This is the fourteen-hundredth commentary published on The Price of Liberty, courtesy and the dedication and work of Susan Callaway, Mama Liberty.
It has only been a few weeks since we lost her after her tough fight with cancer. There is a big hole in our hearts, our thoughts, our daily activities. I even find myself avoiding the drive through Newcastle, knowing she’s not there anymore.
By Nathan Barton
When we hear “prohibition” we immediately think of the 1920s-1930s alcohol fiasco, or the failed War on Some Drugs, especially on cannabis.
But there are two ways to have “prohibition.” Yes, the traditional method is to just outlaw the product. (As Federal Nazgul and a whole bunch of states are trying to do with 3D-printed guns and many Tranzis want for ALL firearms (in private hands other than their own, of course).) But the other way is often more effective (and sly).
Tax them out of existence.
By Nathan Barton
A comment on a recent column “Get your children out …” points out that it may take a “catastrophic extinction event” to rid ourselves of the odious institution of government-run, theft-funded “public” schools in the United States.
Is this what it takes to get rid of “public” schools and their evil in today’s world?
By Nathan Barton
We were taught, as we grew up, to respect the dead, to show sympathy for the families suffering the loss, and above all to “speak no ill of the dead.”
How naïve we were back then. Of course, back in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, there were limits to that rule of civility. Certainly not many people, worldwide, spoke anything but ill of Uncle Adolph. Or, in the West, of Uncle Joe. Truth is more important than being nice, when it comes to people like that.
Today, nice people still try not to speak ill of the dead. But not everyone is nice. In all corners of the political room, the voices are loud and rude. There are those who not just rejoice in the death of anyone who does not agree with them, continuing to trash them after death as they did before they died. Some publicly proclaim their desire for their opponents to die. Preferably in some painful, drawn-out, way.
Or worse, they do everything that they can to hasten or cause those deaths. And the deaths of tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of others. And then dance on their graves.
By Nathan Barton
A Blaze story points out one of the many evils of government-run, theft-funded schools – so-called “public schools.” The teacher punished the fifth-grader and threatened him for treating her with the respect his parents expected of him towards his teachers.
His crime? He answered her with “yes, ma’am.” The story does not report WHY the teacher believed that he was disrespectful to her by using a standard American English term of respect. But in her eyes, his way of showing respect was unacceptable in her classroom – indeed, evil.
The evil, of course, must be immediately punished.
By Nathan Barton
Today, the word “ghetto” has really bad connotations. It refers to slums where the vast majority of residents are black, living in these inner-city neighborhoods of rotting buildings and utilities, crime, and neglect. (See also “barrio” and “the ‘hood.’)
By Nathan Barton
Part one is a short piece of fiction about surveillance cameras and police and public perceptions.
Surveillence cameras and their complex and sometimes amazing software are a modern fact of life. In many cities, and even suburban areas, we and our vehicle may be in the view of dozens of cameras, all recording our presence, actions, and even our identity and vehicle identification. When we pull out a credit card, or an ID and check, the cameras may be recording our personal information.
In order to “protect against identity theft,” in reality the cameras and their recordings may make identity theft even easier and more profitable. And if we have enemies or even dishonorable opponents who can get access to them, we may be facing even greater problems. As in the story.
By Nathan Barton
(Fiction… or?)
You are driving around town, going about your daily business.
You are downtown: you promised the preacher you’d stop by to help him move some furniture in his office. But all the spaces around the building and in the parking lot are taken. So you finally find a space a block away. It’s only a couple of doors down from the Kitten Shop – which is NOT a pet store. You look at their black-coated windows and the enticing signs advertising XXX with disgust as you walk in the back door of the meeting house, where Joe Smith meets you. An hour later, now hurrying to get to the car before the meter expires, you drive off to your next stop. You see a police car just ahead of you, at the traffic light before you make your first turn off the street where you parked.
By Nathan Barton
War in space? Military in space?
We who have been associated with The Price of Freedom, like many lovers of liberty, have always been interested in the exploring and settling space. As have Americans and Brits (Aussies, New Zealanders, and Canadians as well as English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish). It is a natural part of our heritage. “To boldly go…”
Lady Susan and I also are life-long fans, and even writers, of science fiction. (It’s not the point of this article, but the affinity of “libertarians” and science fiction is worth a comment or two in the future. As many others have in the past.) And it is easy to assume that mankind will take all its baggage, good and bad, into space. So the “peace in space” rhetoric since about 1955 or so is really an anomaly.
It is quite interesting, then, to contemplate Trump’s proposal to spin off yet another uniformed, armed force. This time just for space.
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The Price of Liberty 
Eating their own… even if long dead
By Nathan Barton
There is afoot a proposal, “bipartisan” of course, to rename the Russell (Old) Senate Office Building (SOB – a worthy acronym for the place) in honor of recently dead John McCain.
It is fascinating to compare these two men, especially when you read the biography of RIchard B. Russell, (D) Georgia, US Senator 1933 to 1971. You can see it here, courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the mainstream media.
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