Month: May 2011

I Love Amazon

I do a lot of business with Amazon from buying real world products, to books on my Kindle (and the Kindle), to storage services via their S3 online storage system. Amazon is a company I feel good supporting and they seem committed to ensuring I continue to feel good about supporting them. One of the things Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has been fighting is the attempt by various states to collect taxes from Amazon’s customers. Well Mr. Bezos came out and stated that the states’ attempts to demand taxes is unconstitutional:

Although a growing number of states are demanding that Amazon collect and pay tax on sales within their borders, such demands are “interference in interstate commerce” and prohibited by the Constitution, Bezos said.

“We’re no different from other big chains of retailers,” Bezos said. “They don’t collect sales taxes in states where they don’t have [employees], either.”

I’m not a fan of taxation and watching Mr. Bezos fight government attempts to extort money from his organization has been fun. Amazon has demonstrated the willingness to put their money where their mouth is and even left Texas due to the state’s attempt to extort money from Amazon.

I don’t think Bezos understands the fact that the Constitution isn’t exactly a document that is taken seriously by our government but I do like the argument. I hope Amazon continues to fight the good fight and resist the attempt by states to take productive money from the private sector and squander it on worthless government projects. There is even an huge advantage to states not trying to take money from Amazon as those states are where Amazon will decide to build their warehouses and data centers:

This month, when Amazon announced plans to build or expand three warehouses, it praised the governors of Arizona and Indiana, who didn’t demand sales tax collection. “We are committed to growth in Indiana because Gov. Daniels and other state officials have demonstrated their commitment to Amazon jobs and investments,” said Paul Misener, Amazon VP for global public policy.

Those warehouse jobs very well could have been in Texas but alas that state decided they were going to fuck over their citizenry by ensuring Amazon moved to a friendlier state. Now Arizona and Indiana get to reap the rewards for treating businesses that employ people right.

California Legislature Working on Banning the Open Carry of Unloaded Firearms

It seems as through the branches of the California government at working together to ensure citizens of that state stay defenseless peasants. First it is ruled that an unloaded firearm is effective for self-defense because it can be loaded and on the legislature front the California Assembly just gave the go-ahead to a bill that would ban the open carry of unloaded firearms:

Unfortunately, the California Assembly sided with the anti-gun extremists and passed Assembly Bill 144, the open carry ban bill, by a 45 to 29 vote. This bill now goes to the state Senate and will be assigned to the state Senate Public Safety Committee. Please call and e-mail members of the Senate Public Safety Committee and urge them not to fall for the rhetoric anti-gun extremists are touting about the open carrying of a firearm causing more violence.

The article has the contact information for members of the Senate Public Safety Committee. This is also where I usually make a smart ass remark about how Californians should flee the People’s Republic and come to free America but I don’t think the term free America is any longer valid. At least I can still say that some states of the Union are OK with the citizenry having a means of self-defense.

What the California government should do is ensure anybody who wants to carry a gun for self-defense is able to. Why? I’d normally write a spiel about the value of human life and why each person has a right to preserve their life but I don’t think the “representatives” in California care much for that argument. Here’s something they may care about though; dead people can’t pay taxes. The state of California is insolvent and needs money but if they don’t have citizens to pay taxes they’ll have less income. Criminals usually aren’t too keen on paying taxes so California really needs to rely on the lawful citizens. Giving these lawful citizens a legal means of self-defense will ensure they have the best possible tool available to preserve their lives and thus continue to be good revenue sources for the state.

Inflation is Theft

I briefly covered the how government initiated inflation is in fact a form of theft. Well I ran into a good article that does a good job of explaining this and showing why the Keynesian theory that inflation is good because it spurs spending is stupid.

There isn’t much comment I can offer on this article besides urging you to head over and read it.

They’re Not Even Trying to Hide the Police State Anymore

Thor in fucking Valhalla… the government isn’t even attempting to hide the fact that this entire country has turned into a damned police state. First an Indiana court ruled that peasents have no right to resist unlawful police entry and now the Supreme Court has ruled that police may use any noise inside a home as probably cause that evidence is being destroy:

The justices in an 8-1 decision said officers who loudly knock on a door and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Residents who “attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame” when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

So what kinds of sounds could suggest evidence is being destroy? Well if an officer can articulate his reasoning why the sound of that vacuum cleaner made him believe evidence was being destroyed a door breaking they may go. At least there was one dissenter in the Supreme Court:

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. “Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down,” she said, without violating the 4th Amendment.

I’m not sure if you’ve been alerted to this face Justice Ginsburg but the 4th Amendment is dead and buried. The police no longer need a warrant to enter your home, they simply need to hear noises that may possibly mean evidence of some sort is being destroyed. Basically this ruling is the government giving a huge middle finger and telling you to bend over and get ready for a collapsible baton up the ass.

Welcome to the United Police State of America. Feel free to do whatever you want since everything is illegal. Seriously though fuck the state.

Keynes and Hayek Throwing Down

Although I traditionally hold disdain for rap music once in a great while there are rap songs that I consider sufficiently awesome. These are two videos are rare cases of awesome rap songs. Submitted for your amusement Keynes vs. Hayek raps:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc]

Yes I’m a nerd.

The videos to poke fun at the fact that everybody seems to think Keynes was some kind of economic genius (when in fact he was a fucking idiot). When typing this post I also noticed that Firefox knew how to property correct the spelling of Keynes but had no idea how to spell Hayek. I find that sad but slightly amusing at the same time.

Resistance is Futile

I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I believe a conflict of interest exist in our legal system. Namely the government controls the courts and the police thus the courts generally have a bias towards believing police officers. How far does that bias go though? In Indiana it goes pretty fucking far:

Citizens have “no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry [to their homes] by police officers,” Indiana’s Supreme Court declared May 12 in a controversial 3-2 decision, Richard L. Barnes v. Indiana.

Justice Steven David wrote for the court in the decision that “this Court is faced for the first time with the question of whether Indiana should recognize the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers. We conclude that public policy disfavors any such right.”

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, if the police are acting outside of their government granted authority you have no right to protect yourself against their actions. Just think about that for a minute and let it sink in. If a police officer unlawfully enters your home and attempts to cause physical harm to you it is illegal for you to fight back in Indiana. I just shook my head when I read this bucket of statis bullshit:

Justice David concluded: “We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Nowadays, an aggrieved arrestee has means unavailable at common law for redress against unlawful police action.” Specifically, Justice David found not that anyone had amended the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or that the legislature had passed any new laws, but rather that Americans are the beneficiaries of “modern developments” that include: “(1) bail, (2) prompt arraignment and determination of probable cause, (3) the exclusionary rule, (4) police department internal review and disciplinary procedure, and (5) civil remedies.”

Wow… just wow. Basically this guy has said you must submit to unlawful police actions because you have options available to you that apparently didn’t exist back when the Bill of Rights was ratified. Options including (1) pay the state to allow you to leave jail knowing you’ll never be reimbursed that bail money should you be found innocent, (2) hope that the courts will decide to side with you instead of the police in regards to determining if the arrest was lawful, (3) hope that the courts will find evidence unusable, (4) hope a conflict of interest doesn’t exist when the police department tries to determine the lawful nature of one of their officer’s actions, and (5) hope the government courts will allow you to sue the government for their wrongful actions.

Those options are not valid reasons to force people to submit to the will of a police officer executing a wrongful entry into a home. The article also points out the fact that the file options listed by David have been violated by the government before (not surprising at all).

So the state ruled that you can’t resist the state when the state is performing unlawful actions against your person. Yeah that doesn’t simply reek of conflict of interest or anything.

Why Legally Recording the Police is Needed

Several states have laws that make it illegal for us lowly peasants to video tape police officers while they’re on duty. These laws have been a problem since day one because it takes away one of the few weapons we mere serfs have to defend ourselves against police abuse. A great example that demonstrates the need for allowing the recording of police officers is the following:

On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the .40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: “Yo, Junior, what are you doing?”

Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him.

What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing – openly carrying a gun on the city’s streets – was against the law.

The police officer was not only ignorant of the law but also threatened to murder Fiorino:

Get down on your knees. Just obey what I’m saying,” Dougherty said.

“Sir,” Fiorino replied, “I’m more than happy to stand here -”

“If you make a move, I’m going to fucking shoot you,” Dougherty snapped. “I’m telling you right now, you make a move, and you’re going down!”

Had Fiorino not recorded this entire encounter it would have been a situation of his word against the cops. As the government controls both the courts and police it’s not hard to figure out that the courts are generally going to side with the police in any he said she said arguments. This becomes even more important when those tasked with enforcing the law don’t actually know the law themselves.

The Stimulus Bill Created 450,000 Government Jobs but Cost One Million Private Sector Jobs

Oh will you look at this, another example of government “help” causing more damage than benefit [PDF]. The study titled The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Public Sector Jobs Saved, Private Sector Jobs Forestalled demonstrated once again that government “public works” programs don’t actually benefit anybody:

We estimate the Act created/saved 450 thousand government-sector jobs and destroyed/forestalled one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases (Fig. A) rather than boost private sector employment (e.g. Fig. B). The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services. Searching across alternative model specifications, the best-case scenario for an effectual ARRA has the Act creating/saving a net 659 thousand jobs, mainly in government.

So all of that money that was supposed to get our economy rolling and save or create jobs only managed to do so for government jobs. Yet less government jobs were saved or created than private sector jobs were lost. This is the usual result whenever government attempts to involve itself with economics. Had the government not first interfered with the market to create the current recession we’re in (thanks for the housing bubble by the way Mr. Federal Reserve) but then they take actions that have been demonstrated in the past to cause more harm.

Arguments for Campus Carry

One movement in the self-defense realm that’s been pushing forward is removing the prohibition several states have on carry a firearm on college campuses. Although the anti-gunners claim this will lead to blood in the classrooms they can show no evidence of that fact while tragedies like the Virginia Tech shooting could have been stopped much sooner had somebody on campus been armed and able to deal with the shooter.

Let’s get back to the anti-gunner’s argument of blood in the classrooms shall we? I think it’s fairly easy for them to support their argument as they only need to point to one incident where legalizing the carrying for firearms on a college campus lead to a shooting. Unfortunately for them they’re going to have a hard time demonstrating that:

In response to claims that allowing guns on campus would result in a less safe learning environment, SCCC notes there is yet to be a single reported incident at the more 70 campuses that already allow concealed carry by licensed individuals.

Herein lies the problem with arguments against expanding right to carry laws. Ever since this discussion has bubbled to the surface the anti-gunners have been claiming that expanded carry laws will lead to blood in the streets but as of yet they can’t actually point to any number of instances where this has occurred. It must really stick in their craws that the device they irrationally fear isn’t actually dangerous in of itself. I know it will come as a shocker to those arguing against the right to bear arms but the only way a gun is dangerous is if it’s in the hands of a bad person and bad people will ignore any laws restricting their possession of firearms.

If you look at the history of major shootings in the United States a large majority happen in so-called “gun-free zones.” The cowards who perform these heinous crimes are cowards who fear somebody stopping them before they’re able to kill a desired number of people. When presented with resistance most of these cowards end up saving us the effort by killing themselves. Allowing legally armed individuals to carry their firearms on campus would remove another “gun-free zone” from the books and likely lower the chances of shootings occurring there. What it hasn’t lead to are shootings on college campuses (just ask Utah who allow campus carry but haven’t had to deal with any mass shootings on college campuses).