Price Shopping for Tin Foil

I don’t know whether to categorize this under “Commentary” or “News”. At any rate…

  • Republicans Losing Libertarian Support [foxnews.com]
  • You Are a Suspect [nytimes.com]

    Like Mr. Balko, author of the Fox News article above, I voted for Bush in 2000. I happened to view that article this morning, and it, to some extent, describes just what I’ve been thinking about the past few days. I’m not about to vote for a Democrat, and I’m still largely Republican and certainly right-wing, but I’m saddened that the party line and especially the President seems to be abandoning the “smaller government” credo and throwing personal freedoms out the window in the interest of “national security”. Let me get this straight: President Bush is going to ensure that we stay “free” by taking away our freedoms? Right…

    I’m not quite to the point of supporting Harry Browne and wearing tin foil, but I’m not too happy with the way things are going right now. I’m offended by the USA Patriot Act and the new Homeland Security bills. They’re anti-liberty in the interest of some nebulous, unattainable “security” that people seem to want. As I posted here on 13 September 2001:

    “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
    — Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

    I think that quote is ringing true more and more the longer this “terror” scare plays out.

  • Today is my birthday.

    That’s right; I turn 21 today. This is mostly insignificant except for the fact that I can now legally purchase a handgun.

    In other news, Van Hilleary lost the election for TN governor to Phil Bredesen. -frown

    I finally created a [Links] page. Let me know if you’ve got additions.

    Here’s an interesting political quiz. You might be a Libertarian.

    Courtesy of slain, here’s a link to an article at The Register comparing Microsoft to the former IBM monopoly.

    Phoenix > you.

    I have a new favorite web browser, and therefore you should too. “Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.” It doesn’t have all that extra junk that you don’t need; therefore Phoenix > all_else(browsers).