Month: April 2012

I Love it When Politicians are Honest

I love those rare occasions where politicians are actually honest. Usually they try to keep the appearance of the people holding power but once in a great while a politician comes out and simply says, “Shut up slave, you do what we tell you to!” “Representative” Mike Rogers just had one of these moments:

It appears that Congress still doesn’t get it. Rep. Mike Rogers, the sponsor of the bad CISPA bill that puts your privacy at risk, really doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the protests that have been happening online this week. He referred to them as being “like turbulence on the way down to landing” for the bill. He also said that he fully expects the bill to easily pass next week when its brought to the floor.

For those of you unaware, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA is basically the return of SOPA/PROTECT-IP. Politicians are crafty individuals with a great deal of patients. If a bill one of their constituents (who are the major donors to their campaign funds, not you or me) wants passed is meeting with resistance they pull it back, rename it, and introduce it against later hoping nobody will notice. Politicians know they can get any bill passed so long as it’s named property, introduced at the right time, and the opponents to the bill are demonized thoroughly.

It’s nice to see Rogers stated that these protests are nothing more than turbulence during landing, which indicates this bill is mostly a done deal and it will happen.

TSA Doing what Government Agencies Do

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is following in the footsteps of every government agency before it by continually expanding its power:

A new program in Houston will place undercover TSA agents and police officers on buses whose job it will be to perform bag searches, watch for “suspicious activity” and interrogate passengers in order to ‘curb crime and terrorism’.

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee unveiled the program, labeled Bus Safe, during a press conference on Friday. According to a Metropolitan Transit Authority of Houston (METRO) press release, agencies involved in the scheme will, “ride buses, perform random bag checks, and conduct K-9 sweeps, as well as place uniformed and plainclothes officers at Transit Centers and rail platforms to detect, prevent and address latent criminal activity or behavior.”

If you still don’t believe the United States has become a police state you’re not paying attention. It seems you can use any mode of transportation without worrying about some government goon treating you like a potential criminal.

Outside the Box Thinking can Saves Lives

Sometimes you just need to be creative tosave lives:

A suicidal man clung to an overpass high above Interstate 94 Monday morning, facing near-certain death if he jumped or fell.

But a quick-thinking state trooper found an ingenious way to save him: He summoned a convoy of 18-wheelers that had been stuck in halted traffic beneath the Groveland Avenue bridge as the emergency unfolded at about 10 a.m.

Trooper Carl Hoffman rounded up a six-pack of the big rigs, positioning the trucks one by one to break a potential plunge to the pavement about 25 feet below.

“It really speaks to the trooper’s ingenuity,” Patrol Lt. Eric Roeske said. “‘Hey, we can shorten his fall and he’d be less likely to harm himself.'”

In a way the story is kind of comical. When the trooper guided semi trucks below the man threatening to jump he would shuffle away from the semis, only to have the trooper position another semi under the jumper. Being creative and having the ability to think quickly are important.

Recking the Establishment’s Day

Ron Paul supporters in several Minnesota congressional districts have had great luck usurping power from the establishment. This brings joy to my heart because it acts as a thorn in the side of the neocons; neocons like my new favoritest candidate ever, Lynne Torgerson:

On Saturday, April 14, 2012, I attended the Republican 5th Congressional District Endorsing Convention.

There was a stage at the front of the room. Approximately 6 people were seated on the stage. Every person seated was a Ron Paul Libertarian. The Convention was overrun by Ron Paul Libertarians. More than 2/3 of the delegates were Ron Paul Libertarians. When I mentioned that we were at a Republican Convention, they laughed out loud.

Torgerson hates libertarians because we oppose everything she stands for such as killing people overseas, the abolition of state controlled marriage, and religious freedom. I’m sure if Torgerson were allowed to have her way all the non-Christians in the United States would be rounded up into concentration camps and gases. Thankfully she can’t have her way because the American people still aren’t ready to get behind ideas as bat shit crazy as what this woman is advocating.

I love the fact that delegates outright laughed at her when she said they were at a Republican convention. Guess what? It’s not a Republican convention is the Republican Party doesn’t hold the power. So what outrageous acts did the “Ron Paul Libertarians” pull with their newly found powers? Did they make everybody swear a blood oath to Odin? Did they demand everybody dance around like monkeys? As far as Torgerson is likely concerned they did far worse:

They began the Convention. There was no opening prayer. Not even a mention of it.

No opening prayer? You mean a non-religious convention didn’t try to inject religion into itself? That’s crazy! What’s next? A convention that doesn’t begin with a reading from a physic book? After all physics has an equal place to religion in a political convention.

It gets better:

There was also no Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag.

Good. Let me state something that is likely to piss a few people off: I will never cite the Pledge of Allegiance, I hate the Pledge of Allegiance. When I say this I’m usually met with numerous comments about how treasonous my distain of the Pledge is. You want treasonous? How about mindlessly reciting a pledge written by a socialist to build nationalism:

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist, and the cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy (1850–1898). The original “Pledge of Allegiance” was published in the September 8 issue of the popular children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. The event was conceived and promoted by James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, as a campaign to instill the idea of American nationalism by selling flags to public schools and magazines to students.

The Pledge of Allegiance was a marketing ploy to instill nationalism. Since nationalism is one of the planks of fascism I’m not too fond of practicing it. Furthermore I’m none too inclined to recite a piece of propaganda written by a socialist. Hey Lynne Torgerson, how does if feel to be outraged by people not wanting to recite socialist propaganda? Does is hurt? I hope it hurts, I hope it hurts like fucking Hell.

Eventually the Pledge was recited, but with a little twist:

Then, a man up front stood up and requested that we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But alas, upon looking around, there was not a flag to be seen.

Then, a clown came forward, dressed in garb, with a very large hat, that somewhat resembled a flag. In Wikipedia, wearing a flag is a form of flag desecration. Wikipedia states the following:

It is increasingly common to see clothing with the image of the flags forming a substantial part of the piece. Views vary as to whether some of this is an act of disrespect.

Such actions may be undertaken for a variety of reasons:

– As a protest against a country’s foreign policy.
– To distance oneself from the foreign or domestic policies of one’s home country.
– As a protest at the very laws prohibiting the actions in question.
– As a protest against nationalism.
– As a protest against the government in power in the country, or against the country’s form of government.
– A symbolic insult to the people of that country.

So it appears that this person was wearing the US flag in order to desecrate our flag.

Wearing an image of the flag is desecration? Really? Then a huge number of Americans are walking around desecrating the flag right now. In fact people I often shoot with, people who are ultra nationalistic, are desecrating the flag every time I see them. Either that or these people are trying to display their patriotism, and we all know how much Torgerson loves patriotism.

The clown in the flag suit then went up front and stood on the stage. We were then led in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Stunning. To me this seemed a further desecration of the US flag and the Pledge of Allegiance. I refused to participate.

So much hilarity. Politics to me, and to many libertarians, is nothing more than a form of sick amusement. We use it to entertain ourselves and thus little stunts like this are always likely when libertarians are able to sieze control of political events. Honestly, I want to give a round of applause to the people who made this possible, if it pissed Torgerson off this badly it was worth every drop of sweat it took to accomplish it. Torgerson also got pissy because the delegates pressent at the convention didn’t want to waste their time listening to her crazy shit:

There were going to be 3 candidates allowed to speak. I was told a couple of days before the Convention by Adam Weigold, Chair, that I would be allowed an unlimited amount of time to speak. The first candidate allowed to speak, Chris Fields, a Libertarian, was allowed an unlimited amount of time. I was then asked by Chris Sinn, a Libertarian, how long my speech would take. I had prepared a 30 minute speech. I told Chris the length of time I expected my speech to take. They knew that I was going to criticize the Libertarian platform, and expose that Chris Fields is actually a Libertarian, and expose his positions, etc. Chris Fields has been trying to pass himself off as a moderate Republican, and has avoided taking any positions in public or on his website. Juliette Jordahl, a Libertarian, then quickly brought a motion to limit my speech to 10 minutes. It passed. I am currently reading a book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of the first things the Nazis did was to outlaw speech criticizing the Nazis.

Let me state for the record that Chris Sinn isn’t a real person. I know several people who attended that convention and nobody by the name of Chris Sinn was present. Making up a person is a common mistake made by those who hear voices in their heads.

For those of you who haven’t attended political conventions it should be noted that the majority really does rule. If a delegate makes a motion, receives a second, and get a majority to vote in favor of that motion it’s done. In this case the “Ron Paul Libertarians” conspired against Torgerson to cut her crazy talk time down to 10 minutes, a conspiracy that will probably add to her paranoid tendencies. Heck the “Ron Paul Libertarians” were probably conspiring with the gay libertarian islamist extremist terrorists! They’re probably all out to get her!

I wonder how her 10 minutes of public crazy time went:

During my presentation, as mentioned above, they laughed out loud when I mentioned that we were at a Republican Convention. The mention that the Constitution did not protect homosexual behavior brought jeers. I also mentioned that Chris Fields has said that Saddam Hussein got a bad deal, that he applauds Keith Ellison’s representation of Muslims, that he thinks our cherished US Constitution is not perfect, that he supports gay rights legislation, and that he would not protect Life with legislation.

Wait… she actually things our “cherished US Constitution” is perfect? That’s rich, heck that’s downright hilarious! If the Constitution was prefect our country would be the fascist state it currently is.

The United States Constitution isn’t perfect, it’s nowhere near perfect. Sure, it’s a damned side better than the constitutions of many other countries but perfect it isn’t. Speaking of the Constitution let’s see if her claim that it doesn’t protect homosexual behavior holds true.

No, it doesn’t. Funny enough it also doesn’t protect heterosexual behavior. So, according to Torgerson’s “logic”, we could ban heterosexual marriages since the Constitution doesn’t specifically protect such practices. I’m down with that. Let’s ban all forms of marriage in this country for the lulz and to shove Torgerson’s “logic” down her throat. The real money quote is yet to come:

I mentioned that President and General George Washington did not advocate pot smoking and that if he did, we probably would not have won the American Revolutionary War.

Checkmate:

George Washington raised large quantities of hemp. So did Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and virtually every other 1700s American farmer.

It is also highly likely at least some of them smoked its potent sibling, now known as marijuana.

Back in George Washington’s time smoking marijuana wasn’t seen as some kind of dirty activity performed only by lowly criminals. So it’s unlikely George Washington would have opposed marijuana, making Torgerson’s statement idiotic… which is par for the course when she’s talking. The crazy isn’t quite done yet:

Jacquelyn America proudly mentioned more than once that she has been working with the Somali community.

I’m not sure what Jacquelyn did, nor if her last name is really America, but I fail to see how working with the Somali community could possibly be seen as a ding against her. Does Torgerson believe the Somali immigrants are somehow diry, evil, or otherwise undesirable? Oh, that’s right, many of them are Muslims and Torgerson believes the Muslims are out to impose Sharia law upon the entire country! No, I’m not making that up.

I really hope this woman continues to campaign because her crazy has given me a great deal of amusement.

Free Market Currency

I read that Ron Paul introduced HR 1098, the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011. The bill is straightforward, if passed it would abolish current legal tender laws that are used by the state to enact tight economic control over the populace:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011’.

SEC. 2. REPEAL OF LEGAL TENDER LAWS.

(a) In General- Section 5103 of title 31, United States Code (relating to legal tender), is hereby repealed.

(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections for subchapter I of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking the item relating to section 5103 and inserting the following new item:
‘5103. [Repealed].’.

SEC. 3. NO TAX ON CERTAIN COINS AND BULLION.

(a) In General- Notwithstanding any other provision of law–

(1) no tax may be imposed on (or with respect to the sale, exchange, or other disposition of) any coin, medal, token, or gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or rhodium bullion, whether issued by a State, the United States, a foreign government, or any other person; and

(2) no State may assess any tax or fee on any currency, or any other monetary instrument, which is used in the transaction of interstate commerce or commerce with a foreign country, and which is subject to the enjoyment of legal tender status under article I, section 10 of the United States Constitution.

(b) Effective Date- This section shall take effect on December 31, 2011, but shall not apply to taxes or fees imposed before such date.

SEC. 4. REPEAL OF SUPERFLUOUS SECTIONS.

(a) In General- Title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking sections 486 (relating to uttering coins of gold, silver, or other metal) and 489 (making or possessing likeness of coins).

(b) Conforming Amendment to Table of Sections- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 25 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking the items relating to the sections stricken by subsection (a).

(c) Special Rule Concerning Retroactive Effect- Any prosecution under the sections stricken by subsection (a) shall abate upon the taking effect of this section. Any previous conviction under those sections shall be null and void.

Money, in the true sense of the word, is nothing more than a good that facilitates trade. Barter is a pain in the ass because it’s very difficult to find the exact goods somebody else needs. If you want to buy a box of ammunition and the person selling ammunition needs a dozen eggs, half of a pound of ground beef, and a pair of socks you’re going to have to trade for all of those items first. To overcome this complexity the market eventually began using what we think of as money today.

Historically speaking gold and silver have been chosen as money as both commodities have several traits that are desirable in money. Gold and silver coins are easily divided for the performance of smaller transactions, durable (they won’t rust away on you), and portable. Both metals also have intrinsic value meaning they can actually be used to manufacture stuff if nobody is willing to take them as money anymore.

Most states now legally mandate a currency and that currency is always fait, that is to say it has no intrinsic value. Fiat currencies are the stuff of dreams to governments because it allows them to effectively dictate the value and print whatever quantity they need to pay for whatever exorbitantly expensive project their heart is currently set on. Unfortunately these traits that make fiat currency the cat’s meow to the state also make that very same currency toxic to individuals like you and me. The phenomenon known as inflation is a product of fiat currencies. When the state prints more money to pay off whatever project it deems desirable it decreases the purchasing power of everybody holding that currency.

Unfortunately one needs to hold United States dollars because the state mandates you pay all taxes in dollars and requires individuals to accept dollars as payments for debts:

United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.

Legal tender laws are downright evil. When the state demands all individuals accept Federal Reserve notes they are really saying, “OK serf listen up, you will trade any good or service you have for this piece of paper with a number and the picture of a dead president printed on it. This piece of paper will also constantly be in a state of devaluation.” The libertarian in me love this bill but the agorist in my doesn’t really see the point.

The only thing you need to do to accept an alternate currency is… accept an alternate currency. Do you want to be pain in silver bullion? Trade your goods or services for silver bullion. Want BitCoins? Only trade your goods and services for BitCoins. In fact one of the keystones of the agorist movement is alternative currencies. Let’s face it, the state derives a great deal of power from forcing people to use their currency. It is both the reason why agorists prefer dealing in alternate currencies and why this bill will never pass.

An Important Thing to Remember About the Virginia Tech Massacre

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. While many people have been using this anniversary to push a gun control agenda the truth is the amount of people killed by the shooter could have been reduced greatly if only students and faculty were allowed to carry on campus:

Speaking for myself, I would give anything if someone on campus; a professor, one of the trained military or guardsman taking classes or another student could have saved my daughter by shooting Cho before he killed our loved ones. Because professors, staff and students are precluded from protecting themselves on campus, Cho, a student at Virginia Tech himself, was able to simply walk on campus and go on a killing rampage with no worry that anyone would stop him.

What enabled the killer to walk around the campus and murder random individuals wasn’t a lack of gun control laws, it was to presences of them. Serial killers like Cho select gun-free zones for a reason, they can be reasonably sure that they won’t encounter any resistance and therefore hold all of the power. For many of these killers their real desire is power over others and killing unarmed individuals gives a person a feeling of power.

When the state prohibits you from carrying a firearm they are stripping you of your ability to defend yourself. No free society should ever find it acceptable to use the threat of violence (if you carry a gun you will be kidnapped and tossed into a cage) to prevent others from defending themselves. It’s ridiculous. The very fact that nonviolent individuals wanting nothing more than the ability to defend themselves are subjected to the threat of violence by the state should be appalling to everybody.

Although the Virginia Tech massacre couldn’t have been prevented entirely the number killed could have been greatly reduced. Instead society allowed the gun control advocates to get their way and it has cost lives. We should all remember the aftermath of Virginia Tech and vow to fight for individuals’ right to self-defense.

A Scary Trend

We hear numerous stories about police officers who are gunned down but what we don’t hear much about is this disturbing trend:

Ten times more civilians were killed by cops than cops were killed by civilians in 2008, but you won’t find that information in Tuesday’s New York Times story on the “disturbing trend” of officers killed by perps.

[…]

There’s arguably an even bigger problem with the Times’ story, and that’s the absence of any data about how many civilians the cops have killed, even though that information is widely available, as demonstrated by the Advocacy Center for Equality and Democracy:

  • From 2003 to 2009, 4,813 people died in relation to an arrest in “all manners of deaths.” Each year ranged from 627 (2003) to 745 (2007). Source – Andrea M. Burch, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003-2009 – Statistical Tables, November 2011.
  • Of those, 2,913 (about 6 in 10) were reported as “homicide by law enforcement.” Each year ranged from 375 (2004) to 497 (2009). See Burch.
  • In the only year in which the NYT article and the Bureau of Justice Statistics report overlap, 2008, law enforcement killed roughly 10 times the number of people during arrests (404) than officers killed (41). See Burch.
  • Since 2001, at least 500 people have been killed as a result of being tasered by officers in the United States alone.

To serve and protect…

The NRA Just Threw Gun Rights Out the Window

It appears that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has decided to surrender on the topic of gun rights this election cycle:

The NRA leadership is throwing its wholehearted support behind Republican Mitt Romney, who once incurred its ire by supporting stiff gun restrictions as governor of Massachusetts. Despite that history, it sees Romney as a vastly better gamble than President Obama, although Obama has done almost nothing to restrict gun use.

“We believe Mitt Romney would do a better job than President Obama,” said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, which claims nearly 4 million members. “We believe that any of the candidates on the Republican side would be better on the 2nd Amendment” — the right to bear arms.

Thanks for nothing guys. I’m sorry but endorsing Romney is not the answer, it’s not even a valid option when it comes to supporting gun rights. I talked about this before but the NRA’s approach of supporting the “lesser” of two evils is pointless. We are all aware of Romney’s track record when it comes to gun rights, it’s abysmal. The very fact that he signed a permanent “assault” weapon ban in Massachusetts should have disqualified him from receiving any support from the NRA. I’d rather see the NRA come up and publicly state a vote of no confidence then concentrate their policial money on the legislature. Better yet move on to a new strategy like emulating the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) tactic of suing state entities that violate the rights of gun owners.

You know what else pisses me off? Not only are the leaders of the NRA supporting Romney but, as I predicted, members of the NRA are now backing the dumb bastard as well. He suckered a huge audience with one speech. One measly speech caused a massive number of NRA members, the supposed guardians of gun rights in this country, to forget Romney’s track record and get behind him. What… the… fuck?

I knew this would be the outcome but it still hurts to see it officiated. Romney isn’t going to be any better than Obama when it comes to gun rights (or anything else for that matter). He’s talking a big game now as he’s trying to gather support from suckers voters but we’ll be tossed under the bus the second he’s in office. Personally I’m not a fan of supporting a man when I know he’s going to run a knife in my back the second it’s turned.

I Didn’t Realize We Had One of Those

Of all the political parties in the United States I didn’t realized this was one of them:

The American Nazi Party has registered its first lobbyist in Washington DC.

John Bowles, 55, told US media he wanted to address political rights and ballot access and he expected congressmen would accept meetings.

Lobbying was something the party would “try out for the first time and see if it flies,” Mr Bowles told ABC News. He registered as a lobbyist this week.

The American Nazi Party has its work cut out for it, at least if it’s hoping to be the premier fascist party in the United States. Right now the top two contenders for most prominent fascist party are the Republican Party and the Democrat Party. The American Nazi Party is really going to have to step up their game to compete with the two elephants in the political room.

Monday Metal: We Must Go Faster by ReinXeed

I just want it known that this song is being picked because it’s a power metal song titled We Must Go Faster and it’s already really fucking fast. While I know little about ReinXeed I must give them credit for wanting to break the sound barrier. Overall I do like this song and it sounds very reminiscent of Dragonforce, although I’m not sure if ReinXeed has the same in-studio-only limited at Dragonforce does or not: