Sunday, September 05, 2004

Say What?

What comes to your mind when civil rights are mentioned?  I’d wager big, that it wouldn’t be reading, yet the 2004 Republican Party Platform, a link provided courtesy of www.democrats.org, states, that reading is the current civil right of choice.

"Our party believes, as does our President, that reading is the new civil right."

The new civil right, eh?  Sheesh.  After reading that, I thought I’d better check on what other civil rights are up and coming, so I Googled up the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to enlighten myself.  Some other up and coming “civil rights” issues.

Environmental Justice, Native American Health Care, and Standards Based Education Reform, to name a few.

Link to reading as the new civil right via The Modulator.

Posted by John Venlet on 09/05 at 09:14 AM
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Son of a Beach

According to a piece written by Charles Leadbetter, titled “Beach party," the whole idea of going to the beach to hang out originated in Britain.

"The idea that going to the beach was good for you was a creation of 18th-century Britain. Entrepreneurs keen to promote an alternative to the spa hit upon the idea that immersing people in cold salty water might be healthy. One of the first recorded bathing expeditions took to the North sea at Scarborough in 1627. A century later, a string of seaside alternatives to the spas at Bath and Buxton were well established. Before that, beaches had been regarded as hostile places, at best a working space for people who made their living from the sea: fishermen, smugglers, wreckers. Swimming for pleasure, and sunbathing, were unheard of."

Son of a beach.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 09/05 at 09:02 AM
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"I don't need you, John"

I took the title to this post from a comment thread at No Treason. The thread, is from a June 18 post titled “Galt or Roark?," and though this post is not necessarily an expansion on the “Galt or Roark?” post, the above title/comment, which has stayed in my mind, is closely related to what follows, and can be tied to the comment thread of the No Treason post.

Garth, at the blog Musings from America’s Outback, has been noting Leonard’s, at the blog Unruled, thoughts on anarchy.  Garth’s most recent post, titled “Anarchy vs. Minarchy: Legitimacy litmus test," refers to Leonard’s most recent post titled “How to Analyze Anarchy."

Both Garth’s, and Leonard’s, posts are considering anarchy with a emphasis on protection agencies.  An emphasis that is struck in many considerations of this subject, as if protection is the keystone to the success, or failure, of an an-cap society.  But is it?

Consider the State’s protection agencies.  Do these protection agencies, the police, the military, and what not, actually protect you?  Though they advertise on the sides of their vehicles, and their websites, “To Protect, and To Serve,” these agencies do not protect you, they, for the most part, investigate actions that have already harmed you.  The State controlled protection agencies rarely protect you from murder, burglary, or bodily injury, they just step in, after the fact, providing you with a false sense of security because they are “on the case.”

Now, to the comment "I don’t need you, John," and hopefully an articulated point.  The individual fear of harm, or loss of property, appears to be the overriding reason for a perceived need for protection agencies, and, for individuals to join one protection agency versus another protection agency.  To form a group.  Though I understand, and accept, that a sizable percentage of individuals will feel a need to join a protection agency, a protection agency is not the basis from which individual freedom, individual sovereignty, an an-cap society, will grow.  This doesn’t mean that private protection agencies will not necessarily be a part of a truly free way of living, it only means that not all individuals will need to join a protection agency, a group, to be part of a truly free way of living.

"I don’t need you, John," is not a misanthropic statement, it is a statement of independence and assurance of an individual’s place in the world at large.  A world where groups, erroneously, want you to believe that there is only safety in numbers.

Posted by John Venlet on 09/05 at 06:20 AM
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