Cat Farmer's Columns
"The Nazi death camps were full of people whose names were 'on a list' of the politically disfavored . . . so was the Bastille. Every gulag and internment camp has been constructed for the purpose of containing some unpopular minority." Column by Cat Farmer.
A Tax on the Tiny: Air Bags and Nanny Gadgets
"It would be so much nicer (and customer friendly) to inform yourself on the risks and advantages of the available options, decide what you want in a car, and then buy it from someone who is willing and able to sell it. Try to find someone who will take the legal risk of disconnecting your airbags so you can feel safer driving your own vehicle, realizing that if you turn around later and sue them for doing what you asked them to do, the law may come down on your side." Column by Cat Farmer.
"Pop quiz. Is it liberal, or conservative, ideology to accept the following notions as true?" Column by Cat Farmer.
"I believe it was Marcus Aurelius who said, 'Never throw away your legs to stand upon crutches.' Reliance on external government does something much like that; it amputates human potential and grafts on prosthetic devices as replacements." Column by Cat Farmer.
Cops and Attitudes and Control, Oh My
"...I’d like to view the police with the same type of respect and appreciation as the plumber, the electrician, the ambulance driver, or anyone else who might respond to an emergency situation. The difference, of course, is that I pay the plumber when I need his services, and he treats me with respect;...we both benefit from the arrangement. The police are paid regardless of my need or desire for their services with tax money that is taken from me involuntarily; they do not account to me for their services, most of which I didn’t desire and fail to appreciate, and if I do need them someday, I can only hope they show up." Column by Cat Farmer.
A fable by Cat Farmer.
"Do you shudder to hear rabid banter about treason and war crimes jumping glibly from the lips of the very people most likely to be found guilty of them in the revealing light of world history?" Column by Cat Farmer.
'Anarchy,' or Impending Democracy?
"The
current situation in
Good Morning World, I'm Glad You're Still Here
"Slowly, inexorably, modern man is creating an environment that is hostile to the imagination. Crazed pursuit of entertainment and distraction can permanently impair people by clipping the wings of their natural imaginative abilities. As far as I can see, it’s the reason so many Americans can watch the 'fireworks' over Baghdad or Kabul, and not be completely horrified. How can any human heart not sense the connection to others, however far away or different, when it has the full use of unfettered imagination? How can lives snuffed out on the far side of the globe mean so little to so many decent people?" Column by Cat Farmer.
"When U.S. troops come home, inured to the horrors of war, traumatized and scarred, maimed and exhausted, are they going to find that the freedom they paid dearly for has been forfeited at home, while they fought for it in a foreign desert? What form of freedom will take root in Iraq when the architects of freedom there are the same ones who are steadily demolishing freedoms in America?" Column by Cat Farmer.
An
OUTSTANDING, well-written column by Cat Farmer.
"Anarchism is my declaration of peace with you. It is a repudiation of the use of coercive power to achieve my own ends, or to abet the domination of any man by his fellows, or over his fellows....Anarchism is my declaration of independence from corrupt and debauched systems which institutionalize the dominance and submission of the mind and conscience, pillaging the property of the peaceful and raping the human spirit." A well-written column by Cat Farmer.
The Stalker State, or Why We Should All Have the Creeps
"At least, it is possible to escape a traditional stalker, if not easy. Even if a Restraining Order ever did any good, who is going to issue one against the government? There are no shelters for those who flee from abuse of government power." Column by Cat Farmer.
"Admit that the war on drugs is really a jihad against people who need to numb themselves against the creepy aquarium-like world you're constructing around them...." Column by Cat Farmer.
Cat Farmer points out the hypocrisy of statists.
"And may we never forget that we can only protect our own freedoms by respecting the choices of others." Column by Cat Farmer.
Despair Is the Health of the Parasitic State
"War will allow the parasitic, cancerous state to flourish. Bombs are brutal tools used by those who intend to inflict terror (or empire), in order to spread the disease of human poverty and despair, the soil in which serfdom grows most pervasively. If agents of the State (or empire) wished to excise evil or heal illness, they would employ the deft skill of the surgeon or the dedication of the saint; not the random, rapid fire of the psychopathic marksman, or the hellfire and brimstone of the hoodwinked preacher. 'By their fruits ye shall know them,' and by the fruits of the State ye know it." Column by Cat Farmer.
"As Aldous Huxley said, 'There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.'" Column by Cat Farmer.
The Freedom Compass and the Political Centrifuge
"We can't ignore the political process, but we can frustrate it by proving it irrelevant to our purposes....The more people wander off and function without regard for the political machine, the less relevant it will become. It's hard to mesmerize an audience when they're ignoring Mesmer, and so much of politics is mesmerization; getting people caught up in an insane, interactive drama and convincing them that they have an essential role to play in it." Column by Cat Farmer.
In Hindsight: 'Brave New World Revisited'
"Big Government and Big Business already possess, or very soon will possess, all the techniques for mind-manipulation described in 'Brave New World', along with others of which I was too unimaginative to dream...." Column by Cat Farmer.
Reflections on Orwell and Political Language
"That's one thing to be said for democracy--everyone eventually gets a chance to make someone else miserable." Column by Cat Farmer.
"Inevitably, ideas are far more threatening to institutions of power than rifles are. Disarming civilians may be the means to an end; but confiscation of 'dangerous ideas' will ultimately be that end." Column by Cat Farmer.
A parable by Cat Farmer.