The Binary Circumstance

As all of my regular readers should know by now, I’ve been long troubled by the huge contradiction embodied in the claim that our government can be fighting for freedom in Iraq while systematically taking away freedom in our own country.

It now seems that some among us are no longer waiting for the government to take that freedom away. Private citizens are now acting on their own, in much the same way that Islamic militants would.

A San Francisco art gallery owner has been repeated assualted, threatened and had her gallary vandalized by some who share Saddam Hussein’s belief that free speech should not exist. Opinions that question the authority of the state must be silenced by force and coercion.

This is short notice but I only heard about this event yesterday.

The First National Mens’ Rights Congress is being held in Washington, DC, June 18-19.

NCFM-DC is sponsoring the first National Men’s Rights Congress on June 18-19, 2004. Our purpose is to bring together fair-minded men and women for two days of lobbying and learning. The first day will feature lobbying on Capitol Hill, where we will address our congressional representatives on topics of men’s rights. The second day we will meet at the Carnegie Conference Center in Downtown Washington D.C. Speakers include Stephen Baskerville, Glenn Sacks, Jack Kammer, Dean Tong, Carnell Smith, David Burroughs and others. Join us and spend your Father’s Day weekend with fair-minded men and women, who are standing up for what they know is right!

The concept of “men’s rights” implies that there are some collectivized rights that belong specifically to men. The same is true of concepts like “women’s rights” or “gay rights.”

Rights have their rational basis in the individual not in groups, regardless of sex or race. The right of every individual to own his/her body and control the course of his/her own life belongs to all free human beings.

Having said that, to the extent that other groups claim special rights that infringe upon the individual rights of men, there is a rational basis for the belief that men, who are being treated as a group under the law, are also having their rights as individuals violated simply because they are men.

A representative from Men’s Rights 2004 contacted me to request permission to use my essay The Selective Service: Discrimination, Tyranny and Genocide Against Males in their handout for the conference. The Selective Service is a prime example of how the U.S. government actively violates the human rights of males.

I am honored that my words will be included in their booklet and I encourage you to go to their site and read about the event.

Hopefully, many of you will be able to attend the conference as well.

The FBI searched the home of University of Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz after local authorities spotted suspicious materials they thought may be biological agents.

“I can sort of see how they might wonder what is that stuff,” said Edmund Cardoni of the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Gallery. “If they’d known what his art is about and what the Critical Art Ensemble’s art is about I think it makes perfect sense.”

Cardoni is the director of Hallwalls. He says Kurtz is a member of a group called the Critical Art Ensemble. The art Kurtz produces is not the type of art most people are used to.

I can’t wait for the day when we need a special license from the government to have certain household cleaning products, solvents, tools, computers, cameras, guns, boxcutters and any other items that could possibly be used to terrorize others.

If cars are used in car bombs, then why not take cars away? You can’t make a car bomb without a car, can you?

That’s ridiculous you say. There are many uses for cars but no legitimate uses for bombs.

None?

If some enterprising citizens of Iraq had blown up Saddam Hussein then the U.S. would not have gotten into the a war in Iraq to remove him from power, we would not have lost more than 600 American lives, thousands of Iraqi civilians would still be alive.

Wouldn’t that have been a legitimate, moral use for a bomb?

Take the quiz: “Which American City Are You?”

San Francisco
Liberal and proud, you’ll live your lifestyle however you choose in the face of all that would supress you.

I lived in San Francisco for 23 years, got tired of it, and moved to the Seattle area. I’m more like a libertarian, not a liberal. I know they sound similar, but they’re not.

There’s something wrong with this quiz.

Hat Tip: The Agitator