-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.30/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.30/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 30 </A> ----- Laissez Faire City Times July 26, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 30 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Bill-of-Rights for President An Interview with L. Neil Smith by Alberto Mingardi It is a commentary on Bill Clinton�s America that it takes a libertarian-anarchist to believe in Bill of Rights enforcement, including the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. L Neil Smith is a campaigner against Big Brother government who is willing to boldly hack away at the statist empire fed and nourished by recent "New World Order" presidents like George Bush and Bill Clinton, presidential-wanna-be�s like Al Gore and George Bush, Jr., and others of their ilk. Answering the question "who is a libertarian" some time ago, science-fiction writer (Probability Broach, Pallas) L. Neil Smith said that "a libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." (Oh, don�t get the wrong idea. Libertarians don�t initiate force. But they will damned well defend themselves against someone who does.) According to this definition, Smith is of course a libertarian, a strong libertarian and anarchist who�s been fighting against the State for more than twenty years. Turning 53 next year, Neil is now starting his new last journey: a campaign for White House in 2000 against the "bipartisan ticket" of George Bush Jr.-Al Gore and, maybe, the minarchist libertarian Harry Browne also. Neil�s program is simple: "Bill of Rights enforcement", as he�s preaching on his e-magazine, The Libertarian Enterprise ( http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/index.html, the Liberty of this Benjamin Tucker of the 21st Century. Smith is not new to political campaigns: in 1978 he ran for the Colorado legislature. About this experience, in a previous interview with The Laissez Faire City Times (http://zolatimes.com/V2.16/neilsmith.html), he said, "I ran openly as an anarchist, concentrating on telling people what everyday life would be like without the burden of taxation and regulation. I was the only candidate that season who elicited any kind of reaction from the audience." We�re sure that this time, too, Neil will give the people something to remember, dressed in his "leather jacket -- no necktie" and jeans. Looking at Neil�s new (crazy?) adventure, I can�t help recalling Kipling�s old verses: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; (...) Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Neil, a campaign for White House: what are the conditions under which you might run for the President of the United States in 2000? If those who want me to do it will collect 1,000,000 petition signatures to convince me I'm not wasting everybody's time and energy, I'll run for President of the United States in the year 2000 as an independent. In fact, my friends will actually be collecting 2,000,000 signatures, just to make sure. This allows me a personal indulgence. Why as an independent and not a Libertarian Party candidate? Whether I'd refuse the nomination of the Libertarian Party, which I joined in 1972 . . . (I've learned only recently of a group who want to draft me as the LP candidate for President.) I believe the LP has reached a point where, if I were to walk into its convention with a million petition signatures, or five million, or ten million, the clique that owns the party would still find an excuse to reject my candidacy. But if the laws of physics and human nature were repealed and the LP membership did ask me to be their candidate, after all these years, I couldn't find it in my heart to say no. Why are you doing this now? Let me remember some moments of my life: Decades ago, when I was my nine-year-old daughter's age, I calculated that I'd be 53 years old when the year 2000 arrived. I envisioned a brilliant, colorful future, based on the science fiction I was reading and possibilities I'd learned to imagine for myself. (I never considered the possibility that we'd be less free than we were in the 1950s.) I assumed that by now we'd all be flying to work in personal helicopters or even on flying belts, visiting with each other by videophone, living in undersea domes, vacationing on the Moon or Mars. Aging and disease would be wiped out. Instead... Instead? Over the next 40-odd years, most possibilities like that, (and many more I failed to foresee), were eaten up by taxes to support the "Welfare-Warfare State" and by regulations that were insane and unconstitutional. Government terrorism began turning my daydreams into nightmares, having begun (although I didn't know it at the time) with Operation Keelhaul and the persecution of Wilhelm Reich (to pick two examples), and climaxing (but certainly not ceasing) with Ruby Ridge and the butchery we all witnessed at Mount Carmel in 1993. Don't ask when it's going to happen, America is a police state now. At this point, instead of a brilliant, colorful future, it's likelier to be a future resembling Beirut at the fiercest of the fighting there, or Dachau at the worst moment of the Holocaust. All of my adult life, since I was a politically precocious 14, I've worked as hard as I could to prevent that kind of future, and the bitter, bloody civil war -- a war both Republicans and Democrats seem hell-bent on provoking -- that many of my wisest friends now believe is inevitable. But I still want my 21st century, not the Clintons' or the Bushes'. And I suspect you want it, too, or I wouldn't be doing this. I want it for myself, for my wife, and most of all I want it for my little girl. Like me, she writes. I want her to write, while she's a child, about sunshine, butterflies, and flowers, not machineguns, razor wire, and Ferret missiles. I want her to live as an adult and raise her own children amidst the peace, freedom, progress, and prosperity I grew up believing were the birthright of every American. Of every human being. What were your previous political experiences? Over the past decades I've personally tried many approaches -- and observed many more -- to reclaiming our Revolutionary heritage and advancing, once again, the cause of liberty. Every one has failed and we are worse off than when we started. What have you learned from these failed efforts? I've come to believe that the best "flag" to rally round is the one left to us by our 18th century ancestors : I've said in print and at the lectern that any difference between a society created by the most radical Libertarian Party platforms I helped to write in the 70s, and the society that would arise from stringent enforcement of the first ten amendments to the Constitution would merely be a matter of "fine tuning". The first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights. Then, your platform will be... Simply, the enforcement of the Bill of Rights. What would your first act as President be? My first act as President would be to order the arrests of Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, and Webster Hubbell for what they did at Waco, to round up everybody else responsible for what happened there, and put them on trial for their lives. I would also invite Michael New, the young soldier who refused to obey United Nations commanders, to the White House to give him a medal and appoint him to oversee our military disentanglement from NATO and the UN. I would then empty America's prisons by turning the White House into an Executive Clemency factory, if necessary, with the proper forms stacked to the ceiling, until the War on Drugs, America's 25,000 gun laws, and all other victimless crime laws were repealed or nullified. And, like the ancient Roman senator Cato the Elder who demanded after every speech that "Carthage must be destroyed", I would end my every public utterance, no matter what else it had been about, by reminding potential jury members across the country of their 1000 year old right and duty to judge the law itself, as well as the facts of the case. What are, really, your goals? I want to make it clear that I don't believe I'll be sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue any time in the next century. My goal (a realistically achievable one) is to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's a constituency for the Bill of Rights too large to ignore -- or to abuse any further. Rely on me to tell the truth and remain within the principles that have guided my life for nearly 40 years. There's no mythical "Great Unwashed" to be fooled or coddled here, no "gentle sensibilities" to be protected. It's far too late for that. There's no need for "outreach" in any conventional sense. All we have to do to change the course of history -- although it's a huge task -- is to find and gather together everyone who already basically agrees with us. To achieve this goal, what will be your approach to the media? Over the coming months, I plan to make heavy use of the Internet, and to supplement that with occasional video and audio tapes. Although I'll be dealing with specific issues each time, my basic message will always be the same: if you want to see the Bill of Rights stringently enforced, tell me, by signing my petition. What about contributions? Oh, technically, I'm not a candidate, just somebody whose friends are trying to persuade him to run: so accepting political contributions is complicated, and I have no mechanism for doing it at the moment. Later, proper and legal arrangements will have to be made. For now, if you wish to help, buy my books. Finally, L. Neil Smith�s dream for a freer world? One of the dreams that stirs me most is an International Bill of Rights Union to counterbalance the New World Order. My father was in the Air Force and I grew up in Canada. For those reasons, I'll accept petition signatures from there, from Great Britain (because we have British comrades who are being oppressed), from Australia, and from New Zealand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ L. Neil Smith is the author of the essay on freedom, "I�m Tired of Living in a Police State" (http://zolatimes.com/V2.37/tired.html. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alberto Mingardi, the Laissez Faire City Times ace interviewer, lives in Northern Italy (Padania), and speaks English as a second language. He turned 17 this past year. Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 30, July 26, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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