Tribal leaders make bad ruling
The leaders of the Jemez Pueblo, northwest of Albuquerque, have banned a newspaper from tribal land because they think it sensationalized a story on a murder.
The tribal leaders claim they are exempt from the First Amendment. I agree, since the Bill of Rights only applies to governments of the US. I'm all in favor of governments not being affiliated or cooperative with that particular criminal organization.
However the tribal leaders are not exempt from the laws of right and wrong, and freedom of speech (and the press) still exists just as fully at the pueblo as anywhere else. Rights are no more subject to tribal "law" than to Federal "law". It doesn't matter if you are talking the right of free speech, the right of freedom of the press, the right of freedom of religion, the right of owning and carrying guns, the right to not testify against yourself, or anything else. "Laws" can never repeal even the most trivial right. A right doesn't cease to exist just because you happen to own (or control) property and you don't like the right.
By trying to violate freedom of the press they are exposing themselves as unworthy of the title of "leader" and are acting as Rulers instead. They are committing evil just as much as any government does when engaging in the same, wrong, acts. Individuals can decide, on an individual basis, whether they want to buy the paper or not. Try to convince them to boycott, don't use coercion.
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Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Liberty's false friends
Liberty's false friends
You can't get more, or more complete, liberty for yourself by restricting it for others. Liberty is an interconnected web. Pull one thread and the entire structure is damaged.
"Immigration" is a good example. It shows why the Tea Party crowd is not helpful to liberty. You can't claim to be for liberty, but then advocate for government to be more powerful in "just one area"; more government control, but only when you "really want it". It always damages all liberty.
You also can't claim you are for liberty, but be enthusiastic about the government-controlled military. It doesn't work that way. The more powerful and bigger the government's military is, the more exceptions liberty suffers, and the more enemies the military creates to threaten you.
A lot of the Tea Party folk claim that these aspects of government power enhance liberty, after all, their justification goes, you can't be free if your country has been invaded and overrun. Yet, the country has already been invaded (by an ideology- collectivism) and overrun (by statists and authoritarians whose goals are the opposite of liberty). These are a greater
danger to your real, livable liberty than all the "terrorists" in the entire world could ever dream of being.
Add to these travesties the War on (some) Drugs, government-sanctioned or rationed marriage, entitlements, "gun control" that even Tea Partiers say is "reasonable", favoring one primitive and violent religion over another primitive and violent religion, the taxation that Tea Partiers are saying is "enough" rather than admitting it is ALL theft, and all the "required" permits, licenses, red tape, and other government violations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... it adds up.
One example of those violations of rights and liberty that Tea Partiers are generally OK with: Two massage parlors in Albuquerque were raided and shut down yesterday by LEOs- for prostitution. Consensual trade, "even" in sexual gratification, between responsible, self-owning people is no one else's business. "Laws" attempting to control, forbid, or regulate
it are counterfeit "laws" and it is wrong to advocate or enforce such "laws". (Any "legitimate" massage provider who tipped off the LEOs to the prostitution should be shunned into bankruptcy. It isn't as if they were actual competitors... or were they?)
I'm certainly not perfect, and I have my preferences and opinions. Yet I recognize that liberty is the closest to "perfect" there is, and I can set aside my petty short-term desires to work toward that which I really want. Liberty for ALL, which includes me and those I love. You can't damage your enemy's liberty without doing damage to your own. This is a textbook example of "cutting off your nose to spite your face". It is just a simple truth, and it just isn't worth it.
When Tea Partiers, or anyone else who claims to value liberty, supports these enemies of liberty and their anti-liberty agenda it shows they haven't thought it through, or they are lying.
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You can't get more, or more complete, liberty for yourself by restricting it for others. Liberty is an interconnected web. Pull one thread and the entire structure is damaged.
"Immigration" is a good example. It shows why the Tea Party crowd is not helpful to liberty. You can't claim to be for liberty, but then advocate for government to be more powerful in "just one area"; more government control, but only when you "really want it". It always damages all liberty.
You also can't claim you are for liberty, but be enthusiastic about the government-controlled military. It doesn't work that way. The more powerful and bigger the government's military is, the more exceptions liberty suffers, and the more enemies the military creates to threaten you.
A lot of the Tea Party folk claim that these aspects of government power enhance liberty, after all, their justification goes, you can't be free if your country has been invaded and overrun. Yet, the country has already been invaded (by an ideology- collectivism) and overrun (by statists and authoritarians whose goals are the opposite of liberty). These are a greater
danger to your real, livable liberty than all the "terrorists" in the entire world could ever dream of being.
Add to these travesties the War on (some) Drugs, government-sanctioned or rationed marriage, entitlements, "gun control" that even Tea Partiers say is "reasonable", favoring one primitive and violent religion over another primitive and violent religion, the taxation that Tea Partiers are saying is "enough" rather than admitting it is ALL theft, and all the "required" permits, licenses, red tape, and other government violations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... it adds up.
One example of those violations of rights and liberty that Tea Partiers are generally OK with: Two massage parlors in Albuquerque were raided and shut down yesterday by LEOs- for prostitution. Consensual trade, "even" in sexual gratification, between responsible, self-owning people is no one else's business. "Laws" attempting to control, forbid, or regulate
it are counterfeit "laws" and it is wrong to advocate or enforce such "laws". (Any "legitimate" massage provider who tipped off the LEOs to the prostitution should be shunned into bankruptcy. It isn't as if they were actual competitors... or were they?)
I'm certainly not perfect, and I have my preferences and opinions. Yet I recognize that liberty is the closest to "perfect" there is, and I can set aside my petty short-term desires to work toward that which I really want. Liberty for ALL, which includes me and those I love. You can't damage your enemy's liberty without doing damage to your own. This is a textbook example of "cutting off your nose to spite your face". It is just a simple truth, and it just isn't worth it.
When Tea Partiers, or anyone else who claims to value liberty, supports these enemies of liberty and their anti-liberty agenda it shows they haven't thought it through, or they are lying.
*
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