a probem, then there would no longer be any small
governments left on Earth. The second answer to the objection is
that if the conquest of a small government by a larger one is bad, then
the objection defeats itself. That is, the small government was better;
too bad it was overrun by a larger one.
The
question isn't whether small government is better. This has been
adequately acknowledged.
The less government we have,
the better - the fewer laws, and the less confided power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844
A government big enough to give us everything we want
is also a government big enough to take from us everything we have.
Gerald Ford, 1976
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The
question is how to keep it small.
How
to keep a government small? You must find your own solution to the
problem. No one can do it for you. Isn't that, after all, one
of the points of this article? Consider your solution carefully,
however, before you start. Re-examine it frequently thereafter.
It's far more difficult than you can imagine to correctly predict the consequences
of your actions, and ...
Good intentions are the source
of more folly than all other causes put together.
from Glory Road
by Robert A. Heinlein |
![Gun](../../Images/Gun.gif) |
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Acknowledgments
My thanks to Sir Donald the Elusive for paying
the production costs of this newsletter.
My thanks to Hillary Clinton for being Bill's
wife instead of mine.
editor
Letters to the Editor
Dear Sam,
I
appreciate your running the piece "Tap
A Shoulder, Go To Jail." [May issue, page 2] It is very difficult
for most people in this country to understand how our criminal justice
system brutalizes people over trivial offenses. Consider the millions
of people jailed for victimless crimes (drugs, prostitution, pornography),
regulatory violations (such as the federal wetlands statutes), or for political
reasons (tax resisters, radicals of the far left and right in jail on trumped
up charges). All this is lost in the general hysteria about crime.
"Law
and order" conservatives and the major media give a completely distorted
picture of crime, one which rebounds on them. A case in point is
the National Rifle Association. Just about every issue of the American
Rifleman magazine is replete with rantings about "violent street thugs".
This is followed by demands that the government jail just about everyone
forever! The fact that many "criminals" are people like your friend
Hal, arrested over trivial offenses, is totally beyond them.
There
is no small irony here in that the government is using many of the "tough"
laws that "law and order" types have promoted to persecute gun owning conservatives.
But what do they expect that the government is going to allow large numbers
of citizens to go about armed? Yet for some perverse reason, the
NRA promotes partnerships with law enforcement. When the government
decides to confiscate all guns, it will be the local police who will do
the majority of the dirty work (just as they do in the drug war).
A
recent issue of the American Rifleman had an editorial complaining about
asset forfeiture, zero tolerance and RICO laws. Incredibly, the NRA
is claiming that it has been "liberals" who are behind these laws.
Total nonsense. These laws were put into place by the "law and order"
types themselves. Conservatives are finding that as a friend of government
they are its very next victim.
Joseph; Burbank, California
(E-mail to the editor via Pharos)
Remember,
when the government comes for your guns ....... give them your ammunition
first!
R B; Colorado Springs, Colorado
Dear Sam
I
read the article in the May newsletter, Tap
a Shoulder Go To Jail, and to say I was appalled is an understatement.
This man didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of having a fair trial.
He was treated worse than most people treat a cockroach or a fly!!!!!!!
I am a sexual abuse survivor, and even I feel that some kind of caution
should be used when we bring these people into court. We have to
use caution in how we accuse them because they may not have done the thing
we think they have done. If I remember correctly, we are innocent
until proven guilty, or at least that is the way it should be. When
anyone who has a suit brought against them is in jail and in need medication,
that medication should be provided, especially if it is for pain from cancer.
Where was this man's lawyer?????? Where is the justice in any of
the treatment this man got???? A snake is treated better.
Jan; Firth, Idaho
Editor,
In
Ron Paul's article "A
Police State," [May issue, page 3] he says that the Waco slaughter
was "all over a $200 unpaid federal fee." In all the articles I have
read about that incident, nothing was said about it. If more information
is available, I would like to hear about it.
Ron
Paul also says that the role of the FBI changed in the 1930's. It
is common knowledge that it was changed in the 1920's in response to the
murders of FBI field agents1
during their war on organized crime during the prohibition era2
....
Under
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton called out the militia to force the
producers of distilled spirits to pay an excise tax. The wrong side
won. Ever since then, if any individual or group defies the dictates
of the government, an armed force is raised to "restore order." The
most recent examples are Wounded Knee, Ruby Ridge, and Waco.3
Pedophiles, pushers, and cultists are currently being used as an excuse
to increase the size of the armed force that will ultimately be used to
disarm every Citizen of the United States of America ....
James; United States of America
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^
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I would prefer to call them acts
of self-defense.
editor
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^
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Don't blame the "criminals".
Blame prohibition.
editor
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^
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The MOVE group, the Republic of
Texas, the Freemen, etc, etc, etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam.
editor
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208 346-6406 (fax
or zmodem)
Frontiersman@ida.net |
Frontiersman
479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236 |
June 1997
Page 3
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