Signs of Change?

Within the past few days, a number of encouraging events have occurred: [1] the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to the Guardian and Washington Post news organizations for their roles in making public the practices of the NSA – as revealed by Edward Snowden – in engaging in the massive “Big Brother” surveillance of everyone.  Is the Pulitzer committee turning its back on the values of such traditional state-serving newspaper employees (and Pulitzer Prize winners) as Walter Duranty and Judith Miller? Or has the committee simply realized that what Snowden did has so much relevance for the recovery of liberty in America that it could no longer be swept under the carpet? [2] Despite all of the spying, surveillance,  and other “information gathering” engaged in, the state remains unable – after 38 days – to locate one of the largest and most modern airliners that simply disappeared despite all of these tools of surveillance. The state can read Maude Zilch’s e-mail correspondence, but cannot find a missing airplane with 239 people aboard! [3] The 200 well-armed, abusive, and thieving actions of a federal agency were successfully opposed – quite peacefully – by many ordinary men and women who came to Nevada in support of a victim of statism. What was most interesting in this confrontation was not that the federal agents were forced to retreat – and to return the stolen cattle to their owner – but that people discovered it is possible to face down the system of violence and prevail. The feds will be back – not just at this ranch but wherever individuals insist on being left alone – and with more weapons. The health of the state depends upon maintaining its monopoly on violence, and if individuals can get away with peaceably insisting upon the inviolability of their lives and property, the state is out of business, a prospect that will give residents of places like New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut shivering fits of terror!

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11:48 am on April 15, 2014