Month: March 2012

Legislation I Can Actually Support

It’s not often that I see a piece of legislation that I can support in its entirety but that what House Congressional Resolution 107 is:

Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.

Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.

A resolution that is aiming to actually enforce a clause in the Constitution that restricts the president’s power by moving to impeach our warmonger president? Hell yes, sign this damn thing and get the impeachment hearings underway! After this gets done I hope to see every member of the legislature bring impeachment hearings against one another until all of the three branches of government lie entirely empty.

I know the chances of any of my hopes happening are almost nil but I’ve always believe a man should dream big.

The People’s Paradise

It’s a good thing China adopted socialism so they don’t have a governing body made up of millionaire bourgeoisie, wait a minute:

The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the president and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices.

The net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China’s National People’s Congress, which opens its annual session on March 5, rose to 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in 2011, a gain of $11.5 billion from 2010, according to figures from the Hurun Report, which tracks the country’s wealthy. That compares to the $7.5 billion net worth of all 660 top officials in the three branches of the U.S. government.

The income gain by NPC members reflects the imbalances in economic growth in China, where per capita annual income in 2010 was $2,425, less than in Belarus and a fraction of the $37,527 in the U.S. The disparity points to the challenges that China’s new generation of leaders, to be named this year, faces in countering a rise in social unrest fueled by illegal land grabs and corruption.

I guess the proletariat didn’t revolt hard enough.

Bad Incentives

Whenever the government gives away free stuff, no matter who they’re giving it to, it leads to bad incentives:

The cost of free and reduced-price lunch programs is entirely covered by federal funding, which means that increases in the use of the program do not directly impact District 196’s finances. But the district is affected in other ways, Olson and Knight said.

District officials have put more energy and resources into encouraging families to apply for the free and reduced-price lunch program, and sending out notices in a variety of publications and online media, Olson and Knight said. The district also has a breakfast program that is well-attended by free and reduced lunch enrollees.

While the article makes claims that the number of families enrolled in the reduced-price lunch program is a good indicator of economic turmoil I think they failed to consider the interests of the schools. When a school gets a family on reduced-price lunch they no longer have to foot the bill for that lunch, therefore it’s in their best interest to get as many families on reduced-price lunch as possible so they can pocket more money.

It’s easy to see why every school would attempt to push every family onto the reduced-price lunch program, it means more money that can be stuffed into the pockets of the already well paid administrators.

Baen Books Demonstrates How to Win

When I finished reading Robert Buettner’s Oprah series I couldn’t wait for his next works to come out. Eventually Overkill was released but no Kindle format was to be found, leaving me wanting (an e-book version).

Some time ago I learned that the e-book version of Overkill was available on Baen Books and I have to way they’re working hard on winning. Namely when you buy an e-book from Baen you can download it in any DRM-free format your heart desires (at the time of this writing Overkill is made available in Mobi, ePub, HTML, Microsoft Reader, Sony Reader, rich text format, and some obscure format I’ve never heard of called Rocket). You read correctly, DRM-free.

I don’t know how a publisher could do much better. Obviously I grabbed the Mobi format so I could read it on my Kindle but I also grabbed the ePub format just to test it out (works fine as expected). More publishers need to learn from Baen’s example, hand me DRM-free files and I’ll love you forever.

It’s Officially Official, I’m a Domestic Terrorist According to the FBI

No longer relegated to the back corner of the bar of state enemies, I’m not officially an official domestic terrorist according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI):

The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United States, has existed for decades, with well-known members, such as Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing. Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group, nor are they a militia, although they sometimes use or buy illegal weapons. Rather, they operate as individuals without established leadership and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to train, help each other with paperwork, or socialize and talk about their ideology.

Holy shit my head hurts after reading that. First I’m going to, again, bring up the fact that sovereign citizen is an oxymoron:

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.

Beyond that let me focus on the, “Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group… Rather, they operate as individuals without established leadership…” Huh? Sovereign individuals aren’t anarchists but operate as leaderless individuals? I would love to know what the FBI’s definition of anarchist is because there are various forms of individualist anarchist philosophies. If anybody working for the FBI is reading this post (let me use a Department of Homeland Security keyword to ensure you are, drill) please take a few seconds to read my post that explains different schools of anarchism.

A person who considers themselves a sovereign individual very well could be an anarcho-capitalist, voluntaryist, or a mutualist (which can actually be seen as an individualist or collectivist form of anarchism depending on how you look at it). Unless the FBI is using an extremely narrow definition of anarchist the statement on their own page is contradictory. Furthermore they state Terry Nichols as an example of a sovereign individual but fail to mention any others. Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, and Jeffery Tucker would all consider themselves sovereign individuals but, like myself, advocate strict adherence to the non-aggression principle.

Blatant undefined generalizations are one of the biggest problems with the United States government. They will say all sovereign individuals are violent and thus label anybody who consideres themselves a sovereign a domestic terrorist. What this does is group non-violent individuals such as myself with the rare violent individuals, which makes both groups appear the same in the eyes of law enforcement.

I’m sure those reading the FBI’s article are wondering, “How can I identify a sovereign individual?” Easy, the FBI has a list of identifying factors:

Sovereign citizens often produce documents that contain peculiar or out-of-place language. In some cases, they speak their own language or will write only in certain colors, such as in red crayon. Several indicators can help identify these individuals.

  • References to the Bible, The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments
  • Personal names spelled in all capital letters or interspersed with colons (e.g., JOHN SMITH or Smith: John)
  • Signatures followed by the words “under duress,” “Sovereign Living Soul” (SLS), or a copyright symbol (©)
  • Personal seals, stamps, or thumb prints in red ink
  • The words “accepted for value”

They also carry fraudulent drivers’ licenses to indicate their view that law enforcement does not have the authority to stop their vehicle or may write “No Liability Accepted” above their signature on a driver’s license to signify that they do not accept it as a legitimate identification document.

What? Writes in red crayons? I’m not sure where they came up with that one. Oh, referencing “The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments” makes one a sovereign individual and thus a terrorist? Damn… that basically covered every lawyer, law professor, and libertarian in the country. I guess I’ve been wondering how long it would take the FBI to label the United States Constitution a terrorist document, now I know.

My Slight Change in Attitude

I strongly opposed the passage of laws that attempted to regulate what consenting adults did in the bedroom but no more! With the recent uprising of anger I’ve witnessed due to proposed laws that would regulate what people did in the bedroom, who would be made to pay for contraceptives, whether or not abortions are legal, and all that jazz I’ve decided I want every one of those laws to pay. Every. Single. One. I also want the state to actually attempt to enforce these laws. I also want these tongue-in-cheek laws to pass:

Delaware: By an 8 to 4 vote, the Wilmington, Delaware, city council recognized the personhood of semen because “each ‘egg person’ and each ‘sperm person’ should be deemed equal in the eyes of the government.”

Virginia: As the state Senate debated requiring transvaginal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, Sen. Janet Howell proposed mandating rectal exams and cardiac stress tests for men seeking erectile dysfunction meds. Her amendment failed by just two votes.

[…]

Texas: Contesting a bill mandating sonograms before abortions, Rep. Harold Dutton unsuccessfully offered three amendments in a row. The first would have required the state to pay the college tuition of children born to women who decide against an abortion after seeing a required ultrasound image. The second would have subsidized the children’s health care costs until age 18. When that failed, he lowered the age to 6. That didn’t fly, either.

Pass them all! Enforce them all! Make the sex lives of every person in the United States a living hell of regulations, red tape, fines, and court cases. Stop all this political pussyfooting around and get all this idiotic bullshit through the legislative process.

Look at how pissed off people are getting over laws affecting sex. People who sat aside while the PATRIOT Act was passed, who did nothing when the NDAA was passed this year, and didn’t even give a shit that a bill was introduced that would grant the government power to revoke citizenship are outright fuming over the recent slew of sex regulations being presented. Nobody seems to give a shit until they are personally inconvenienced and if that’s what it takes I say do it. Pass every one of these laws and finally get people pissed off enough to give the state the finger. I want to see rampant civil disobedience, I would be overjoyed to witness juries refusing to declare a man guilty because they found the law unjust, nothing would make me happier than seeing everybody in the United States finally standing up and refusing to be oppressed by the state.

Those of you in congresses of the individuals states I urge you to ramrod these bills through as if they were bills that granted you more benefits for being politicians! Treat these bills as if they would grant you even more power to expand the police state! Make passage of these laws top priority! Get everybody good and pissed off so I can finally stop trying to wake people up and get to the part where we actually change things.

Let’s just make everything illegal and get this police state to it’s ultimate conclusion. Nothing will turn liberals (using the modern definition of the word) and conservatives (using the traditional definition of the word) into hardcore libertarians like encroachments into their bedrooms.

Environmentalists Should be Advocating Strict Property Rights

Self-proclaimed environmentalists seem to always advocate stricter environmental regulations. Every time I turn around I see another self-proclaimed environmentalist demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) further decrease the level of [whatever pollutant is the enemy of the week] that individuals and/or companies can emit into the atmosphere/water supply. I’ve explained, multiple times, why asking the EPA for environmental protection is a fool’s journey. The only way to solve environmental issues is through strict enforcement of property rights. Hell if Dr. Seuss would have taken property rights into consideration his famous work The Lorax would have ended on an entirely different not:

If the Once-ler does have the right to cut down the trees, would we imagine that he would clear-cut the forest? Assuming he believes he will have those rights into the indefinite future, his own self-interest should prevent him from clear-cutting. We know from the end of the book – spoiler alert! – that the trees are a renewable resource – they can be replanted. Why would the Once-ler throw away years and years of profits he could obtain by replanting just to make a few dollars now? The future stream of profits is so large as to make clear-cutting a really bad choice, which is why lumber companies cut only a portion of their forests and replant where they do cut. And even if the trees were not a renewable resource, clear-cutting only makes sense as a profit-maximizing strategy under the most unusual of circumstances.

In the case of a nonrenewable resource, “greedy” producers still have reason not to extract the full quantity. Owners of oil wells do not suck out every last drop once they start extracting. Why not? They face a tradeoff: They can extract a lot, or even all, and sell it at the market price and invest the proceeds to earn interest, or they can leave much or all of it in the ground and wait for the price to rise, earning higher profits in the future.

If one has possession of a valuable resource it is in their best interest to manage the extraction and sale of that resource in a way that maximizes profits. Why would somebody extract all the iron ore on their property and sell it immediately? Iron ore, being a non-renewable resource, becomes more valuable over time as it becomes more scarce. Another aspect to look at is the temporary nature property in most places:

Then why do we see clear-cutting or its equivalent in the real world? Usually it’s because the property rights of the owner are tenuous, substantially reducing the expectation of future profits and making it more rational to extract all the value now. This normally happens when governments threaten to nationalize resources or where the property claims are uncertain and one party wishes to grab all the value before another party enters the competition.

Property rights in most countries aren’t absolute and one can never be sure when their property will be seized through eminent domain laws. If you’re only likely to hold a property for a temporary amount of time it then becomes your best interest to extract all the value from it immediately. When you’re not sure if regulations or ore extraction are going to remain stable or change in a manner that makes extraction more expensive it becomes your best interest to extract it all immediately.

EPA regulations and weak property rights actually encourage environmental destruction. Like most government bodies the EPA effectively accomplishes the exact opposite of what its chartered mission claims. Environmentalists should be demanding the EPA be eliminated and property rights be recognized as absolute.

The New Apple iPad

Apple announced a new iPad. So what do I think? I’m glad you asked. Overall nothing surprising was announced but the new iPad does look like a suitable evolution of the iPad 2. The retina display is a welcomed addition as is LTE. Of course LTE isn’t available anywhere near me so it’s merely a nice idea (yes the world does revolve around me and therefore LTE is a meaningless feature until I have it).

Will I get one? I’m not sure yet. There are times that I find a tablet with a data plan appealing but then I stop and wonder if I would ever use such a device with any frequency.

Apple also released iOS 5.1, which supposedly fixes some battery life issues, I’ll let you know if I see a difference after running it for a couple of days (my hopes aren’t high since Apple has released several “fixes” that accomplished nothing).

How To Create an Anti-Statist

How does one go about creating an anti-statist? Make him pay taxes. I was amused to see the following post by one of my friends:

Back to the quote: No taxation without representation.

What does this mean? Loosely, the Colonists did not think it was fair to be taxed by the British Parliament without also having a say in what went on. This makes sense: If someone is going to rob you of your hard-earned money, then you should get something in return.

I don’t think it’s a fair trade. ~23% of every paycheck I make goes right to the government. That’s almost one-fourth. That’s several nice dinners. That’s auto insurance. That’s a chunk of my vacation savings. That’s a lot.

And what do I get in return? I get to check some boxes and hope that my piece of paper changes something.

I say fuck that.

Let it be known on this day, March 7, 2012, that I, azelfrath of azelfrath.wordpress.com, will willingly and knowingly give up my right to vote in all local, state, and federal governmental elections, under the condition that I no longer am forced to pay local, state, or federal taxes. This includes income tax, sales tax, those gift taxes that nobody pays anyway, stamps on letters, and anything else of the sort.

It’s nice holding a philosophical position where the state does all my work for me. I don’t have to perform any crazy mental gymnastics to convince people that taxation is theft, they usually figure it out when they realize only two choices are available to them: pay your taxes or get kidnapped, held in a cage, and have your property stolen from you.

To the state I only ask that you continue doing what you’re already doing because through those actions you’ll create your own worst enemies and bolster the cause of liberty.