and Kerry look like Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Choosing between Bush or Kerry is like choosing between Lucifer or Satan.

Remember: voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Voting for either Bush or Kerry is really a vote for the Boot On Your Neck Party.

Most Americans are libertarian to the core but they just don’t know it. Once most people learn about what Libertarians stand for, they immediately identify with us. Liberals are losers who believe the gubmint (i.e., you and me) owes them something for nothing. And conservatism is dead–it’s been taken over by a cabal of neo-cons chasing some utopian dream about waging democracy on the middle east.

So, why haven’t you heard more about the Libertarians? It’s not for lack of trying! Big Media spikes coverage of third party candidates. Yes, candidates–plural. Although Libertarians are the largest of the third party movements, there are other significant third parties. Who Are the Third Party Candidates?

The Demopublicans and Republicrats have colluded to exclude the third parties from the debates. The Libertarian Party of Arizona filed a lawsuit on the grounds that taxpayer money is being used to fund what is essentially a private debate that favored the R’s and D’s. Watch the REAL Presidential debate: Badnarik (Libertarian) vs. Cobb (Greens). (If you’d rather download the audio-only for your MP3 player, you can get it here.)

And I don’t buy into this crap that voting for a third party is “wasting a vote.” The only vote wasted is the one not based on principle. Send a message to the Beltway Bandits: vote Libertarian.

Headline:
New Hampshire Wins the ‘Free State’ Vote!

The final results of the Free State Project are in and Free Staters have wisely chosen to move, en masse, to my home state of New Hampshire, ultimately making it the first state to be liberated from the oppressive yoke of federal-government-on-acid.

Welcome, fellow libertarians! We SHALL overcome!

"IN the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." read more…

–Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Greetings, fellow Coppertops. The Matrix is Caesar! (Not that I’m obsessed about it or anything…ok, maybe a little.)

The plot was far more “Brave New World” than it was Christian. The Matrix itself was a representation of government creating a tightly controlled world for its citizens, most of whom had no idea they were slaves. That the Matrix was mechanical was a parallel to the cold, impersonal bureaucracy of gubmint. The agents were amusing parodies of faceless bureaucrats, officiously lording their power over us–I immediately thought of IRS Special Collections agents. To complete the analogy, the movie even depicted the parasitic nature of government, literally sucking the life out of people, while giving them a sense of security and comfort to keep them docile and enslaved.

The world of the Matrix was not simply an illusion. It was very much reality to the citizens–if you died in the Matrix, you died for real. It was real, but not a full Reality; it was just a very narrow segment of frequencies on the infinite spectrum of created Reality.

Some citizens had the nagging desire to know the true nature of the Matrix–a metaphor for yearning for Liberty (some would say a yearning for Truth–both quests lead to the same place). They still had the power to make choices, even the choice to leave the Matrix. The red pill that Neo took was, after all, just a mental construct within the Matrix but represented his declaration that he is a free man.

And then there’s the question of what freedom Neo and the others actually gained. The freedom depicted in the movie was grimy, looked like a jail, and had boring food. The movie presents a Hobson’s choice: be a comfortable slave for Big Bro or be “free” sucking gruel in a tin prison and smelling really bad. Is this the Liberty that Christ offers us? I gotta say, if I didn’t know better and was given the false choice as presented in the movie, I’d keep my job as an Energizer bunny for Big Brother.

Neo could be considered messianic only in the Jewish understanding: God’s chosen mighty warrior coming to free His people by waging war against Caesar using the power of his own strength and intellect. Of course, as Christians, we recognize this as an image of antichrist. Compare this with the real Christ: after He made it clear that He would not lead an army against Caesar, the Jews quickly went from shouting “Hosanna!” to “Crucify Him!” The antichrist messiah leads his people to a phony liberty which turns out to be just another prison. The real Messiah leads His people to true Liberty, revealing the full spectrum of the Reality continuum (mental, physical, and spiritual). Neo is an antichrist.

Live Free or Die!

I just found this great new source of freedom-related news and libertarian commentary. It’s Libertyfilter.org. Check it out, and check it often.

What is government itself but the greatest of reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

— James Madison, The Federalist # 51

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

–Benjamin Franklin

Awwite all you cool grasshoppers, go grab you a beer and the Samurai’ll tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in a place that was once called the "land of the free," there was a big ol’ company called Dupont. Now, Dupont made a thang that we old timers held near and dear to our hearts and that was R-12, a refrigerant used is just about every type of refrigerator ever made, including beer coolers. But Dupont had a problem: their patent on R-12 was about to expire and everyone else and their Momma was gonna start making it, too. Well, it don’t take a rocket scientist, like yours truly, to figger out that once this happened, the price of R-12 was gonna take a nose dive.

Now, Dupont, being a company with lots of money to throw around, paid off a bunch of fancy-pants scientists and engineers at these high-dollar universities to show that R-12 was bad and needed to be banned. So these fancy-pants university types cooked up some numbers showing how all them nasty little molecules in R-12 was eatin’ up the orzos in the atmosphere…er somethin’ like that.

Anyway, Dupont goes and presents all these high falootin’ studies to one of the fourth branches of the gubmint, the EPA. The EPA said, "Hmmm, we can’t be eatin’ up all them little orzos like that there. Gubmint has to do something about that!" So they came out with a big ol’ riot act of new regamalations where they said everyone what works on beer coolers has to have a new-fangled recovery unit to catch all them bad molecules.

Well, I didn’t know no better and besides, I didn’t wanna hurt them little orzos ‘cuz, heck, they ain’t never done nothin’ to me. So I lined up with all the other suckers, er, I mean, tradesmen and plunked down a bunch of money for a fancy new recovery unit.

Funny thang happened though. When the EPA got into the bidness of regamalating refrigerants, their prices all went sky high. So the cost to replace the compressor on your average beer fridge went from $150 to, oh, say $400, once you figger in the higher refrigerant cost and a refrigerant recovery charge. Well, at that price, people were just hauling their old fridges off to the landfill and buying new ones. Lots of good fridges piling up in landfills today. But, hey, the gubmint knows what’s best ‘cuz they’re here to help!

Meanwhile, Dupont is back in bidness, happily raking in the big bucks selling it’s new line of R-12 replacement refrigerants. Ain’t gubmint great? I think everybody awwta own one!

And so the gubmint and the big shot corporations who benefit from their regamalations all lived happily ever after.

The End

I can tell you that my recovery unit makes a reeel spiffy footstool in my workshop ‘cuz that’s all I ever use it for. Never even used it once. Wanna buy one cheap?

Here’s Hodji’s latest Liberty Buzz:

Look, if the Libertarian Party, the should-be beacon of Constitutional Liberty in this country, can’t even get it right, then how can we possibly expect more from the sheeple? Ilana Mercer refines the Samurai’s theme of McLiberty in her latest article. And Jason B. Romano give a good rigorous treatment to the problems with a state-run defense system.

"Homeland Security" or "Gubmint Security?" You decide.

Other people can see it, even the frikkin’ Germans see it. Why can’t we?

Meanwhile, back in the doghouse, the trotskyite neocon dogs are salivating for some Syrian meat.

Ok, so which was it: self-defense, a preemptive strike or responding to an immediate threat?

Might as well face it, you’re addicted to drug warz.

Should a mall be able to kick out people who are walking around with anti-war t-shirts? Should a restaurant be able to deny service to black people? If you answer ‘no’ to either of these questions, you need a good primer on Free Speech, Free Association, and Private Property.

I love paying taxes. Yeah, giving money to pornographers so they can distribute condoms, mailing Socialist Insecurity checks to fugitives…what, you didn’t know you were paying for that? Oh yeah, all that and lots, lots more!

Speaking of taxes, I didn’t know that most of what I’m paying for in a cold, frosty mug of beer is gubmint bureaucracy. Now they’re starting to hit me where it hurts!

Can you say "Hail, Caesar?"

Your Slave in Liberty,

Hodji

Regular students of the Samurai School of Appliantology know that the CIA frequently calls on the Samurai for special assignments in signal processing and counter-intelligence.

Although prohibited from telling you at the time, the Samurai was on-assignment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln when President Bush made his famous carrier landing. To the right, you see a picture of me chatting with the President on the flight deck. My mission was to monitor all signals to and from the ship during the president’s maritime photo-op and to identify anything unusual. During President Bush’s speech, broadcast to bizillions of people all around the world, the Samurai detected a highly anomalous signal hiding in the high frequency sideband of the broadcast transmission, just within the subliminal range of human perception. I’ve stepped the frequency down into the normal hearing range. Let’s listen:

audblog audio post–click to listen

Like most of you, I lay awake at night and ponder the nature of Liberty in this era of Big Gubmint. I stumbled on this delightful flash animation from the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire that gives a fun, five-minute introduction to the philosophy of Liberty.

Live Free or Die!

If you really believe that you can go into a foreign nation as an outsider and liberate them in any lasting or meaningful way, you really don’t have the first clue about what Liberty is all about. Only people living in a fast food culture and spoon-fed sound bite arguments would really believe that they could bring Liberty on a platter to another nation. "Here’s your order of McLiberty! Would you like hummus with that?"

Take Iraq, for example. Ever wonder how it was that one dude was able to get into the position of oppressing an entire nation? Ok, sure, he had some leadership capabilities and an ego the size of an aircraft carrier but so do lots of people and you don’t see them being dictators. The answer is simple: because the Iraqi people themselves are so clueless about Liberty that they allowed themselves to be oppressed. Yeah, so now with the dictator out of power, are you really so naive to believe that freedom will ring throughout Iraq? At the first opportunity, these people will descend right back into oppression and slavery because they have no culture of Liberty. There are no Iraqi Founding Fathers who wrote a fountainhead of Liberty wisdom to refer to. It’s not as though they were once a free people who will now fall back on their roots of freedom. The same conditions that allowed Saddam to become dictator still exist in Iraq today and will always exist: a conspicuous absence of a culture of freedom. In fact, the very concept of Liberty is not only alien to the Muslim culture, it is widely regarded as a heresy.

The Liberty of a nation is something that springs from within the individuals of that nation. You can’t impose it externally. If a people are unable to find Liberty within themselves, they will never adopt it as part of their national psyche. That so many Americans actually bought into that bilge about liberating Iraq reveals a pathetic misunderstanding of the real nature of Liberty. How can we engage in wars of "liberation" around the globe when we ourselves are living under an oppressive Big Brother right here at home? Take a step back and consider the invasion of government control and regulation into our lives that we simply accept. We are:

• forced to report every detail of our personal finances,
• forced to pay for schools that no longer educate but indoctrinate,
• told how we can use our own land,
• told who we must serve and what activities are allowed (e.g., smoking bans in restaurants) in our places of business,
• told we are all equal under the law, but some (homosexuals, cross-dressers, racial and religious minorities, etc,) are more equal than others,
• in many places, denied the Constitutionally-protected right to carry firearms,
• prohibited from using certain drugs, recreational or medical, when such use poses no threat to anyone else,
• regulated in myriad other ways–this list could go on, but you get the idea.

If you accept any of the above examples of Big Brother’s yoke, you have lost sight of the original function of government as envisioned by our Founding Fathers; you are one of the sheeple, the great unwashed herd wallowing in Big Brother’s pigpen.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, "Yeah, but we’re still the most free nation on earth!" That’s like a group of kids rolling around in the yard who all get dog poop on them and one of the kids says, "Yeah, but I got less poop on me than you guys!" That may be true, junior, but the fact remains that you still stink. Does it make sense to compare ourselves to all the other stinky kids? How ’bout we compare ourselves to the undefiled standard of Liberty so eloquently articulated for us by our illustrious Founding Fathers? Once we do that, we will wretch on the foul odor of tyranny in which we live and we will long for the pure air of Liberty.

Live Free or Die!