Don't participate in violating liberty

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 22, 2026)

Liberty is a big jewel with many facets. All its facets are important, but you can pick favorites. I do. Even then, don't try to dull the shine of the facets which don't affect you as much. To someone, those are the important ones.

No one can focus on every important liberty issue. Pick a few that matter most to you, or the one most under attack at this moment. If the threat shifts, adapt.

Some people try to pass off cut glass or shiny plastic as jewels. Don't be fooled. If it obligates you to provide something for someone else, or requires someone else's life, liberty, or property to be violated, you have no right to it. Not to feel safe, to get something you need, or for your convenience. That's not liberty.

It's important to defend liberty, but more important to not violate it. Don't be the problem someone else has to overcome. Don't participate in violating anyone's life, liberty, or property, even if the current laws say you should.

If a job requires you to violate someone's rights, don't accept the job, even if you need the money. If you took a job, believing it would serve liberty and protect people's rights, but you discover it does the opposite, quit. Or at least refuse to participate in the violations. This is your primary human responsibility, even if you don't like the consequences. It's your responsibility to respect others' liberty just as it is their responsibility to respect yours.

You're responsible for defending liberty from all threats and violations, even those you personally approve of.

The biggest threat to liberty is, and has always been, government and its supporters. No other threat comes close. Even the freelance criminals you fear the most are a minor inconvenience by comparison.

No government job secures liberty; all government jobs violate natural human rights. Some are worse than others. The ones which provide a service the market would fill if government didn't are the most benign. Those no one would voluntarily fund if taxation hadn't been normalized are the ones which need to be abolished immediately. All the others fall somewhere in between, but they all need to be phased out.

Whichever facet of liberty you choose to polish and shine your light on, government is its biggest threat. If you don't spend most of your effort defending it from government, you're wasting your time.

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How I spent my weekend

My old throwing knife has seen better days, and I decided to get a spare as a replacement before it breaks. If I were better at throwing- and sticking- the knife, it wouldn't have such a hard life.

More than 30 years ago, when I decided to add knife throwing to my Rendezvous skills, I didn't like any of the (Rendezvous-acceptable) commercial throwing knives out there. Most didn't even resemble knives.

But I found one advertised as a "throwing bowie" in the Atlanta Cutlery catalog. It was also cheap! (I think it was $20 at the time.) So I ordered it.

Back then, I was considerably worse at throwing a knife than I am now, and the brass guard broke off almost immediately. That was fine and expected. I also hated the weird hook at the butt end of the grip. It only got in the way, so I ground it off. The wood grip shattered before too long. The knife went through a few different wooden replacement grips until I replaced them with leather (secured with peened nails and washers) a few months ago. I had rawhide protecting the front of the handle scales most of that time, but it became a bigger problem than help, so it got removed a couple of months ago.

The leather handle was installed around the time I started practicing throwing my tomahawk and knife daily again. (I had taken a decade and a half break from regular throwing, just because. That was a mistake!) This handle is already showing heavy wear, but has been surprisingly resilient. As I had hoped.

Other problems soon started showing up, though.

A bad throw is hard on the knife, and some days I'm having to bend the blade back straight every few throws. That's not going to be good for the longevity of the blade, so I started thinking about a replacement before this one snaps in half and takes me out of practice for weeks. I was pleased to see Atlanta Cutlery still offers the same knife for a comparable price, and a few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and ordered one. (A huge "Thank you!" to my subscribers for allowing me to do this!)

The shape of the blade is a little different than my original one, but that's not an issue. It's probably due to differences in the particular Pakistani knife maker rather than a design change.

This past weekend, I had some time to relax, and I used that opportunity to go ahead and shape the knife into the throwing knife I want. 

I've learned a few things about a throwing knife as I want mine to be over decades of experience. 

First, I once again got rid of the horrible hooked beak at the butt of the grip, and smoothed the wood where I removed it.
Then, I removed most of the brass guard (before it has a chance to snap off), leaving just enough to protect the anterior of the wooden handle scales. I'm hoping that works to make the wood grips last longer, but if not, it's educational. I ground and filed the guard so that it doesn't stick above the top or bottom of the blade, hoping that keeps it from snagging on the target and breaking if (OK, when) I miss.

If it doesn't work as I hope, I still have this new blade and I can put new leather handle scales on it anytime. I've learned some things about that, too.

I then took it out and gave it 6 test throws. It worked great and didn't get any damage- helped by the fact that I didn't miss the target (I did, however, stick it too weakly once, and it fell out). Now I'll keep it as a spare for when Old Bendy finally gives up the ghost. I feel a lot better having a spare, and I'm no longer worried that ACC will discontinue this model just when I need a new one.

That's partially how I misspent my weekend. It was fun.

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