by Matt Barr

Carnival of Liberty 57

Welcome to the 57th Carnival of Liberty, a digest and linkfest to the Internet's best writing promoting life, liberty and property and opposing unwarranted state intrusion into markets and lives. It's not about libertarianism, anarchism, madism, badism, this ism or that ism, though many posts touch on those things. I'm Matt Barr, TV's Uncle Jerry.

You're enjoying the new Socratic Rhythm Method, a new site from the proprietor of the former New World Man blog. The Socratic Method is a method of instruction involving questioning the student so that the student can arrive at the most defensible, persuasive elements of the truth. Often, Socratic instruction fosters an adversarial relationship between instructor and student, and there are hard feelings. That more or less sums up my relationship with readers. The Rhythm Method is the name of a drum solo by Neil Peart.

I've had such success and critical acclaim with my Supreme Court Carnival of the Vanities, Valentine's Day Carnival of Liberty, Muffin-assisted Blawg Review and the Indy 500 Carnival of Liberty that it was high time I stopped so obviously striving for success and critical acclaim. That's just what I've done with what I believe is the blogosphere's first-ever Fiona Apple-themed carnival. Through the magic of multimedia and Flash, clicking the song titles will play the actual songs. 21st century America! It's one big Jetsons episode.

Better Version of Me

Leslie Carbone has A Vision for America, and it's impressive enough to start us off. In this vision,

Wealth creation is understood as benefiting all in society, and those who improve lives by inventing new technologies and creating jobs are recognized as helping others, not resented as parasites living off those whose lifestyles they've enhanced. The natural rewards of virtue are left in place; the blessings of industry, planning, chastity, responsibility, delayed gratification, discipline, commitment, and stewardship are not mitigated by an intrusive state. These virtues are held in high esteem, not dismissed as frills that can be jettisoned on the journey toward a synthetic utopia.

Libertarians can get behind that, as long as they don't spaz out at the "chastity" part.

Limp

You feed the beast I have within me
You wave the red flag, baby you make it run, run, run
Standing on the sidelines, waving and grinning
You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun

John B at The Sharpener says It's morally right that people should die for my amusement, his take on the gun control proponent's argument that not even one innocent person should die for your fun. Here it turns out that's not true:

Such beneficial-only-because-fun activities that kill the innocent and non-consenting as funfairs, fast cars, aviation, skateboarding, allowing men out at night, swimming pools and serving margarine to kids are both legal and socially acceptable.

He's right!

The Child Is Gone

Tom Wright wonders aloud, Are Children Property? A court seems to him to think so. But "so far as I know, one can not have rights to other people," he says. "You can have rights to property, like land and livestock, but not to people. Children are not toasters or other chattel. Rights to, or over, people is called slavery."

The First Taste

Full is not heavy as empty,
not nearly my love,
not nearly my love,
not nearly

Carola Solomonoff at Mondo QT has been following public corruption in northeast urban areas for years, and brings us stories of The Pioneer Families of Springfield, Mass., where corruption is aided and abetted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

To Your Love

Here's another speech you wish I'd swallow
Another cue for you to fold your ears
Another train of thought too hard to follow
Chugging along to the song that belongs to the shifting of gears

Dana at Principled Discovery writes about precision in language and how particularly politicians tend to use language to hide their true meaning rather than actually share anything. Beyond 1984, Or Choosing Words According to Their Meaning quotes Orwell extensively, including: "What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender them."

Red Red Red

What's happened has happened
What's coming is already on its way
With a role for me to play

Voting for the best blog post title of the year has closed prematurely as Jon Swift at gives us Don't Act, Don't Trill: Thespians in the Military. "I must say I was shocked to learn that community theater actors have infiltrated our armed forces." Me too!

Love Ridden

No, not "baby" anymore
If I need you I'll just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave

Because they'll make our relationship illegal via constitutional amendment, Ms. Apple may as well have gone on to say. David at Equality Loudoun gives us a recap of Three questions at NoVA Town Hall where state AG Bob McDonnell talked Virginia marriage amendment.

Criminal

That's what will be getting out of jail under a new North Carolina law deadpanned by Ogre in Juries Overruled in NC.

I'm not sure why they're even letting us have juries any more. I guess it's like the gerrymandered voting system in North Carolina -- you might think you're having some effect, and that keeps the people from revolting.

Rodney: Sire, the peasants are revolting!
The King: You can say that again.

Oh Well

It took me such a long time to get back up the first time you did it
I spent all I had to get it back, and now it seems I've been outbidded

Brad Warbiany writes No Incentive To Be Accountable at The Liberty Papers on Sen. Tom Coburn's radical proposal to make the government keep track of what it spends. That's crazy talk!

In the private sector, tracking money is a crucial part of running a business. Because you're competing against other companies, you have to justify internally and to your shareholders (if a corporation) exactly where the money is going and why. Waste gives your competitors an advantage, and lost money is a quick way to ensure you have absolutely no shareholders. If you're a corporate accountant, and come up with a way to better track and control monetary output, you get a raise. If, on the other hand, you lose lots and lots of money due to incompetence, you get fired.

And then you run for office!

Extraordinary Machine

Do I so worry you, you need to hurry to my side
That's very kind
But it's to no avail, and I don't want the bail
I promise you everything will be just fine

Lisa at The London Fog doesn't like government nannies. Windex could kill you, if the WSIB doesn't get to you first, she writes. As a commenter succinctly put it, "Talk about a 'protection' racket."

Waltz (Better Than Fine)

Everyone else's goal's to get big headed
Why should I follow that beat
Bein' that I'm
Better than fine

Dr. Deborah Serani posts on A World Map of Happiness, a recent UK study highlighting what social, economic and educational issues help to make a country and its natives happy. We're No. 23! We're No. 23! (What are The Seychelles?)

I Know

And I will pretend
That I dont know of your sins
Until you are ready to confess
But all the time, all the time
I'll know

From Homeland Stupidity comes news that Senate ratifies Europe cybercrime convention. "Thanks to a late-night vote in the Senate Thursday night, the U.S. can now spy on your Internet activity at the request of a foreign government -- even if you are only doing things completely legal." Are they keeping track of how much it costs?

The Way Things Are

Searchlight Crusade's Dan Melson lets us in on a little secret in Keeping Silent: It's not exactly news that government keeps track of bank records.

It's not that the government said that bank records weren't being monitored. That would have been a stupid, obvious lie. Of course bank records were being monitored. They've been monitored for seventy years. But sometimes, if you just don't bring something to your enemies' attention, they forget about it. Or maybe nobody ever told them in particular. Or they just don't realize that this is important information, they don't worry about it, and pretty soon, their arrests are announced. Kind of like a combat ambush but better.

Fast As You Can

I let the beast in and then;
I even tried forgiving him, but its too soon
So I'll fight again, again, again, again, again

Fearless Philosophy's Stephen Littau writes about the case of Pete Garcia, collateral damage in the War On (Some) Drugs, in Collateral Damage of the War at Home (Part I of II). He points to Radley Balko's Cato policy paper and interactive map on paramilitary police raids; read Stephen's post then click through.

Get Gone

You got your game, made your shot, and you got away
With a lot, but I'm not turned on
So put away that meat youre selling

Senator Bill Frist Knows How to Sell, Jack Yoest says: "Stephen Clouse recently said that it is not enough to have good ideas, an advocate must persuade, must sell the idea. Frist knows how to sell." Jack saw firsthand.

Not About Breasts Love

There's a life, liberty and/or property angle to this. I swear to God! Peter Kua considers Breast baring, abandoned civilization at RadicalHop.com.

The point here is not about breasts. It's about how the more evolved and refined you think you are, the more barbaric you actually become!

I'll buy that!

Tymps (The Sick In the Head song)

I should have no trouble now
To keep from following

Over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal: Donald at The Sharpener considers not only the libertarian reaction to the Israeli-Hezbollah war but the reaction to the reaction.

Why have almost all the supposed "libertarian" sites come out firin' for Israel? It can't just be the comfort of the electronic echo-chamber. A random sample of actual libertarians would likely show a scattering of reactions, up to and including compassionate indifference.

Please Please Please

My method is uncertain
It's a mess, but it's working
And maybe if you want to try it out
You won't like it so when you're cryin' out

Jeremy Abrams sees disturbing parallels between Olmert and Antony & Cleopatra.

Thus has Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister and Mark Antony's modern-day embodiment, thrown away the magnificent land-based advantages of the Israeli army in favor of the chimera, not of sea power, but in Olmert's case of air power. The result: Israel has been playing whack-a-mole in civilian areas with Hezbollah rocket launchers. And since Hezbollah's major strength is the moral equivalence of a Jew-hating Europe, the resulting deaths to Lebanese civilians has enabled Hezbollah to reap its intended public relations coup.

Sleep To Dream

Don't you plead me your case, don't bother to explain.
Don't even show me your face, 'cause its a crying shame.
Just go back to the rock from under which you came.
Take the sorrow you gave and all the stakes you claim -
And don't forget the blame.

Freedom of Speech? Not in Modern America, laments James Allen at The Allen Almanac. "I am ashamed of what this generation has allowed to become of the US," he writes. "Our forefathers have entrusted to us one thing, one ideal linking over 200 years of American history and we are tossing it aside like the spoiled little rich nation we have become."

O' Sailor

O' sailor why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards

Lonnie B. Hodge has a message for you in The Coming Intra-Net in China:

What is really disconcerting here is less the logarithmic shutdown of the blog-sphere than the indifference of the blog community to the tragedy. Blogs and the Chinese Internet in general are seeing growth US companies only dreamed of in years past. And the growth here has made liars of the folks who thought that the explosion in citizen use of the net in China would herald in a new era of curiosity, dialogue and education.

Bloggers should be all over this, liberty-centric bloggers doubly so.

Parting Gift

Finally, in Government Sucks at War, Too your host -- a supporter of Iraqi liberation -- riffs off Alex Tabarrok's fine consideration of our expectations of war and reminds you:

No, it's not fair to compare domestic initiatives with war, insofar as nobody opposing your domestic initiatives is willing to use deadly force. (I think the Democrats in Congress are only another couple election cycles away, though.) But it is useful to remember that this is a centralized, detatched, remote federal government running our wars, and there's no reason to suspect it will be any better at it than it is at anything else.

Hosting the Carnival of Liberty is always a blast. If you'd like to chip in, I have some advice: Don't do it for the spike in traffic and don't imagine you're going to attract all sorts of new readers. Do it because writing like the writing linked here should be digested, showcased and archived. Helping out is rewarding in itself. And if you have a radio.blog and what the ill-informed consider a Fiona Apple obsession, well, bonus. Click here to see the openings in the hosting schedule.

Next week's Carnival will be at home, as it always is, at Below the Beltway. Thanks for stopping by!

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