Bretigne Shaffer's Truth and Fiction

Fiction and commentary about the beauty of civilization and the evils of the coercive state
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Hong Kong as a Model for a Free Society Apr 22, 2014

I wrote this soon after Hong Kong's handover to Chinese rule. The lessons are still relevant. From the paper: For over a hundred and fifty years, Hong Kong has had few of the regulations and government programs that dominate economic life in America. While the territory does have minimal welfare assistance schemes, these are genuine safety-net programs, aimed at helping those who are truly in need. The level of welfare payments in Hong Kong historically have not encouraged dependence, nor have they been attractive enough to compete with work and business opportunities. Likewise, the level of regulation in the name...

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Can WikiLeaks Supporters Be Indefinitely Detained Under NDAA? Apr 21, 2014

Last week, a group of lawyers, plaintiffs and activists involved in the lawsuit against the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and its indefinite detention provisions held a live chat on Reddit.  This group included Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg and Tangerine Bolen (plaintiff and lawsuit coordinator, director of RevolutionTruth) among others.  I'm just posting some of the highlights here, because I think they are worth hearing - and not everyone wants to wade through the entire chat log.  (But you can if you want to.) Here are some of the highlights: Question: "I recently read that Julian Assange has been designated an enemy by the US military(...) doesn't this...

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Searching for Purpose in a Brutal World Apr 20, 2014

"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks." ~ Will Durant The Story of Civilization On the day I sat down to write this, a video was released showing one man slowly cutting off the head of another, allegedly in retaliation for abuses perpetrated against prisoners in the first man’s...

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The Biggest Leak Apr 20, 2014

So much of the debate over Wikileaks, when not focused on what kind of person Julian Assange is, has been centered around whether or not the leaked information has the potential to cause harm or even cost lives; whether releasing it was a public service or an act of gross irresponsibility. While this is obviously an important question, it misses the entire point of Wikileaks and what it represents by a mile. Likewise, most of the media attention completely overlooks the real significance of what Wikileaks has accomplished in releasing the documents. The most important piece of information revealed by...

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Dallas Buyers Club Nails the FDA Apr 18, 2014

Libertarians are raving about Dallas Buyers Club and with good reason. One of our biggest frustrations is the near-universal tendency of human beings to form political opinions not through a rational examination of the facts and theories, but through emotional attachments. Many of these attachments are derived from stories and mythology that no amount of scholarly journal articles or sound arguments can ever successfully refute. So it is exciting when someone comes along and distills all of the work that has been tirelessly cranked out for years by free-market analysts, and turns it into a compelling story about the indisputable...

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Why Helen Thomas’s Fate Makes Sense Apr 18, 2014

When Helen Thomas was vilified and presumably forced into retirement following her remarks that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and return to "Poland, Germany, America... anywhere else," many commentators cheered, but a few expressed outrage: "In another example of how one-sided the American media is in framing the issue of Israel," wrote Andrew Steele, "veteran journalist and opinion columnist Helen Thomas has been chased into retirement because of some remarks she gave when questioned on the street by a blogger." "(T)he central issue," said Glenn Greenwald, "is not the perception that she's guilty of bigotry, but the wrong kind of bigotry. ...

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What Americans Can Learn from the Vietnamese Apr 17, 2014

This is something I wrote (gulp!) more than 20 years ago.  I'm re-posting it here because I think it is instructive regarding the financial problems we are facing here in the US 21 years later.  When I visited Vietnam in 1990, the country was suffering from sporadic bouts of severe inflation.  The US embargo was still in force, but American-made products were everywhere, as were US dollars which were in high demand as a hedge against the unpredictable dong.  For larger purchases such as mopeds, people carried around little rings of gold. My article is about independent credit centers that Vietnamese...

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Abusive Power and the Culture of Obedience Apr 17, 2014

"But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." - Thomas Jefferson, 1819 Ask anyone who has lived under a repressive regime and they can tell you how it changes people. There are the obvious things like the fear of the knock at the door in the middle of the night, the loss of control over even the most...

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Disingenuous Reporting on Violence Against Women in Afghanistan Apr 17, 2014

The plight of Afghan women is in the news again. In December, Reuters warned that “(a)larm rises for Afghan women prisoners after Western troops leave”, and Macleans published a plea from Afghan parliamentarian and women’s rights advocate Fawzia Koofi, for Western troops to remain in her country.  Earlier this month, Russia Today reported that: “Violent crimes against women in Afghanistan reached an unprecedented level of brutality in 2013, an Afghan human rights watchdog has announced as the US-led coalition prepares to withdraw. “Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), Sima Samar, told Reuters that the pace and the...

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My Dream for Egypt Apr 17, 2014

This is a fantasy.  I know that.  So please don't write in telling me "it will never happen" or "the Egyptians aren't anarchists", etc.  I know it's probably not going to happen.  I'm not saying it's going to happen.  I'm saying I'd like it to. What's happening in Egypt is breathtaking.  Not only the courage and stamina of the protesters, but their civility.  The (apparent) fact that, with the exception of violence initiated by police and police-pretending-not-to-be-police, these demonstrations have been completely peaceful.  Wouldn't it be great if the Egyptian people looked around, recognized this, and said to themselves something...

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