Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The Amazing Liberty Writing Group

My intention for AmazingLiberty.com is that it become a self-perpetuating site of entertaining comics and short fiction with themes that celebrate individuality, non-aggression and private property. As time goes by, I invite all interested writers to join and run your fiction past the group. When enough good stories come in, the next step will be to publish an e-book and (if the interest is there) a print book of the best stories that are submitted to the group. There are more and more distribution options for circulating small press materials. You would retain full ownership of any work you contributed.

I've yet to send out invitations to join the group, but if you're interested, contact me and I will send you that invitation. In the coming weeks, the yahoo webpage will slowly become more inviting. To begin with, I am uploading a satire of a couple of years ago, "The Gambit of Conspirator."

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The Obedient have Little to Fear

This past week, the lewrockwell.com blog had several posts commenting on the news that their writer Michael Kreca had been shot and killed by police. It brought to mind the fate of poor mentally ill Rigoberto Alpizar who was shot and killed by the TSA in Miami in December, 2005. The only witnesses were the shooters themselves, and their story is that their victims made suspicious movements or gestures.

Against this backdrop, we have the latest news of spying by the government on its citizens -- the NSA is tracking the phone contacts of everyone in the nation. Of course, there's no shortage of apologists for the state flooding into call-in shows and posting their comments in blogs. They repeat a tedious refrain: "I don't care -- the innocent have nothing to fear."

I think a more honest mantra would be "the obedient have little to fear." The two unfortunate souls of my example may have died because they didn't realize they were about to receive the death penalty for not being immediately and completely submissive to the authorities. Of course, being innocent and submissive won't necessarily save you either. Joseph Schultz found that out when he was shot in the face by an FBI agent as he was trying to obey. The FBI had detained them in search of some robbery suspects. Schultz 16-year-old girlfriend was witness to that assault. Otherwise, one is left wondering whether Schultz would have been reported "to have made a threatening gesture" before he was nearly killed.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Anarchia and Amazing Liberty

And so it begins! There are a dozen little tasks to get Amazing Liberty up and running. Warrior Son postcards have been ordered. E-mail boxes and auto-responders to get set up on the website. Also, I put in a call to my good friend MR Wildheart (many thanks to him for all of his support) to start coloring ANARCHIA so there will be a new feature to put up next month.

The idea of Anarchia began after reading a commentary on capital punishment by Walter Block. Block is against state adjudicated capital punishment. But he elaborated on the point with the comment that ideal justice would be a machine that transferred the life force of the murderer back into his victim. Presto -- Anarchia is born, comic books not being limited by a minor constraint like "reality."

The first Anarchia story was written by me and drawn by the talented Victor Cabrales. It's slated for a June posting. Stay tuned!

The Nightmares Continue

Wendy McElroy left a link in the LRC (lewrockwell.com) Blog to watch the press roast G.W. Bush got from Colbert. Apparently, his joke about rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenberg instead of the Titanic started the gears moving. In this dream, my 4 year-old son, 7 year-old son and myself were drafted into the "drigible" corp to fight in what looked like a World War One era war. My 4 year-old was killed in a strafing raid on our airfield by an attacking fleet of drigibles. It was devestating to the point that I woke myself up almost feeling sick.