Month: February 2012

The Federal Government Continues Its Attack on Independent Farms

Back in August I wrote a post about the federal governments attempt to require a commercial drivers license to operate farm equipment. That ruling was eventually tossed out but the federal government is continuing its attack on independent farms through other means. The latest move is being performed by the Department of Labor in the form of a new regulation that would prohibit teenagers under the age of 16 from working on a farm unless their parents are full or part owners:

Last September, the Labor Department had proposed requiring that children under the age of 16, who work on a parent’s farm could only work on that farm if it is “wholly owned” by the parent. But after protests from farm groups and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Labor Department officials announced on Feb. 2 that they would repropose the rule and continue to allow children to work on a farm in which the parent is a part owner, a partner in a partnership, or an officer of a corporation that has a “substantial” ownership interest in the farm.

The decision represented a partial victory for farm and rural groups who have said the rule would make it impossible for rural youth to be trained in farming, doesn’t reflect modern ownership patterns, would make it impossible for grandchildren, nieces and nephews of farm owners to learn about farming and runs counter to Vilsack’s campaign to encourage young people to stay on the farm and in rural America.

I grew up in a rural community where many of my friends were hired farmhands. Their parents weren’t the owners or even partial owners of the farms and many of my friends weren’t 16 years-old yet. Age was considered an irrelevant criteria since both the kid and the parent agreed that the kid should be allowed to work.

While many people are bitching about the dangers work farm work let me say that the rate of injury isn’t nearly as high as the naysayers make it sound. Farming, like any job involving manual labor, does involve risks but those risks are usually avoidable so long as you use proper safety equipment. When I worked at my father’s autoshop I always engaged the locks on the hoist so that a failure would lead only to the vehicle falling a short distance until it hit the lock. A falling automobile is dangerous but the use of proper safety equipment mitigated that risk.

But let’s not kid ourselves, this new attempt at labor regulation has nothing to do with safety. Children are a much needed workforce for many independent farmers who can’t afford to pay wages demanded by older, more experienced farm hands (not to mention most adults move on, they seldom end up being farm hands for their entire lives). The only two options are hiring inexperienced individuals or illegal immigrants. Since the state frowns so heavily on the latter that leaves the former. Now that the state is frowning on the former as well independent farmers are being left with no option.

Large farms on the other hand can afford to hire more expensive labor since their profits are much higher. These farms can also afford lobbyists who can ask the government to make rules that hamper their small competitors. Like the state’s previous attempt to hamper small farming operations this new move is being done solely to rid the large lobbyist holding farmers of their much hated competition.

The arguments being used by the proponents of this new regulation are downright idiotic:

In the midst of the politics, the issues of child labor and safety seemed to get lost even though they are real.

Leppink, testified that 130 children, 15 years of age and younger, have died while working, and that 73 percent of these children were employed in agriculture.

So in the last 15 years 130 children have died while working but only 73 of those deaths were in the agriculture industry. That means only 4.9 children have died each year (if we spread the deaths out evenly) in the agriculture industry. While the death of any person is tragic there are for more dangerous things kids can do. 6,896 children died in 2007 in automobile accidents, that’s 1379.2 times greater than the average number killed in agriculture industry accidents (obviously my numbers are a bit loose, of course the order of magnitude is so great it doesn’t really matter). Perhaps our focus should be elsewhere when it comes to making the lives of children safer. How about the recreational sports most children enjoy:

Chris Chinn, a hog farmer from Missouri, testified that school sports activities are much more dangerous than working on the farm. Chinn said her daughters have been taken to the emergency room for school-related injuries but never for any farm injury. She also said grandparents should be allowed to supervise their grandchildren on the farm because they are even stricter than parents in what they will allow children to do.

Of course this ruling will probably make it through because it exists to “protect the children.”

NYPD to Pay $15 Million for Illegally Arresting People

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been illegally arresting people under laws that were deemed unconstitutional far in advance of the arrests:

For almost 30 years — from 1983 to 2012 — the New York Police Department went about arresting people under laws that state and federal courts had long declared unconstitutional, cuffing and booking almost 22,000 people. In 2010, federal judge Shira A. Scheindlin finally held them in contempt of court. Yesterday, she signed an order approving what is effectively their punishment: a $15 million class-action settlement that could generate individual payments of as much as $5,000.

Those arrested were forced to defend themselves in court and even served jail time for completely lawful behavior. The class action settlement also requires the city to help the courts vacate and seal all convictions stemming from the illegal arrests.

This story doesn’t surprise me, especially coming from New York City. Perhaps this is the reason Mayor Bloomberg wants to prohibit guns so desperately, he need to keep the denizens of his city disarmed less they rise up and refuse to comply with the police making illegal arrests.

What’s really sad is the fact our country has reached a point where police officers not only arrest people for perfectly lawful activity but juries are more than happy to hand out a guilty verdict. Once again we come to the fact that jury nullification is one of the few options we have left in our toolbox to prevent tyranny and most people absolutely refuse to use it (likewise potential jurors who know about their powers are disallowed from sitting on a jury).

Over the years I’ve changed my outlook on prisons and people who have been in prison. Previously if I heard somebody was pronounced guilty of a crime and went t prison because of it I offered no protest. Now I give prisoners the benefit of the doubt because a huge majority of them are in prison for victimless crimes. When somebody gets thrown into prison their life is often destroyed as future employment because difficult, if not impossible. Without the prospect of obtaining work many former prisoners end up becoming repeat offenders because no legal means of survival is available to them. After being released from prison your slate should be considered clean as your punishment has been completed; instead our government continues the punishment for the entirety of many former prisoner’s lives. The people wrongfully arrested in New York have lost years of their life because they violated laws that weren’t even laws at the time. We live in a police state and the fact things like this happen prove it.

Iran is Worried the United States is Building Its 8,500th Nuclear Weapon

With all this concern over Iran building a nuclear weapon we should stop to see if Iran has any concerns. It seems they are a bit concerned about the United States building yet another nuclear weapon:

TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America’s uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. “Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran,” said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and “everything they need” to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material.

I actually had to double check to make sure this was an Onion article and not a piece on a regular news site.

If I Wasn’t on the Terrorist Watch List Before I am Now

Well if I wasn’t on the terrorist watch list before I certainly am now:

Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.

These extremists, sometimes known as “sovereign citizens,” believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.

The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.

As a sovereign individual who does not submit to the authority of the state I guess I’m the primary target. There is something that is in desperate need of being cleared up though. Sovereign citizen is a contradiction of terms. A sovereign is a supreme ruler while a citizen is a subject of a state. You can not be a supreme ruler and a subject at the same time. On the other hand a sovereign individual is a supreme ruler of an individual, him or herself. If you’re going to make us appear as a threat please get the terminology right at the very least.

And while the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) try to smear voluntaryists such as myself let me explain something. Most people who refer to themselves as sovereign citizens also abide by the non-aggression principle meaning they have a moral objection with initiating violence. I will not initiate an attack and will use violence only in the act of self-defense. Somehow this fact makes me dangerous according to the FBI.

“We are being inundated right now with requests for training from state and local law enforcement on sovereign-related matters,” said Casey Carty, an FBI supervisory special agent.

FBI agents said they do not have a tally of people who consider themselves “sovereign citizens.”

If any FBI agents are monitoring reading this blog let me inform you that I am a sovereign individual so you can just put me down on the little list you’re writing up. Please update your terminology and replace “sovereign citizen” with “sovereign individual” so you don’t look like completely idiots. Also go fuck yourselves. You don’t have to do those things in that order though.

When the State Can’t Legally Steal Your Wealth They Simply Make New Taxes

I’m sure you’ve heard that Mark Zuckerberg is in a position to make an absolute fortune with Facebook’s upcoming IPO. What You probably haven’t heard is that the state is looking to enact a new tax because without it they can’t legally steal as much of Zuckerberg’s newfound wealth:

WHEN Facebook goes public later this year, Mark Zuckerberg plans to exercise stock options worth $5 billion of the $28 billion that his ownership stake will be worth. The $5 billion he will receive upon exercising those options will be treated as salary, and Mr. Zuckerberg will have a tax bill of more than $2 billion, quite possibly making him the largest taxpayer in history. He is expected to sell enough stock to pay his tax.

But how much income tax will Mr. Zuckerberg pay on the rest of his stock that he won’t immediately sell? He need not pay any. Instead, he can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous wealth and avoid all tax.

[…]

A drastic change is necessary to fix this fundamental flaw in our tax system and finally require people like Warren E. Buffett, Mr. Ellison and others to pay at least a little income tax on their unsold shares. The fix is called mark-to-market taxation.

For individuals and married couples who earn, say, more than $2.2 million in income, or own $5.7 million or more in publicly traded securities (representing the top 0.1 percent of families), the appreciation in their publicly traded stock and securities would be “marked to market” and taxed annually as if they had sold their positions at year’s end, regardless of whether the securities were actually sold. The tax could be imposed at long-term capital gains rates so tax rates would stay as they were.

We could call this tax the “Zuckerberg tax.” Under it, Mr. Zuckerberg would owe an additional $3.45 billion when Facebook went public (that’s 15 percent of the value of the roughly $23 billion of stock he owns). He could sell some shares to pay the tax (and would be left with over $20 billion of Facebook stock after tax), or borrow to pay the tax.

Under current tax laws Zuckerberg would actually be allowed to keep the fruits of his labor, something that sate never approves of. The state is like a far more vicious version of the mafia, if you make any money they want a cut and if you don’t give them that cut something bad is going to happen to you. Unlike the mafia, the state pretendes to abide by a series of laws and regulations but in truth these laws and rules are entirely under their control and therefore can be changed whenever they become inconvenient.

Like most state puppets the author of this opinion piece is trying to make the market-to-market tax appear to be a great idea by appealing to the reader’s jealousy. First the author states that Zuckerberg is in a position to make a great deal of money, the reader. The author then moves on to explain that, unlike the reader, Zuckerberg will be able to avoid a great deal of taxation when he obtains his new wealth. He finally closes by saying the new market-to-market tax will allow the state to gouge Zuckerberg without affect the reader. Therefore most people reading this article will likely walk away thinking the market-to-market tax is a great thing as it punishes people who are more successful than themselves.

What’s interesting is looking back at the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which gave the federal government the authority to collect income tax. Before passage of the amendment the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act established a 2% federal income tax but was shut down by the Supreme Court when they ruled such income tax as unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan and Trust Company. Such a ruling was a mere technicality for the state as they were able to simply make an amendment to the Constitution that allowed the collection of income tax by the federal government. Shortly after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment the Revenue Act of 1913, which established the federal income tax, was passed.

The Revenue Act of 1913 passed with little objection by the population because less than one percent had to pay federal income tax. From there the state simply kept ratcheting up the income tax rate until a large majority of the population were paying. Like the market-to-market tax being proposed in the New York Times article, the Revenue Act of 1913 was able to pass by preying on people’s jealousy. Looking at the history of the federal income tax should also make people aware of the fact that any newly passed tax, such as the market-to-market tax, will eventually affect a vast majority of the population.

According to the author the market-to-market tax will have a positive effect:

The most profound effect of a mark-to-market tax would be to level the playing field between wage earners, on one hand, and founders and investors on the other. Superwealthy holders of publicly traded securities could no longer escape tax on their vast wealth.

The author’s conclusion is entirely wrong. A market-to-market tax will further encourage those who have a million dollar idea to flee to a friendlier country where they won’t be subjected to as much theft. In this age of global commerce why create something amazing in the United States when you can do it in Hong Kong and keep far more of the wealth you generate? Facebook it a website and like any website it can be setup anywhere in the world. Setting aside the fact that taxation is theft still makes the idea of a market-to-market tax a bad idea.

Yet agents of the state will feed it to the people by preying on their jealousy, meaning the tax will likely enjoy a great deal of support by the populace. Unfortunately for the populace, especially those of us who aren’t wealthy enough to be effected by this new market-to-market tax, we will eventually become targets of this new tax as well.

Judge Orders Business Shutdown Because of Patron Actions

If anybody believes government doesn’t have too much power they are either insane or not paying attention. When a judge is able to force the closure of a business because of the actions of some patrons there is a major problem:

A judge approved a motion to temporarily shut down MugShots bar in Toledo on Tuesday. The move comes after six people were shot outside the bar early Monday morning. But believe it or not one of the victims is speaking out. “For them to want to close down, not just Mugshots, but any bar for other peoples actions, I don’t think that’s fair,” Lakeisha Carter said.

Carter was waiting in line outside Mugshots Bar when the shooting took place. She was shot twice, once in each leg. Police tell 13abc 20-year-old Rhaymoun Villolovos and his brother, 22-year-old Richard were kicked out of the bar after a fight. That’s when they allegedly grabbed their guns and started shooting. As a result, the city got a temporary restraining order that closed the bar.

“Mugshots is being looked at like the place to fight … but it’s happening everywhere,” Carter explained.

The problem here wasn’t the bar or the alcohol, it was the people who shot one another. Closing the bar because some patrons decided it was a jolly good idea to start blasting one another is a perfect example of punishing the wrong person (or people in this case since the bar employees won’t be receiving pay for the duration of the shutdown). Of course the judge is merely protecting the people form themselves with this order so everybody will be entirely fine with it.

I’m sure the anti-gunners are going to swoop in on this and claim it is an example of why allowing people to carry firearms into bars is a bad idea. What they won’t stop to determine is whether or not any of the initiators of violence even had carry permits.

More Evidence Against the Necessity of the State

According to Thomas Hobbes humans are evil bastards that must be controlled by a coercive entity we call the state. Hobbes’s beliefs can are demonstrably false by the simple fact that a species of inherently bad individuals would be unable to cooperate well enough to establish societies. Such reasoning is ignored by statists though so other evidence must be brought to the table such as this recent study that demonstrates people, in general, act socially “well” even without established rules:

Millions of human interactions were assessed during the study which included actions such as communication, founding and ending friendships, trading goods, sleeping, moving, however also starting hostilities, attacks and punishment. The game does not suggest any rules and everyone can live with their avatar (i.e. with their “game character” in the virtual world) as they choose. “And the result of this is not anarchy,” says Thurner. “The participants organise themselves as a social group with good intents. Almost all the actions are positive.”

The entire paper can be read here. What I find most fascinating is the fact that these results were obtained through simulation as simulations, virtual worlds existing without real consequences, are where people like to act out their darker desires. You can put somebody in front of a copy of The Sims for very long until they start burning and or drowning the various sims in their household. Yet even in a simulated environment where people have ample opportunity to be assholes to one another in general people were acting positively instead of negatively.

The study also demonstrated that the golden rule certainly applies are positive actions were usually replied to with positive actions while negative actions were usually replied to with negative actions. In other words people are generally good and the rule of “don’t be a dick” applies.

Congress Approves Drone Usage Over the United States

Congress has once again decided that the American people aren’t submitting to enough surveillance and have thus have approved the usage of drones in United States airspace:

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s … a drone, and it’s watching you. That’s what privacy advocates fear from a bill Congress passed this week to make it easier for the government to fly unmanned spy planes in U.S. airspace.

The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.

[…]

According to some estimates, the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars once the FAA clears their use.

The agency projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020.

30,000 drones? Hell they can keep an eye on a large majority of Americans 24/7 with a fleet like that. While privacy advocates are rightfully up in arms I see a far more dangerous outcome to this decision. The drones will obviously be used by police departments for reconnaissance just like they were in North Dakota. In the North Dakota case the drone was used because officer safety was at risk and that excuse will eventually be used to justify the usage of armed drones to take out suspected criminals. Anwar Al-Awlaki and his son were both American citizens killed by drones without so much as charges being brought against them so a precedence has already been set for the usage of armed drones against American citizens. Basically drones will become the new SWAT Team, when a situation looks potentially dangerous and local law enforcement doesn’t want to risk their own skin they’ll just send in an armed drone and blow up whoever is the current target.

Militarization of the police continues to increase and with it the potential of civilian deaths during police operations.

26 Things Non-Paul Supporters are Saying

Tom Woods Jr. is great at pointing out logically failures and a rather humorous manner. He has a piece up on his blog explaining 26 things non-Paul supporters are really saying:

(1) The American political establishment has done a super job keeping our country prosperous and our liberties protected, so I’m sure whatever candidate they push on me is probably a good one.

(2) Our country is basically bankrupt. Unfunded entitlement liabilities are in excess of twice world GDP. Therefore, it’s a good idea to vote for someone who offers no specific spending cuts of any kind.

(3) Vague promises to cut spending are good enough for me, even though they have always resulted in higher spending in the past.

(4) I prefer a candidate who plays to the crowd, instead of having the courage to tell his audience things they may not want to hear.

(5) I am deeply concerned about spending. Therefore, I would like to vote for someone who supported Medicare Part D, thereby adding $7 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities.

It’s a great list and I highly recommend reading it.

Apparently Giving Away Free Stuff is Illegal in France

I hate the French government for so many reasons but this one really takes the cake:

A French commercial court has found Google guilty of abusing the dominant position of its Google Maps application and ordered it to pay a fine and damages to a French mapping company.

In a ruling Tuesday, the Paris court upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses.

Google is being made to pay a hefty fine to the French state because they decided to give one of their services away free of charge. Like any anti-competition ruling this one serves to benefit the state, not consumers. What does Bottin Cartographes receive from this ruling? Likely nothing as the fine being paid by Google goes to the French coffers. How do consumers benefit? They don’t because Google is being punished for providing a free service. What sense does this ruling make? None.

The bottom line is if I wish to give away a product or service that I’ve created for free that is my right. Bottin Cartographes is claiming Google is giving away their Maps service for free to undercut competitors but in reality Google’s strategy form day one has always been to give away free services and make money on either advertising or premium features. This is the same strategy most web-based companies end up adopting including other well-known industry players like Facebook and Twitter.

I’m not surprised about this ruling of course as the French government seems to have a complete disdain for any entity that actually contributes positively to the economy.