Just came across this, seems like its been around for a while.

http://namingfacts.aynrand.org/

-The mission of the Party, financed and directed by the Soviet Union,
was the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the imposition of a
Soviet-style dictatorship in America.

-The Hollywood communists were ideological enemies of individual rights
- including the right to free speech that they brazenly claim was being
denied to them.

-The U.S. government has the right to investigate an organization that
declares its intent to overthrow a free society on behalf of a foreign
dictatorship. It was not the communists' ideas, but their threatened
actions, which were the legitimate targets of inquiry.

- Private film studios have every right to "blacklist" - i.e., to refuse
to hire and give platforms to - people whose views they find repugnant.

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From: Lee Corbin [lcorbin@tsoft.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 6:05 PM
To: Eudaemonists@Matus1976. Com
Subject: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

The famous historian Paul Johnson writes

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/jun03/johnson.htm

From the evil empire
to the empire for liberty
by Paul Johnson

Is the United States imperialist? Has it created, or is it creating, an empire? If so, should we regard this process as desirable,
even inevitable? These questions are raised by the American conquest of Iraq which, together with the prolegomenon of September 11,
constitutes the first key event of the twenty-first century, foreshadowing a new world order.

First, it is important to understand what we mean by the word “empire.” Its core meaning is “rule,” with the implication
“unqualified rule.” A country designated as an empire is one which possesses numerous territories but, more important, absolute
sovereignty over itself. This usage came into English in the sixteenth century to designate the unlimited legal power of the Crown
in parliament, and the impotence of papal writs. All the major Reformation statutes which repudiated Roman claims contained the
word. Thus the statute 24 Henry VII of 1532–1533, Chapter 12, begins: “This realm of England is an empire.” The Crown in parliament
could thus make and unmake bishops, revise doctrine and liturgy, and dispose at will of Church lands, then 20 percent of the total,
without reference to Rome. This marked the point at which England withdrew from the medieval entity called Christendom in which
kings and popes agreed to share sovereignty, after many disputes, not on an ideological but on an ad hoc basis, later formalized in
treaties known as Concordats. Under the old medieval system, indeed, popes claimed the right, in extremis, to depose wicked
territorial disputes. The last major pre-Reformation exercise of this power came in 1493 when Pope Alexander VI published the Bull
Inter cetera, dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal: the two powers accepted the arbitration the following year in the
Treaty of Tordesillas, whereby Portugal was to have all land in the Western hemisphere east of the north-south line drawn 370
leagues from Cape Verde, Spain taking the rest. This proved one of the most important rulings in history, since it gave Portugal
Brazil, which remains Portuguese-speaking to this day, and left the rest of the Americas to Spain.

However, the fact that England had declared itself an empire invalidated the papal award in official English eyes, a judgment made
formal by Queen Elizabeth I’s chief minister, Sir William Cecil, who told the Spanish Ambassador that English settlers were free to
claim for the Crown any territory in the Americas not yet settled. The term “the British Empire” came into use at about the same
time. It was given a religious underpinning by the widespread belief in England, made explicit in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, the most
popular book in Elizabethan and Jacobean England after the Bible, that for historical reasons the English had succeeded the
discredited Jews as the Elect Nation, had vindicated their claim by the Reformation, and had a global mission to carry thus-purified
Christianity throughout the world. This was the confident belief of the earliest English settlers in Virginia, still more so of the
Pilgrim Fathers, and it was epitomized in the statement of John Winthrop who encapsulated America’s global mission: “We must
consider that we shall be a city on a hill, the eyes of all people are on us.”

Colonial America was thus a venture in imperialism under divine sanction. The settlers exercised from the start a degree of
self-government incompatible with long-term submission to the mother country. But it is important to grasp that the issue of
taxation was not the only one in the American Revolution of the 1770s. Still more important to Virginians like George Washington was
the Crown’s ban on further settlement west of the Appalachian watershed. The truth is, the Americans were more imperialist than the
English. All the states south of New England saw their western frontiers as undefined, and their east-west lines of demarcation
stretching across the entire continent to the Pacific. Once the United States came into being and the immensity of the land became
apparent, the practicalities of administration dictated the creation of new states. But it is clear that the idea of Manifest
Destiny—that is, the quasi-religious right of the English-speaking settlers to occupy the whole of the continent—existed in embryo a
century before the phrase was coined. Indeed, it was a long time before all Americans admitted the right of Canada and Mexico to
co-exist with their Union, seemingly sanctified by history, politics, economics, religion, and geography.

If Canada and Mexico escaped the net of destiny, the imperium of America consolidated itself by two stupendous bargains. The
Louisiana Purchase whereby Bonaparte yielded to the United States an immense territory of 828,000 square miles for what, even then,
seemed the derisory sum of $15 million, or four cents an acre, was an imperial transfer without precedent or successor, “a princely
bargain” as Talleyrand sorrowfully put it—unlike Bonaparte, he did not share the blindness of Old Europe to the potential of the New
World. The land thus cheaply acquired subsequently became thirteen new states and made the pursuit of Manifest Destiny to the
Pacific infinitely easier. Andrew Johnson’s administration capped this deal by buying from Russia, for a mere $7,200,000, Alaska,
over twice the size of Texas, which became the forty-ninth state in 1959. This large-scale acquisitive imperialism was conducted, it
must be said, within the ideology of the Privileged Hemisphere, made specific in the Monroe Doctrine, in which established settler
regimes were entitled to consolidate their position in the hemisphere while Old Europe was forbidden any further incursion.

Hence there is no denying that the United States was the beneficiary of imperialism from the start. Though self-liberating, it was
an imperialist creation, and remained one, enlarging its borders as and when it needed space and opportunity offered. Unlike Britain
and France it did not export its surplus population and land hunger overseas but overland, and it did not call itself an empire but
a Union: its expansion took place within a democratic context and its acquisitions quickly acceded to statehood.

Yet there were exceptions even to this. The twenty islands known as Hawaii became part of the United States by a gradual process of
commercial and missionary penetrations familiar in the British Empire, in the years after 1820. Despite the fact that Hawaii was
2090 miles west of San Francisco, and its population overwhelmingly of non-European origin, the islands were constituted a US
territory in 1900 and became a state in 1959. By contrast, the Philippines, ceded to the United States by Spain in 1898 as spoils of
the Spanish-American War, were treated as a temporary colony. Washington was initially unsure what to do about them and resolved its
doubts in a characteristically American way. President McKinley told a delegation to the White House: “I am not ashamed to tell you,
gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance that one night. And one night later it
came this way … there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filippinos and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.” The Organic
Act of 1902 made the islands an unincorporated territory of the United States and the process towards independence began
immediately, continuing until 1946 when the new Republic was established.

The Philippines, then, were a US exercise in shouldering what Kipling termed “the white man’s burden,” that is, duties undertaken by
the advanced nations not for power or profit but under moral and religious impulses to bring “the lesser breeds” (Kipling’s term)
into the enlightened circle of civilization. Moral imperialism has deep religious roots, for the Spanish and Portuguese empires,
though undertaken primarily for profit, had conversion of the indigenous inhabitants to Christianity as their secondary and
justificatory purpose. Indeed, colonial America itself was to some extent a moral, religious, and missionary creation. What gave
moral imperialism its force, however, were early nineteenth-century efforts to suppress the slave trade. Britain outlawed it in 1807
and the British navy was given the job of putting the law into force. This was far from easy: countries like Spain, Portugal, and
even France had to be bribed into cooperating, and initially the United States was an obstacle to enforcement. It is worth recalling
that in the period 1815–1860, the Southern states actively promoted the spread of slavery not only in the continental United States
but also in neighboring states. Had the South prevailed, or the Civil War ended in stalemate, it is likely that a white-dominated
empire, based on slavery, would have emerged far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, embracing much of Central America. As it was, the
victory of the North gave Washington an added reason for joining the Royal Navy in putting down the slave trade. In one area, the
United States had led the way. Between 1801 and 1815, America not only refused to pay tribute to the pirates of the Barbary States
(Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli) but was the first to take punitive action against them to release US nationals held as
slaves. Stephen Decatur’s successful campaign against Tripoli, 1804–1805, was the earliest American contribution to moral
imperialism. After the Civil War, the US Navy and its civil and missionary adjuncts were active alongside the British, especially in
the Pacific and Indian Oceans, in ensuring freedom of the seas, putting down piracy and hostage-taking, opening up territories which
forbade Western commerce, and carrying out punitive actions against states, large and small, which offended Western notions of
international law and morality.

One area where moral imperialism was active was the Persian Gulf. In Arabia, slavery and slaving were endemic, run by the fierce
Wahhabi religious sect, whose leaders were the forebears of the Saudi ruling family. The Wahhabis also sponsored piracy in the
Indian Ocean, threatening Britain’s trade with India. From the first decade of the nineteenth century, Britain made allies of the
Gulf States, such as Bahrain, Qatar, and Muscat, which resisted Wahhabi encroachment, and these allies provided footholds for a
local form of moral imperialism which lasted into the oil age. Operations were coordinated from Bushire on the Persian coast, and
sons of the local rulers were sent to the School of Princes in India to be brought up in Western ways. The Americans eventually
joined in this regional moral imperialism, though in what the British regarded as a perverse fashion. They chose as their chief
local allies the Wahhabis who, in the convulsions following the First World War, became rulers of Saudi Arabia and owners of the
world’s largest oil reserves. It is not surprising that the Saudis have directly financed and indirectly sponsored Moslem terrorism,
just as their predecessors supported slave-trading and piracy.

The United States, as a Pacific power with a two-ocean navy, joined in various exercises of moral imperialism in the last part of
the nineteenth century, notably the suppression of the Boxer Rising in China (1900), when it contributed troops to the expedition of
the five imperialist powers (Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan). President Wilson’s League of Nations proposal was, in
part, a form of moral imperialism: it provided for Germany’s former colonies and the provinces of the Turkish Empire to be taken
into trusteeship by the victorious Allies, on the model of the Philippines, and prepared for self-government. The Senate’s failure
to ratify US membership of the League prevented America from participating in this experiment. The German Pacific colonies of the
Caroline, Marshall, and Mariana Islands were entrusted to Japan, which used them as bases from which to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941.
In 1945 the United Nations was given sovereignty, entrusted them to the United States, and thereafter they were run by the US
Department of the Interior.

In retrospect the most important American acts of moral imperialism in the nineteenth century were the two expeditions by Commodore
Matthew C. Perry, 1853–1854, to Japan, to persuade this hermit state to allow in Western commerce. America had already, in China,
engaged in an effort to get the authorities to adopt an Open Door policy to all Western nations as the only alternative to piecemeal
colonization. The same arguments applied to Japan, and were taken so seriously by the Japanese elite as to inspire a national effort
to industrialize and to build powerful armed forces. The Perry episode can therefore be presented as a form of anti-imperialism. But
it can also, and perhaps more accurately, be seen as a form of yet another kind of empire-building—commercial or cultural
imperialism, what many would now term globalization.

This is the process, unconscious or deliberate, whereby a stronger power pulls a weaker one into its economic and cultural orbit. It
is, but need not be, associated with the other more direct form of empire. As such, it is as old as humanity. Indeed, globalization
is pre-human. Among flowers and trees, invertebrates and mammals, a continuous process of colonization takes place as successful
species move into fresh territory, alongside existing organisms, which disappear if too weak to coexist. Homo sapiens, at the top of
the evolutionary tree, was a globalizer ab initio, spreading into all the habitable portions of the earth’s surface. The more
successful human communities spread their culture and their products—the two were usually inseparable and always remain close—from
prehistoric times. The early empires saw their cultural matrix, identified with the objects they made and built, as the source of
their existing power and the means to acquire more. In early dynastic times the ancient Egyptians, around 3,000 BC, developed a
culture of extraordinary appeal and clarity which spread up the entire Nile Valley and remained virtually intact for three
millennia. Their invention of the stone column was the foundation of all architecture, an early example of globalization; and
Egyptian styles are still common in postmodern buildings today. When the multi-racial Empire of the Medes and Persians came into
existence, the Archaemenian kings developed a cultural matrix which underpinned their rule. To build their immense palace-capital at
Persepolis they imported craftsmen from all over the ancient Near East. But all were obliged to build and decorate within the norms
of the matrix.

The Greeks used commercial and cultural imperialism as a substitute for direct rule. A collection of city-states, often at odds with
each other, they exported their surplus population in the form of colonies, closely modelled on the mother city, each with a harbor
and warehouses, a quarter for merchants and artisans, a stadium, an odeon, a gymnasium, and a theater, all of them big enough to
accommodate the entire free population of the city, for political and cultural purposes. These outposts often grew wealthier than
the mother-cities and formed a rich powerful archipelago throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks called it
oikumene, an area of civilization where Greek norms were paramount, and this ecumenical empire was contrasted with what they called
“chaos”—the surrounding barbarism and savagery. The Greek oikumene was inherited by the Romans and became the basis of their
enormous Empire, though the Romans, with their passion for uniform law, insisted on transforming the colonia into provinces and thus
put together an old-style territorial empire, with all its strengths and weaknesses.

Western society is the product of the marriage of the Christian religion to Greek and Latin culture. We thus have imperial impulses,
in various models, at our very roots, the Americans no less than the Old Europeans. There is an important difference here between
the West and Islam. Though Islam is imperialist by nature, it is essentially religious imperialism, ruling through the Islamic
state. The West, unlike Islam, underwent both the Renaissance and the Reformation, thereby acquiring strong secular characteristics
and refreshing its roots in Greco-Roman civilization, with its respect for impartial and universal law and competing modes of
government including democracy.

Hence in the twentieth and still more the twenty-first centuries, the forms of moral, commercial, and cultural imperialism emanating
from the West are essentially secular. We no longer speak of “Christianizing the world,” a phrase in wide use up to 1914. But
“democratizing the world,” whether spoken or not, is our aim. Behind this lies the belief that when functioning democracies become
the norm, international law is more likely to be observed, free trade to spread, real incomes to increase, and the world to become a
freer, healthier, more secure, and contented place. In the creation of this oikumene, or ecumenical world of Western-style
civilization, America is allotted the prime role by geography and history, economics and demography, culture and philosophy.

For America, September 11 was a new Great Awakening. It realized, for the first time, that it was a globalized entity itself. It no
longer had frontiers. Its boundaries were the world, for from whatever part of the world harbored its enemies, it could be attacked,
and if such enemies possessed weapons of mass destruction, mortally attacked. For this reason America was obliged to construct a new
strategic doctrine, replacing totally that of National Security Council paper 68 of 1950, which laid down the doctrine of
containment. In a globalized world the United States now has to anticipate its enemies, search out and destroy their bases, and
disarm states likely to aid them. I call this defensive imperialism. It is a novel kind, but embraces elements of all the old.
Significantly, NSC 68 of 1950 specifically repudiates imperialism. Its replacement will necessarily embrace it in its new form.
There are compelling reasons why the United States is uniquely endowed to exercise this kind of global authority.

First, America has the language of the twenty-first century. English is already the first world language in many respects, and this
century will see its rapid extension and consolidation. As first the Greeks, then the Romans discovered, possession of a common
language is the first vital and energizing step towards embracing common norms of law, behavior, and culture. A more secure world
will be legislated for, policed, and adjudicated in English. Second, America has, and will continue to acquire, the technology of
the twenty-first century, its lead being widened by its success in providing the clearest climate of freedom in which inventors,
pioneers, and entrepreneurs of all kinds can operate. In the nineteenth century, the great age of the formal empires, the
imperialist thrust was backed by the industrial revolution, producing manufactured goods much cheaper and in far greater quantity
than ever before. In 1800 it was Asia which produced the majority (57 percent) of world manufactured output, the West only 29
percent; by 1900 the West was producing 86 percent, Asia only 10 percent. Today, America’s production of world wealth, both
absolutely and relatively, is accelerating. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, it added $5 trillion to its annual GDP. By
2050 the US share of global output will constitute over a quarter of the world total and will be as much as three times as big as,
for instance, the European Union.

Traditionally, successful imperialism has reflected high birth-rates and the ability to export large surplus populations. The climax
of European imperialism in the nineteenth century coincided with the European population explosion. America has never exported
people overseas. On the contrary, its growing power and wealth has reflected its ability to attract and absorb them. That continues.
American now accepts more immigrants than the rest of the world put together. The amazing ability of groups like the Cubans, the
Hong Kong Chinese, the Vietnamese, and other new arrivals to strike roots and create wealth is a key part of America’s continuing
success story. But America also has a high birth rate. Its population is now coming up to the 300 million mark. By 2050 it will be
over 400 million. By contrast, Europe’s population will shrink and the percentage of working age will fall rapidly. Population
forecasts are notoriously unreliable and some predictions of what is likely to happen in Europe (and Japan) in this century are so
alarming as to be discounted. But clearly there is a marked and growing contrast between Old Europe and Young America. And the
combination of an accelerating technology and an expanding world-force will be irresistible in terms of economic and military power.

The Bush administration is only beginning to grasp the implications of the course on which it has embarked. It still, albeit with
growing difficulty, speaks the language of anti-imperialism. But that is the jargon of the twentieth century, or its second half;
who says it will be the prevailing discourse of the twenty-first? As it happens, in America’s own parlance, imperialism became a
derogatory term only during the Civil War, when the South accused the North of behaving like a European empire. It then became
politically correct to speak only of “American exceptionalism.” But it is worth recalling that up to 1860 “empire” was not a term of
abuse in the United States. George Washington himself spoke of “the rising American Empire.” Jefferson, aware of the dilemma,
claimed that America was “an Empire for liberty.” That is what America is becoming again, in fact if not in name. America’s search
for the security against terrorism and rogue states goes hand in hand with liberating their oppressed peoples. From the Evil Empire
to an Empire for Liberty is a giant step, a contrast as great as the appalling images of the wasted twentieth century and the
brightening dawn of the twenty-first. But America has the musculature and the will to take giant steps, as it has shown in the past.

One thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its sovereignty with
anyone. It will continue to promote international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and to support military alliances like NATO
where appropriate. But it will not allow the UN or any other organization to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it
sees fit. The new globalization of security will proceed with the UN if possible, without it if necessary. The empire for liberty is
the dynamic of change.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From The New Criterion Vol. 21, No. 10, June 2003
©2003 The New Criterion | Back to the top | www.newcriterion.com

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From: Lee Corbin [lcorbin@tsoft.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 7:00 PM
To: Dehede011@aol.com
Cc: Eudaemonists@Matus1976. Com
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

Hi Ron,

It doesn't seem to me that the word "empire" is an
accurate portrayal of the situation. To use "empire"
is to compare it to

1. the Roman Empire
2. the British Empire
3. the Japanese Empire

Now I think that all of these (except the British
Empire after 1867) were committed to ruling other
territories not traditionally belonging to them,
or where the ruling nation was not indigenous.
And! They did it for profit, nothing else.

IN 1867, Canada was made independent, but was still
a part of the "Empire". But *all* the usual usages,
including the famouse East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,
were territories *ruled* by outsiders.

Okay, the U.S. rules right now in Afghanistan and
(in most places) in Iraq, but it also ruled in France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany at times
during World War II.

But the intent *must* be to establish permanent control,
and for the sake of profit, before I think that the
term should be used.

Lee

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dehede011@aol.com [mailto:Dehede011@aol.com]
> Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 3:41 PM
> To: lcorbin@tsoft.com
> Subject: Re: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire
>
>
> In a message dated 11/9/2003 5:13:29 PM Central Standard Time,
> lcorbin@tsoft.com writes: Is the United States imperialist? Has it created, or is it
> creating, an empire? If so, should we regard this process as desirable, even
> inevitable? These questions are raised by the American conquest of Iraq which,
> together with the prolegomenon of September 11, constitutes the first key event of
> the twenty-first century, foreshadowing a new world order
>
> Lee,
> It seems to me this whole process of deciding if the US is an Empire
> and if our conduct vs a vs Iraq is an act of empire is one exceptionally
> fraught with mischief. It empire is simply the act of declaring oneself sovern and
> independent of all other nations then going into Iraq to promote our own
> safety is undoubtedly an act of empire. I think President Bush's statement that we
> would go after the Taliban, its friends, and all who harbor them was an act
> of empire.
> But the word as used by some says that if we entered Iraq as an act of
> Empire then that means we intend to subjugate Iraq, its territory and its
> commercial interests to ourselves -- we have taken them over and intend to rule
> them for our own benefit as ours. I personally don't think that is the goal
> but like the Philipines before Iraq my point won't be proven until we remove
> ourselves. I believe we will.
> Ron Harrison
>
>

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From: Dehede011@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 7:03 PM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

In a message dated 11/9/2003 5:13:29 PM Central Standard Time,
lcorbin@tsoft.com writes: Is the United States imperialist? Has it created, or is it
creating, an empire? If so, should we regard this process as desirable, even
inevitable? These questions are raised by the American conquest of Iraq which,
together with the prolegomenon of September 11, constitutes the first key event of
the twenty-first century, foreshadowing a new world order

Lee,
It seems to me this whole process of deciding if the US is an Empire
and if our conduct vs a vs Iraq is an act of empire is one exceptionally
fraught with mischief. It empire is simply the act of declaring oneself sovern and
independent of all other nations then going into Iraq to promote our own
safety is undoubtedly an act of empire. I think President Bush's statement that we
would go after the Taliban, its friends, and all who harbor them was an act
of empire.
But the word as used by some says that if we entered Iraq as an act of
Empire then that means we intend to subjugate Iraq, its territory and its
commercial interests to ourselves -- we have taken them over and intend to rule
them for our own benefit as ours. I personally don't think that is the goal
but like the Philipines before Iraq my point won't be proven until we remove
ourselves. I believe we will.
Ron Harrison

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From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 1:21 AM
To: lcorbin@tsoft.com; eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: Re: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

Lee, if the US will not even create an energy policy that will liberate itself from sources of Islamic-owned oil; there's smal real chance of the US having the vision to do the the kind of thing you suggest.

Mitch

Lee writes:
<<One thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its sovereignty with
anyone. It will continue to promote international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and to support military alliances like NATO
where appropriate. But it will not allow the UN or any other organization to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it
sees fit. The new globalization of security will proceed with the UN if possible, without it if necessary. The empire for liberty is
the dynamic of change.>>

From: Lee Corbin [lcorbin@tsoft.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:38 AM
To: Eudaemonists@Matus1976. Com
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

Mitch writes

> Lee, if the US will not even create an energy policy that
> will liberate itself from sources of Islamic-owned oil;
> there's smal real chance of the US having the vision to
> do the the kind of thing you suggest.

Well, of course, it was the article's author, not I, who
made those suggestions.

As for oil, it seems to me that it would be expensive and
economically damaging for us to do without middle eastern
oil. But instead of the billions we give the shieks, we
ought to enforce a fair price---e.g., about one tenth of
what they are getting now.

Yes, there may someday be disruption, and so plans should
be made to accomodate a huge oil shortage. American consumers
would have to make fewer unnecessary trips, the price would
go up, and we would just have to endure it.

Lee

<<One thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an
empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its
sovereignty with anyone. It will continue to promote
international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and
to support military alliances like NATO where appropriate.
But it will not allow the UN or any other organization
to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it
sees fit. The new globalization of security will proceed
with the UN if possible, without it if necessary. The
empire for liberty is the dynamic of change.>>

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From: Mike Lorrey [mlorrey@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:56 AM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Paul Johnson on Empire

I have to wonder at people's dictionaries when they are defining empire
as a nation that insists on defending itself.

As for oil, the best way to stick it to the shieks is to invest more in
conservation technologies. The oil glut of the 90's is the direct
result of investments in energy conservation from the 1980s through
1994. Conseration kilowatts can still be acquired at a cost of 1.5-2
cents per kwh, which is imminently more affordable than investing in
new power plants.

Thirdly, there is a significant problem with the concentration of
internet server farms in California. They represent a huge drain on the
California energy market and leave the nations' information
infrastructure vulnerable to EMP terror weapons. Migration and
duplication of server systems to lower cost energy markets would negate
these problems.

--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> Mitch writes
>
> > Lee, if the US will not even create an energy policy that
> > will liberate itself from sources of Islamic-owned oil;
> > there's smal real chance of the US having the vision to
> > do the the kind of thing you suggest.
>
> Well, of course, it was the article's author, not I, who
> made those suggestions.
>
> As for oil, it seems to me that it would be expensive and
> economically damaging for us to do without middle eastern
> oil. But instead of the billions we give the shieks, we
> ought to enforce a fair price---e.g., about one tenth of
> what they are getting now.
>
> Yes, there may someday be disruption, and so plans should
> be made to accomodate a huge oil shortage. American consumers
> would have to make fewer unnecessary trips, the price would
> go up, and we would just have to endure it.
>
> Lee
>
>
> <<One thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an
> empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its
> sovereignty with anyone. It will continue to promote
> international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and
> to support military alliances like NATO where appropriate.
> But it will not allow the UN or any other organization
> to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it
> sees fit. The new globalization of security will proceed
> with the UN if possible, without it if necessary. The
> empire for liberty is the dynamic of change.>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: eudaemonists-unsubscribe@matus1976.com
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>

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
- Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 11:38 PM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: [eudaemonists] Dr. Seuss

Interesting piece on NRO over the weekend..

http://nationalreview.com/miller/miller200311210832.asp

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From: Matus [matus@matus1976.com]
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 11:59 AM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Dr. Seuss

> Interesting piece on NRO over the weekend..
>
> http://nationalreview.com/miller/miller200311210832.asp
>

Great excerpt -

"
Then he wrote The Butter Battle Book (1984), which his publicists
earnestly declared to be "probably the most important book Dr. Seuss has
ever created." Seuss himself called it "the best book I've ever
written."

The story describes a conflict between the blue-suited Yooks, who prefer
to eat their bread with the "butter side up," and orange-suited Zooks,
who eat their bread with the "butter side down." The Yooks and Zooks
then embark on a perilous arms race. They build ever more menacing
weapons, from the Triple-Sling Jigger to the Eight-Nozzled,
Elephant-Toted Boom-Blitz, and finally the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, which
is basically a pea-sized weapon of mass destruction. At the ambiguous
conclusion, which recalls "The Lady or the Tiger," both the Yooks and
Zooks have the boomeroo and look ready to use it.

All of Seuss's other books, including The Lorax, end on a hopeful note.
The Butter Battle Book, alone, does not. It is also a perfect emblem of
the moral equivalence that neutered so many liberals during the Cold
War: It assumes that the half-century conflict between the United States
and the Soviet Union was based on nothing more meaningful than a dispute
over how people prefer to butter their bread - as if Communism weren't a
threat to liberty, but an eating preference.
"

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From: Mike Lorrey [mlorrey@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 7:55 PM
To: Matus
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Dr. Seuss

--- Matus <matus@matus1976.com> wrote:
>
> > Interesting piece on NRO over the weekend..
> >
> > http://nationalreview.com/miller/miller200311210832.asp
> >
>
> Great excerpt -
>
> "All of Seuss's other books, including The Lorax, end on a hopeful
> note. The Butter Battle Book, alone, does not. It is also a perfect
> emblem of the moral equivalence that neutered so many liberals
> during the Cold War: It assumes that the half-century conflict
> between the United States and the Soviet Union was based on
> nothing more meaningful than a dispute over how people prefer to
> butter their bread - as if Communism weren't a threat to liberty,
> but an eating preference."

I should note that Suess was a product of Dartmouth College, and one of
its most favorite alumni, they even made Suess characters a theme of
one of their Winter Carnivals. He may have been the son of Republicans,
but he learnt his moral equivalency here in the Upper Valley.

The early to mid 80's a fun time in this area, politically. Anti-nukers
abounded, and I had my hands full writing letters to the editor of the
local paper denouncing the falsehoods, misrepresentations, slanders and
other propaganda of the anti-nuke peaceniks left over from the commune
movement across the river in Vermont.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
- Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
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From: Matus [matus@matus1976.com]
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 11:22 PM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: FW: [eudaemonists] Dr. Seuss

Just forwarding this response from Mike Lorrey to the list

Sorry all, Ill try to get the reply to all issue fixed in the near
future.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Lorrey [mailto:mlorrey@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 7:55 PM
To: Matus
Subject: RE: [eudaemonists] Dr. Seuss

--- Matus <matus@matus1976.com> wrote:
>
> > Interesting piece on NRO over the weekend..
> >
> > http://nationalreview.com/miller/miller200311210832.asp
> >
>
> Great excerpt -
>
> "All of Seuss's other books, including The Lorax, end on a hopeful
> note. The Butter Battle Book, alone, does not. It is also a perfect
> emblem of the moral equivalence that neutered so many liberals
> during the Cold War: It assumes that the half-century conflict
> between the United States and the Soviet Union was based on
> nothing more meaningful than a dispute over how people prefer to
> butter their bread - as if Communism weren't a threat to liberty,
> but an eating preference."

I should note that Suess was a product of Dartmouth College, and one of
its most favorite alumni, they even made Suess characters a theme of
one of their Winter Carnivals. He may have been the son of Republicans,
but he learnt his moral equivalency here in the Upper Valley.

The early to mid 80's a fun time in this area, politically. Anti-nukers
abounded, and I had my hands full writing letters to the editor of the
local paper denouncing the falsehoods, misrepresentations, slanders and
other propaganda of the anti-nuke peaceniks left over from the commune
movement across the river in Vermont.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
- Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/

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From: Matus [matus@matus1976.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 4:21 AM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: [eudaemonists] Forwarded from the extropy list

This Jacques fellow has recently been posting on the extropy list.
Apparently he is from France, here is one of his posts I found
interesting.

Does anyone know him?

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of JDP
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:28 PM
To: cryofan@mylinuxisp.com; ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing
thought....)

Randy wrote (10.11.2003/10:45) :
>
> Greg wrote
>
> >The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any
> >other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The
> >problem arises when state power is fused with the form through
> >corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like
> >blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government
> >favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that
> >manage to garner preferential treatment from the state.
> >Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but
> >these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm
> >by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU --
> >viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics,
>
> But how do you define "harm"? The strikes in Europe are simply the
> expression of solidarity of the people and have resulted in the
> superior living conditions of the French (and other NW European
> countries), as compared to the Americans:

Randy,

I wish the picture you are drawing of France was true.

France has 10% unemployment (that's NOT counting people on social
welfare, only people who were employed some months ago) and rising.
The social security (meaning free health services) has a HUGE deficit,
so it won't be able to carry on very long that way.

The government has every difficulty to make the least reform, because
of the unions and strikes, especially in the public service.
Meanwhile, problems accumulate, and seem to never get solved.

Here's my current view of things: Liberty and responsability directly
correlate with collective prosperity through creative competition. If
you are not sure you want to say to the weak: "find a way to make
yourself useful or die", and to the strong: "you're welcome to become
a half-god by accumulating wealth", because you value equality, and
the support of the weak, you can do it, but it will lower collective
prosperity. Even in France, there are many people who work very hard
the whole day only to sustain themselves. I find it reasonable to be
appalled at it.

Neither the US nor France are at one extremity of the theorical
spectrum. But France is a bit more on the equality-support side. It
has some good aspects (humble people feel more empowered and less
"enslaved", and there may be a general "quality of life" and more
relaxed approach of things), and it has some bad aspects (less
prosperity, which means even more support needed, and so on in a
vicious circle).

One thought which I never heard voiced, but which seems rather obvious
to me, is that by being more on the liberty-responsability end of the
spectrum, the USA pay the "inequality price" for some of its
creativity, that is then available for free to other countries. It
might be that Europe would have been forced a long time ago to get
back to more liberty-responsability if it couldn't use what the US
create (think computers, Internet, etc.). I'm not an economist,
though.

I don't think there is one definite answer about
liberty-responsability versus equality-support. Within the bounds of
our ape psyche (and maybe beyond), the redirection of competitive
"instincts" into production at the exclusion of coercion (which is
what the political philosophy of liberty is about seen at our
contemporary light) may well be the best way to go. It has to be
acknowledged that it does pressure individuals, though, even if more
collective prosperity tends to make things easier even for the weak.
In the end, it's probably more difficult in France than in the US due
to less prosperity, but the perception people in lower situations have
of life may be a bit better and less harsh, which possibly produces a
"better atmosphere".

Silly French joke: You know why they chose the rooster as the embleme
for France? Because it's the only animal that still sings even with
his feet in the mud. I am afraid this is what you get with too much
equality-support: some kind of warmth with material misery.

Jacques

>
> The average American works 25% more hours than the average French.
>
> And the average French does not have to ever worry about getting
> cancer and not being able to pay for treatment--medical care is
> provided by the state without charge in France.
>
> Likewise, they do not have to worry about saving up for their child's
> education -- it is provided without charge by the state.
>
> Plus, if the job comes to an end, there is long term unemployment.
>
> The French obtained this superior lifestyle through strikes and other
> tactics. So where is the "harm"? Or did you mean "benefit"? :-)
>
> >or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main
factors derailing free trade in the >world. The evil doesn't lie in the
legal form per se, but in the sell-out of state power.
>
> American govt sells out 10 times worse than any of the NW Euro
> countries. The European citizenry would (and have) shut down their
> countries if they think they have been sold out.
>

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From: Mike Lorrey [mlorrey@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 5:10 PM
To: Matus
Subject: Re: [eudaemonists] Forwarded from the extropy list

--- Matus <matus@matus1976.com> wrote:
> This Jacques fellow has recently been posting on the extropy list.
> Apparently he is from France, here is one of his posts I found
> interesting.
>
> Does anyone know him?

Is that Jaques Pasquer? Don't know him, but have read his posts on
occasion. I think he may be a bit too much on the fence, too bought
into euro-socialism.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
- Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/

From: Matus [matus@matus1976.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 7:57 AM
To: eudaemonists@matus1976.com
Subject: [eudaemonists] Free Vietnam page

Hey all, I just completed a rough 'Free Vietnam' page. Please comment.

http://www.matus1976.com/vietnam/free_vietnam.htm

Will and I now brandish on our vehicles bumper stickers which feature
the flag of South Vietnam as the backdrop to the phrase 'Free Vietnam'
If anyone is interested in one let either of us know.

Michael

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