Month: October 2011

I Thought it Was 2011, Not 1984

It seems our Earth is moving backwards in time as it’s becoming more like the 1984 presented in Orwell’s well known novel. Along with egregious legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and FISA we now have the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) setting to launch a nationwide facial recognition service:

The FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov.

The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion dollar overhaul of the FBI’s existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings.

Often law enforcement authorities will “have a photo of a person and for whatever reason they just don’t know who it is [but they know] this is clearly the missing link to our case,” said Nick Megna, a unit chief at the FBI’s criminal justice information services division. The new facial recognition service can help provide that missing link by retrieving a list of mug shots ranked in order of similarity to the features of the subject in the photo.

While the system is being advertised as a listing of mug shots I wouldn’t be surprised if it contains a far more extensive database of faces. Considering how the FBI considers anybody on the secret watch lists to be a criminal it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if those on the prominent no-fly list are also contained in this database. At the rate the FBI is going they might as well try to get software manufacturers to place backdoors in their software… shit, too late.

Occupation of the Hennepin County Government Plaza

Minnesota’s branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement kicked off on Friday. I hit the event up on both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon with several of my libertarian friends to see what was actually going on. I can say with certainty after conversing with many attendees that a great deal of diversity exists in those attending which is the opposite of what many media outlets are reporting. Regardless of what you’ve heard these events aren’t made up entirely of unemployed Marxists. With that said a large majority of those in attendance certainly subscribe, at least in part, to the failed philosophy put forth by Marx.

Both days I attended there were quite a few people there with shirts and signs saying, “End the Fed.” The people there to protest the Federal Reserve make up the second largest faction after the Marxists. It was interesting to see two groups who are usually in direct opposition of one another existing in the same place peacefully. I had the pleasure of meeting several other voluntaryists whom I had not previously known along with a couple of guys up on Austrian economics (in fact one guy was wearing a shirt with Ludwig von Mises on it).

The variety of people attending this event puts further credence in my theory that these occupations are basically bring your own grievance protests. It could be best summed up by saying the one unifying aspect at these occupations is that everybody in attendance is pissed off about something. Some are there merely to portest American’s wars, others are there to protest the banks, and others are there to protest the entire corporatocracy we currently live under.

I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that, with such a diverse group in attendance, organization isn’t evident. While there is good organization as far as having good, water, and sanitary needs on site there is little in the way of determining overarching goals of the occupation. Each night there is an event called a general assembly which is basically a big collectivist circle jerk. Like most collectivist ideas, these general assemblies are great at taking up a ton of time and accomplishing very little. As an individualist I have no problem with this as it prevents the collectivists from establishing complete domination over the occupation. What makes the general assemblies so ineffective is the fact they are trying to please everybody which is impossible. Minor topics, such as decided how things will be voted on, can take an hour or more. Once the attendees of the general assembly have voted on how they’re going to vote other topics are discussed and decided. While many topics can be discussed and voted on quickly as there is an overall consensus other topics can take an apparently endless amount of time. Personally I prefer my individualist system of deciding things which can be summed up as, “I’m going to go do whatever the fuck I want and you’re welcome to join me. If you don’t want to join me that’s fine, you can go do your thing.”

Some interesting things to note about the Minneapolis occupation are the lack of electricity and shelters and an overall desire to do everything within the rule of law. While many participating in the occupation use the phrase civil disobedience I don’t thing those words mean what they think they mean. Civil disobedience is showing disregard for the law and doing what you want to do. For example the county has ordinances against erecting tents on public property, which the Government Center Plaza is considered, so the people sleeping overnight are doing so without shelter. Were the participants performing acts of civil disobedience they would just erect tents and give a big middle finger to the police surrounding the Plaza. In fact the regard for obeying the law is so strong that several of my friends who were going off to protest the Federal Reserve met with some resistance from the occupation organizers. The organizers stated that they made an agreement with the police to inform them of any marches so the police could escort the march participants. My friends, being the individualists they are, questioned why they are being hassled for going off and doing what they want to do (which was walk the distance from the Plaza to the Federal Reserve Building in Minneapolis).

I mentioned the lack of electricity and this is entirely due to a dirty stunt pulled by the city. The Plaza has openly accessible electrical outlets available that were fully operational Friday but sometime during Friday night the city cut them leaving the occupants without any source of power. The organizers questioned why the city would pull the plug on the electricity when taxpayers are footing the bill and I have to agree, those in attendance or taxpayers and should have access to the electrical power on public property. In luie of working electrical outlets the occupations have erected a couple of solar panels but as we know solar panels are incapable of providing much in the way of power. Currently the organizers are trying to obtain some bicycle generators as the city will not allow any form of fuel-powered generator to be in the Plaza (against the words civil disobedience do not apply to this occupation).

The lack of shelter is also a notable issue. As I state the country has an ordinance against erecting tents on public property and the attendees of the occupation have been unwilling to give the law a nice big middle finger. Since they are unable to erect tents some people have resorted to covering themselves with tarps which are legal so long as they’re not propped up by any type of structure. While some of the participants are petitioning the country board to get permission to erect tents I believe their concerns will go unheard as the country would like nothing more than getting the protesters out of there. Without any form of basic shelter I doubt this occupation will last much after the temperature starts dropping.

Free food is being provided to the protesters but another ordinance prevents anybody from preparing hot food on site. Thus all of the food being provided is in the form of sandwiches, previously baked goods, and food heated offsite and brought to the Plaza.

From what I saw during the weekend it seems Minnesotans are again earning their title of Minnesota nice (which should actually be called Minnesota passive-aggressive). The number participating in this occupation is fairly unimpressive and the numbers seem to be dwindling with each day. Those who are actually there have been very good at obeying every law on the books instead of performing actual acts of civil disobedience. I’ve been checking in on the live stream periodically to get an estimate of the number of participants and I’m noticing a definite surge during the evening hours. When I checked in this morning there were, I estimate, a little less than 100 people. Tonight when I checked it it seems there could be close to 200 people (but as I’m checking the live stream I can only see what the camera is focused on to make my estimates, hardly accurate data).

I’m glad to see people have finally gotten pissed off enough with our current corporatocracy to start demonstrations. I wish a large number of participants had working knowledge in the field of economics and history. If the majority of Marxists attending these occupations understood both economics and history they would know socialism can only lead to decimated economies and high death tolls (the latter isn’t a guarantee but the first is with time).

Many participants also seem to believe the government is going to listen to their grievances and thus change will occur but I believe they need to reconsider this belief. Our “representatives” rarely listen to the people and prefer to enact legislation that benefits their large campaign contributors. Instead of pleading with these “representatives” the participants of these occupations should simply ignore the state as much as possible. A good amount of peaceful civil disobedience combined with agorism is going to do far more to change society than appealing to the better nature of our so called “representatives.” Stop worrying so much about getting group consensus and instead promote the individualist ideal, have each person bring their own thoughts, actions, and strategies to the table. Competition is good so having competing ideas and actions to enact social and economic change is going to work far better than getting everybody to sign onto one single method.

After all we should remember that American was founding on the individualist ideal while the Soviet Union was founded on the collectivist ideal. Look which of the two is still around and consider that fact.

Fast and Furious Weapons Appearing Everywhere

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s (ATF) troubles have been getting worse by the minute. We’ve heard a lot of outrage stateside due to the death of a border patrol agent but not much has been said about the death toll caused by Fast and Furious in Mexico. Well it seems a great deal of firepower ended up in one of the worst cartel’s hands:

Reporting from Washington— High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF’s Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

[…]

In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.

Arming one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico? That’s top notch work only a government could properly pull off. I’m sure those living in Mexico and in American cities on the American-Mexican border and pretty stoked about the fact the United States government has been slipping weapons to powerful criminal organizations. Perhaps the ATF was simply jealous of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) record of arming violent criminals and wanted in on the action.

If anybody from the ATF is reading this post please note that I’d be more than happy to take some firearms off of your hands. Unlike the current people you’ve been giving firearms to I have no history of violence and am an overall nice person (so other people say). Heck I’ve passed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) many times. I believe I’d be a far better candidate to receive those firearms than those murdering thugs who’ve been specializing in terrorizing the poor unarmed citizens of Mexico.

Social Contract

If I had a dollar for every time a statist brought up the term social contract I’d be filthy rich. The concept of a social contract has to be one of the dumbest ideas that has ever graced the mindes of men.

Of all the problems surrounding the concept of a social contract the biggest has to be the fact that nobody on this fucking planet can tell me what the exact terms of that contract are. Contracts are voluntary agreements between two entities that are enforceable by law. My biggest problems with the so-called social contract are the fact I never voluntarily agreed to any such contract and I have no idea what terms are in the contract.

In order to enforce a contract it must be known when somebody violates one of the contract’s terms. For instance let’s say we signed a contract stating you would install electrical wiring in my home for $100.00 and that wiring either had to be to code or you wouldn’t get paid. The terms are clear, you get paid if the city inspector says your job meets required electrical code or you don’t get paid. If you wire the house and it doesn’t meet electrical code then you have violated the contract, if you wire the house properly and I don’t pay you then I’ve violated the contract. Whether you violated the contract or I did is irrelevant insofar as there will be a court case in all likeliness.

As no definite terms exist in the social contract it is unenforceable because no party knows when they’re violating one of the terms. While some claim paying your taxes is part of the social contract they’ve been unable to point to where in this hypothetical contract the term exists. Somehow I was so ignorant that I agreed to a contract that obligates me to pay an undefined amount of money to the king. I’m usually smart enough to read a contract and strike out any term that says I have to pay money without defining exactly what that amount of money is.

What the social contract really boils down to is a decree. It states, “You will do whatever I say, whenever I say, and in return I’ll guarantee you nothing.” If statists wish to continue using the argument of a social contract they better get it written up so we know what the terms are. As far as I’m concerned you can’t enforce a contract unless a defined term within has been violated.

Demands of the Mentally Deranged

Recently an Occupy Wall Street protester posted a list of demands. As I stated in my article covering the local OccupyMN movement these types of protests are composed of a great number of individuals with varying grievances. It is unfair to state any set of demands is attributed to the entire movement but alas the recently posted set of demands are being promoted by a great number of the participants so I thought it would be fun to go through the demands one by one and point out the complete failure of logic.

Admin note: This is not an official list of demands. This is a forum post submitted by a single user and hyped by irresponsible news/commentary agencies like Fox News and Mises.org.

Stating that the Mises Institute and Fox News are in any way comparable demonstrates the complete ignorance of the person posting that note. One is a news organization that panders to its neo-conservative audience while the other is one of the few sources of real scholarly economic knowledge and libertarian philosophy.

Anyways we know what level of idiocy we’re dealing with here so let’s move onto the demands:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages.

Oh wow… at least the author presented his complete ignorance from the get go. First of all free trade isn’t the problem with our economy, government regulations are. The author stated other countries have wage and environmental regulatory advantages so the United States government needs to respond by enacting further regulations to offset the disadvantage created by their current regulations. I’m guessing if the author’s house was burning down he’d try dousing the blaze in gasoline in an attempt to improve the situation.

While current economic conditions are one of the most common complaints being presented at these occupations, many of the most vocal complainers obviously have no knowledge in the field of economics. Perhaps they should read some articles on that irresponsible Mises Institute website. Also, why not throw in another rather arbitrary demand:

Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

How did the author come up with $20.00 an hour? Also the author further demonstrates his economic ignorance by not realizing minimum wage laws is part of the reason unemployment in this country is as high as it is. Jacking up the minimum wage to $20.00 and hour would only create one of two outcomes; either it would cause a majority of businesses to fail causing even higher unemployment or it would cause the price of all goods to increase as an offset to the new influx of money into the economy (this is called inflation). Do you think McDonald’s will continue selling $0.99 burgers if they have to pay every employee $20.00 an hour? If they did they would fail, if they didn’t the cost of their burgers would increase drastically.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

This makes sense. Government regulations is what ultimately cause the massive increase in healthcare costs so the author’s solution is to… give the government more control over the healthcare industry? If the author actually knew anything about economics, healthcare, and liberty he would advocate the government remove itself completely from the healthcare industry and allow the free market to find viable solution it did back in the day when mutual aid societies were still allowed by the state to exist.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

If people are no longer required to work in order to survive what will motivate them to produce the goods and services needed by society? Would you work your ass off farming if you knew simply sitting on your ass would allow you to draw enough income to live? Most people would not and this is ultimately the problem with communism. If nobody has to work nobody will work and if nobody is working to produce the needs of society the needs of society will not exist. You can’t eat if nobody is producing food, you won’t have shelter if nobody builds it, and you won’t have clean drinking water if nobody takes care of sanitation.

Demand four: Free college education.

There is no such thing as a free college education, somebody has to pay for it. What the author probably means is, “Force all the people wealthier than me to pay for my college education.” Somebody has to pay the teachers, maintain the facilities, and provide the supplies needed to keep a college running.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

How? The only viable alternative source of energy that will meet the current and future needs of our society is nuclear. Nuclear energy is basically verboten so we continue to rely on the only viable alternative, fossile fuels.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Seriously, who the fuck is supposed to pay for all of this? Where is that $1 trillion going to come from? Why was $1 trillion chosen instead of another arbitrary number? Did the author do a study? If so, where is the study?

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

It’s amazing that the exact same amount of money needed for infrastructure is also needed for ecological restoration. That’s so convenient it must be an arbitrarily selected number that the author thought was sufficiently big to fix any problem.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Umm… it’s currently illegal for an employer to discriminate against somebody because of their race or gender. Perhaps the author means we should make all forms of racial and gender discrimination illegal. That would be great because I would absolutely love to receive some maternity leave even though I’m completely incapable of becoming pregnant. We could force white supremicists to converse with minorities at the point of a gun because they wouldn’t further forge their irrational hatred or anything.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Wait… the author wants to restrict free trade but also wants to make it legal for anybody to enter the country and work without hinderance? I love being for what I’m against as well.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

How exactly is that going to fix the problem of election fraud? The primary problems encountered in this country stem from either idiots too stupid to properly fill out the ballot as instructed or straight up fraud via people voting multiple times. Our problems run much deeper than a simple inability to counter ballots correctly.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Instantly all financiers go out of business and those wanting to get a loan for a home, piece of necessary equipment, or to expand their business are unable to. Since businesses are unable to expand they are unable to hire more employees and thus unemployment increases when those involved in the finance market suddenly find themselves without jobs. People who would have become successful entrepreneurs and flooded the market with new and amazing products sudden find themselves unable to start a business because no institution exists to loan them the money they need. Other currently established businesses will then start to fail because a very expensive piece of equipment critical to their operations breaks down and they are unable to get a loan for a replacement.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Why? No, I’m dead serious, what the fuck is this supposed to accomplish?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Is there going to be an equal right to vote yourself exempt from a union? If you want to voluntarily come together and form a union that’s cool, I full support you in your endeavor. Personally I prefer to represent myself or hire another individual with my own money who exclusively represents me and my interests.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

No, those demands will create a new economic dark age of record high unemployment rates, starvation, and pestilence.

I’m glad to see a lot of opposition to these demands in the comments section. Since I understand the nature of these occupations I realize these demands are not representative of anybody besides the author and the people who decide to sign onto them. With that said the media doesn’t have the same understanding and they are going to take these demands as though they apply to the entire movement. That is to say the media will state these demands are wanted by everybody currently occupying Wall Street and it will discredit the movement as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad people are finally pissed off enough to stand up and take action. It’s refreshing to see American people doing something besides sitting on their asses complaining about the current condition of the economy, corruption in the government, and disagreements with current socially accepted norms. With that said, the protesters need to realize that the media is going to take anything said by a crazy participant and run with it. When that happens others in the movement needs to loudly declare that no single individual represents the entire movement and statements made by individuals can only be applied to those individuals.

For Delayed Release

EDIT: 2011-10-07 14:39: I was informed by Mr. Rothman that my assumptions in regards to this rant were entirely incorrect. I’ll leave the post up to a testament to my ignorance but feel free to disregard the mess of text below.

On many of these occupy[x] ([x] being any location) websites the posts often start with, “For immediate release.” What the fuck is the purpose of throwing that in there? If you’re posting something on your website it’s been released.

Throwing “for immediate release” at the beginning of a post publicly available for all on the Internet to read seems like an attempt to look professional but without knowing what the fuck you’re doing. I bet the kid writing these posts is thinking, “I should say this is for immediate release otherwise people might think I meant to release this in a couple of hours and messed up.” The phrase “for immediate release” is usually for internal use and notifies an editor that the article is of a time critical manner and should be released immediately.

For instance if a school bus full of children was set ablaze and pushed over a cliff onto a retirement home which was built right next to an animal shelter that specialized in cute kittens and puppies the editor would say the accompanying story was to be released immediately. The immediately released article would normally not contain the words “for immediate release” though. If you want people to take your movement seriously then you’re going to need to sound better than a bunch of high school children with bad attitudes. There has to be at least one grammar nazi in your organization, pass all articles to that person for review before throwing them up on your website.

Yes, I realize this gripe is minor and ultimately pointless but it bugs me and this site is my personal ranting platform at times.

Ending the ATF Could Go Either Way

The Gunwalker scandal has gotten so big that there has been talk about completely dismantling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). While many are cheering this possibility some, like Sebastian, are quick to mention abolishing the ATF could turn out poorly for us:

The country’s gun laws are not going away, and someone is going to be charged with enforcing them. That agency is likely to be the FBI. While the FBI would certainly do the enforcement part far more competently, you’d be giving the FBI an incentive to lobby Congress for more gun laws.

The problem with that is that people in Washington have a high degree of respect for the FBI, and they are listened to. ATF is the bastard step-child of federal law enforcement, and Congress and the other D.C. powers that be don’t really take them too seriously. It’s also worth noting, because of the FBI’s other missions, you’re not really going to have much luck threatening the FBI’s funding in order to keep it under control.

This is a valid point although, as Joe Huffman, points out the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have enough skeletons in their closet that much of what they say may not be taken too seriously:

The concern that the FBI has credibility and respect the ATF doesn’t and we would rather have a money starved easily demonized bunch of screw ups instead of the FBI, the Secret Service, or the U.S. Marshalls enforcing the regulations has been the whisper from behind the scenes since as least the Regan years when the first serious thoughts of disbanding them came up.

Things have changed with the FBI since the 1980’s. Remember Ruby Ridge and Waco? The ATF created the messes but it was during the FBI “cleanup” that the FBI shot the woman holding the baby and burned down the church with the women and children in it. The FBI has it’s own public relations issues to be concerned about.

So what’s my take? Honestly, I’m all for abolishing the ATF. Although I realize that the federal gun laws won’t be abolished alongside their enforcer it would require either creating a new agency or loading up a current agency with even more pointless shit to do. If we’re lucky the latter option will be taken and an agency that doesn’t have the time or resources to effective enforce those arbitrary regulations will be given the task. Whether due to lack of resources or the fact gun control enforcement is a secondary task it’s likely the federal government won’t be putting as much time into harassing innocent gun dealers and owners.

Then All Hell Broke Loose

The Gunwalker keeps getting worse for the government by the minute. Not only were they caught smuggling guns across the border to Mexico, not were those guns traced to several violent crimes including the murder for a border patrol agent, but it seems Eric Holder knew far more than he claimed:

So now the Fast and Furious affair has reached Stage 2 of the classic Washington scandal: House Republicans have called for a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder himself for possible perjury.

Justice Department documents indicate that Holder knew of the operation way back in July 2010 — far earlier than the “in the last few weeks” that he told congressional investigators under oath last May.

I’m not the slightest bit surprised. Eric Holder is a weasel and a politician but I repeat myself. While I could drum up whoppers of conspiracy theories as to Holder’s motives in allowing this scandal to continue I believe such conjecture would be pointless. The bottom line is the federal government was caught with their fingers in the cookie jar and now they’re trying to blame anybody and everybody for the mess they created.

We’re fortunate that this mess has blown up as big as it has. Had this scandal gone mostly unreported the anti-gunners could have very easily spun this into an argument that stricter gun control is necessary to prevent firearms from making their way into Mexico. Wait, never mind, they already tried that. Still the amount of press this fuck up has garnered makes it difficult for any argument to be made in favor of stricter gun control. If anything this mess demonstrates why the government shouldn’t be allowed to have so much control over firearm transactions. Were the goons not allowed to force gun dealers into selling weapons to suspected criminals this entire situation may never have developed.

A hat tip to Uncle for the article.

Welcome to the United Kingdom, Leave Your Rights at the Door

I feel fortunate to live in a country where the right to bear arms is at least codified in our Bill of Rights. Although the second amendment has been violated time and time again I firmly believe that if it were absent from the Constitution we would be in the same spot as the United Kingdom. What I mean to say is we would be arrested for defending our property:

A man in his 60s who allegedly shot a suspected burglar in the leg has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

He is believed to have been attempting to protect his property in Whitbourne village, Herefordshire.

How in the fuck does that work? Two thugs who pose an unknown but likely threat to your life attempt to burgle your property and you’re tossed in the clink for having the audacity of defending you and your’s. Just the thought that such an egregious law could be passed sickens me.