From Free Life, Issue 23, August 1995
ISSN: 0260 5112

Sir,

I was interested to read Mr Furlong's article [Free Life No. 22, April 1995] However, I have a few points of correction to make.

First, The Federal Government now claims Mike Schroeder's body was in a nearby neighbour's cow pen (it was left there five days, and eaten by dogs and birds.) In future versions of the article, I'd leave out the part about the fence solely to avoid the detractors who will focus on that one issue to attack the entire article, but say instead:

Mike Schroeder, 27, was shot by the FBI as he was returning home to Mount Carmel with Clive Doyle and Woody Kendricks. The men had learned about the raid while they were at work. Mike Schroeder was shot seven times by long range sniper fire, when he was 300 yards away - not even on the Mount Carmel property, but on the adjoining Perry farm. Mike's son, Brian, 3, and his wife, Kathy, were inside Mt. Carmel during the raid and Mike was attempting to go home when he was shot. His body was left where it fell for five days, where it was eaten by wild dogs and birds.

Second, regarding Mr Furlong's incredulity about the foreign troops drilling on US territory, we have videos of all these things available. Additionally, numerous newspaper accounts verify these things. Just yesterday, an Associated Press account speaks of the Soviets that are here inspecting our submarines throughout the United States. We have pictures of Soviet Migs in Texas, and pictures of 750 soviet chemical trucks in Sautier, Mississippi, and other Soviet military equipment on far too large a scale to be simply "practice targets" for the military. Have you seen America Under Siege, produced by the American Justice Federation? There are pictures of some of these things in it and plenty of documentation. Please telephone (800) 749 9939 to order a copy.

I dislike Mr Furlong's mention of The Resister magazine, and would in future omit reference to this. I am in contact with many special forces active duty military members and this group is not one of them. There are far better sources, and this one appears to have as its roots a known propaganda specialist and you are helping the other side when you promote them. We have been experiencing an intensive COINTELPRO operation, with "opposition" forces, created by the Federal Government and allied groups, pumping out 80 per cent truth, 20 per cent lies, as is the stock formula for propaganda. Your promotion gains the publication "credibility" so it can then mislead with further propaganda (denouncing the genuine leaders, for instance), and assists any efforts made to recruit members and set them up for arrest.

Third, Mr Furlong takes issue with Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the date of the first nationally called militia muster. Both are wrong. I can tell you that this was in Waco on April 3, 1993, before the Davidians were burned down. I called it as (then Acting) Adjutant General of the Unorganized Militia of the United States. The assistant US Attorney in Waco, however, attempted to use this as "evidence" that the Davidians were "allied with dangerous armed people"; and he later attempted to indict me, only to learn to his chagrin, that the militia was wholly lawful. We had a very peaceful assembly, demonstrating for the First and Second Amendments, with the complete cooperation of the local Sheriff's Department. The initial call out was circulated on computer networks and in newsletters and newspapers and contained the law referencing the legality of militias. The fact that none of us was arrested or indicted, and the law was readily available on the handout, formed the cornerstone for the recent surge in militia units nationwide.

Fourth, Mr Furlong says that copies of the Anti Defamation League report Armed and Dangerous can be obtained from me. I'd rather not be associated with its distribution. It is part of a COINTELPRO operation being conducted by the ADL, hand in hand with the ATF and FBI, against me, personally, our company (The American Justice Federation) and now, militias, generally. The real reason has nothing to do with militias and everything to do with our effectiveness in exposing the gun and drug runners who rule our country.

The ADL report was immediately followed by a virtually identical "secret" report from ATF, which we obtained, that was lifted directly from the ADL report (demonstrating the ATF's reliance on the ADL's poor, poor "intelligence" as their own source of "intelligence." This was precisely the basis for ATF's "intelligence" in its raid on Waco, too - the ADL. I confirmed the legitimacy of this report with ATF and tape recorded the conversations and also have transcripts of those conversations available. The ADL exerts considerable influence in the American media, and with law enforcement, while calling itself an organization fighting anti-semitism, when its real aims appear to be far less worthy.

Despite all this, though, a nice article. My congratulations to Mr Furlong.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Linda D. Thompson

American Justice Federation

3850 S. Emerson Avenue, Suite E

Indianapolis

IN 46203

Telephone: (317) 780-5203

Fax: (317) 780-5209

Internet: lindat@pop.iquest.net

Dear Sir,

There was a complaint in your "Letters" column last year [Aaron P. Krellburger, in Free Life No. 21, August 1994] about "too much sex" in Free Life. This is evidently a long-standing concern since the Libertarian Alliance Director of Publications has defended the underlying policy in his able and eloquent pamphlet Moralising in Demoralised Times.

In general, I agree with his point of view. Voluntary private acts are nobody's business but that of the actors, no matter how bizarre or obscene the acts may be. There is also a certain value - ie, in gaining publicity for principles - in "defending the undefendable" as Walter Block has put it.

However, it seems to me that the policy runs the dual risk of backfiring, and of missing the point. First, it can too easily create a wrong impression. Second, it focusses on trivia rather than essentials, missing forest for trees.

Take drug laws. Late in 1993, a British police chief, no less, advocated drug legalisation on the editorial pages of The Daily Telegraph, no less, a real double-whammy news event. In 1994, London's prestigious Institute of Economic Affairs published an academic study (reviewed in this issue) which showed the Telegraph's policeman to be completely right: the "War on Drugs" has been a disastrous flop, here and everywhere.

With pointers such as these, I would have thought the time was ripe for the Libertarian Alliance to put all its efforts and resources into promoting repeal of the Misuse of Drugs Act and all the others. Win that one, and you've really got a platform.

One tactic might be to devote Free Life to repeal, and to bombard every politician and policeman in the country with exposure of their own folly. However, if alongside sanely-argued articles the target audience found - under the banner of "Our Rights and Our Liberties" - advertisements for How to Steal Food from the Supermarket; The Complete Book of Lock Picking; Counterfeit Money: How to Really Make Money; The Joys of Solo Sex; The Complete Book of Razor Fighting; or Successful Armed Robbery; and, further, saw articles on "Deadly Sex Thrills" and pages adorned with Kalashnikovs, nipple rings and sado-masochistic chains: one could not fault the new (and presumably non-libertarian) readers if they assumed Free Life to be the work of weirdos and binned it unread.

The policy of defending the undefendable may be, in principle, quite right; but the risk of wrong impression is so great that, in practice, the policy may be quite wrong.

The quaint publications and pursuits to which Free Life draws our attention may amuse some folk. But when a magazine or an organisation dwells upon such things ad nauseam, an image emerges which has little appeal to the ordinary, intelligent people one is presumably seeking to influence.

Further, as already noted, kinky physicalism and barmy booklets are the minutiæ of freedom, not its essence. The point is being missed. In any case, surely by now we've had enough of the "undefendable"? Can't we just propagate ideas?

To conclude on a personal note: sado-masochism and the like fall outside my definition of sex. I find them both uninteresting, and distasteful. I agree with Ayn Rand: "There is nothing more boring than depravity".

Thus Free Life's problem may be, not "too much sex", but no sex at all.

Yours sincerely,

Nicholas Dykes,

Herefordshire.