If I were a larger-brained creature I might be envious of my feline friend Cat Farmer's writing skills. She's as hard-hitting a pro-freedom wench as I, but where my style is big on direct statements, long words, and complex sentences (with lots of self-interruptions -- er, like this one), hers is softer. Her points strike true, but without the hammering I do ... her muse seems gentler, more allegorical and allusionary. To me, her writing often has a layered aspect that means subsequent readings bring the reward of further insights.

It was nice to awaken this morning and pop over to The Price of Liberty and see a new piece by Cat, Fairy Godmother Government. A choice morsel:

It seems strange to suppose that those who presume to govern might sincerely cultivate the attitude that they're truly the equals of people they're desirous of governing. Instead of fairy godmother government using a magic wand to create self-destructing illusions, it seems nice to dream of government as a compliant genie happy to stay in her bottle until her services are genuinely needed. The problem with government-as-genie is that every voter can think of wishes to make and has reasons to rub the bottle - so the genie gets out and stays out, granting enough careless and conflicting wishes to destroy any chances of lasting individual peace or happiness, growing into the fairy godmother government menace so many free thinking individuals know and loathe today.

Very nicely done, Cat!

I'd also like to call your attention to this week's new featured link, Illegal Art. I know intellectual property is a controversial topic in the freedom movement; I've written on it before (unfortunately, I think that essay was lost when the FMN site got absorbed into ISIL; I'll try to get it posted here soon). I believe that my previous posts on the subject make it pretty clear which side of the issue I'm on. This site helps explain why I'm on that side. Here's some of that explanation from the home page:

The laws governing "intellectual property" have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out. Borrowing from another artwork--as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s--will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed.

The irony here couldn't be more stark. Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it.

The Illegal Art Exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the "degenerate art" of a corporate age: art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property.

Lots of interesting stuff to explore, although sometimes with a levo-tilt that will make some pro-freedom individuals gag.