Month: June 2012

The Violence Inherent in the System

Via Twitter, reader and commenter Zerg539, linked me to a story that demonstrates how violent the statist system is:

The North Carolina man visited by armed EPA agents after sending an email to a controversial agency official says he’s not satisfied with the explanations about what he considers an excessive response and that he wants changes to agency policies and procedures.

“This isn’t over,” Keller said.

He told Fox News.com that Environmental Protection Agency officials have said the agency followed procedures and that the agents acted appropriately during their visit last month. However, Keller is still invited to come to EPA headquarters to discuss the situation.

Keller said he’s not willing to come to Washington without knowing what will be discussed.

The incident unfolded after Keller sent an email April 27 to the EPA to try to reach Al Armendariz — a regional administrator who was under fire for a YouTube video post days earlier in which he said his enforcement strategy was to “crucify” executives from big oil and gas companies.

The letter to an EPA external affairs director read “Do you have Mr. Armendariz’s contact information so we can say hello? – Regards- Larry Keller.”

An agent of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a comment about crucifying oil company executives and the guy asking for his contact information is the one that warrants armed thuggery? I understand the comment about crucifying oil company executive was figurative but it’s certainly worse then asking for contact information.

Sending armed agents to the home of somebody asking for your contact information is nothing but pure intimidation. Nobody should be surprised though, intimidation is what the state does. The costumes, riot gear, weapons, armored personnel carriers provided by the Department of Homeland Security, and domestic use of surveillance drones are all about intimidation. It’s meant to make you kowtow to the state. In fact it’s no different than the Russian military parades that were put on to intimidate both the people in Russian and foreign countries.

Interesting Use of the Word Accomplishment

A Democratic website has been keeping track of Obama’s accomplishments but, as Charles Davis points out, half the list is composed of people Obama has ordered killed. How one can consider killing an accomplishment is beyond me. Even if I was put into a situation where I had to kill somebody to protect myself or somebody I care about I wouldn’t consider it an accomplishment. A necessary action to protect life? Yes An accomplishment? No.

I miss the good old days when Bush was in office and the Democrats opposed war. Sadly they stopped being anti-war as soon as their guy was the one calling the shots. It demonstrates everything I hate about party politics. Everything, including death, is seen as nothing more than political rhetoric to be used in making a case for your side and opposing the other side. Many of the people who opposed the wars when Bush were in office didn’t actually care able the people dying, they only cared about the fact that a Republican was in office and they wanted a Democrat there instead. If you were one of these people let me just say this: fuck you.

Using the State’s Patent System Against It

While the patent system is a clever state devised mechanism to create artificially scarcity on a non-scarce resource (ideas) it’s nice to see it can be used against the state at times:

In California, legislation signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007 has been held up while the attorney general’s office makes sure the technology is unencumbered by patents, as the microstamping law requires. A gun rights group, the Calguns Foundation, went so far as to pay a $555 fee to extend a lapsing patent held by the developer to further delay the law from taking effect.

“It was a lot cheaper to keep the patent in force than to litigate over the issues,” said Gene Hoffman, the chairman of the foundation, adding that he believed the law amounted to a gun ban in California.

Excellent move Calguns Foundation. The interesting thing about microstamping, besides it’s unusable nature, is the fact it could be used as a de facto firearm ban. Microstamping is patented, meaning one entity has been granted a monopoly by the state on developing and selling the technology. While the patent owner claims he wants the technology to fall into the public domain the gun control zealots probably want it to remain patented. Why? Because laws can be put into place to require microstamping technology be implemented on firearms while the patent holder can make the cost of licensing the technology so absurdly high that nobody could purchase a firearm. Fortunately this issue is tied up in court because the scenario I just described would violate the right to keep and bear arms.

Although my accusation is speculative, I’m pretty sure the gun control zealots and California’s legislative body (but I repeat myself) were betting on the patent scenario I described above would work out in their favor. Instead their idea has actually worked out, somewhat, in our favor. Once in a while we can use the state’s weapon against it.

Now We See What the Megaupload Case was About

Early this year the United States government moved to shutdown Megaupload. As I mentioned, the move basically rendered the whole Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) debate irrelevant since the state was acting as if the legislation passed anyways. The state went so far as to confiscate all of Megaupload’s servers, which meant anybody with data on Megaupload were unable to access it even if it wasn’t data that violated copyright. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a suit to allow users to retrieve their data and that suit has shown what the Megaupload case was about all along:

U.S. federal prosecutors are fine with Megaupload users recovering their data — as long as they pay for it.

The government’s position was explained in a court filing on Friday concerning one of the many interesting side issues that has emerged from the shutdown of Megaupload, formerly one of the most highly trafficked file-sharing sites.

[…]

U.S. law allows for third parties who have an interest in forfeited property to make a claim. But the government argues that it only copied part of the Megaupload data and the physical servers were never seized.

Megaupload’s 1,103 servers — which hold upwards of 28 petabytes of data — are still held by Carpathia Hosting, the government said.

This case, like all government cases, was about taking your shit. The state moved in, confiscated data from Carpathia, then demanded they preserve the servers while receiving nothing in compensation for having legally untouchable servers that aren’t being paid for. Now the state has told users they can get their data from the Megaupload servers so long as they pay.

In other words the state moved in, took peoples’ data, refused to compensate those it stole from for any losses, and then turned around and said the burden of paying for recovery costs falls on the shoulders of the users the state stole from. This is how the state operates, they take your shit then demand you pay to get it back.

Loyalty to the Party

Anybody familiar with communist regimes knows that loyalty to “the party” is imperative to one’s survival. Members of “the party” usually have access to food, alcohol, and other amenities not offered to outsides. Unfortunately party members run a risk; their loyalty may be called into question by another party member. At this point a vetting process is likely to follow where the accused will be tested to determine whether or not they are truly loyal to “the party” (more often than not the inquisition ends with a verdict of disloyal).

This behavior is often shown in American media. You know who the bad guys are because they play sinister party politics. The frightening truth is party politics in the United States mirror those of communist nations. Anybody who has attended a Republican or Democrat Party event has seen some of this. People are called out and cheered for their service to “the party.” The more one volunteers and advocates for “the party” the more likely they are to be noticed and rewarded by the higher ups. Anybody who displays disloyalty to “the party” is shunned and attempts are made to run them out.

What’s scary about this behavior is that is revolved around loyalty to “the party” and not to any ideals. For instance, the Republican Party platform talks a great deal about free markets and deregulation. If a candidate is nominated who doesn’t support these ideas you’re still expected to support him or her. No questions are supposed to be asked and no dissidence is tolerated.

This behavior isn’t isolated to the Republican Party. Take a look at the Democrat Party and their support for Barack Obama. While the Democrats talked about peace during the Bush regime they are not silent when their candidate is waging war. Remember how much the Democrats decry the banker bailouts? We heard nothing by crickets from them when Obama did the same thing, in fact man Democrats are cheering Obama’s latest bank bailout.

Whenever I participated in party political events I was sickened by what I saw. People openly stated that they would support any Republican candidate, in fact it was expected that everybody at the event would fully support the Republican candidate regardless of that candidate’s views or values.

Now I’m seeing this with the Ron Paul supporters. Every candidate that Ron Paul endorsed is supposed to have the undying support of the Ron Paul supporters. I’m constantly bombarded with requests to support Kurt Bills here in Minnesota and when I say I’m not interested I’m treated like a heretic. Answers are demanded of me, “How can I not support him?” When I say I don’t know anything about him, he hasn’t officially stated his position on a great number of issues, and he’s demonstrated nothing that warrants my support. The response I get are always various of, “Well Ron Paul endorses him, that’s all you need to know.” No, that’s not all I need to know. I need to know where Kurt Bills stands on numerous issues including gun rights, foreign relations, economics (merely using one of Ron Paul’s books in an economics class doesn’t cut it, I want to know if he actually believes in free markets and divorcing the state from economics), jury nullification, and other libertarian issues.

Party politics scares the living shit out of me. It appears to exist solely to separate people form critical thinking. We’re told to support any nominee of “the party.” If you disapprove of the candidate you will be called out as a bad party member. Once you’ve been denounced any influence you had within “the party” is likely to vanish.

Pew Research Survey Discovered People Don’t Like Murderous Psychopaths

Apparently blowing up people overseas isn’t looked upon as highly as it once was:

International approval of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has dropped sharply during his term in office, a Pew Research survey suggests.

Among the 21 countries surveyed, the largest drop in approval – from 57% to 27% – was seen in China, the Global Attitudes Project reveals.

Most respondents in almost all countries opposed US drone strikes.

Who would have guessed that people don’t like murderous psychopaths who get their jollies off of blowing up people in foreign lands? Perhaps Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize will be revoked; I imagine ordering assassinations is a disqualifies for a peace prize.

It’s reassuring to see the hero worship Obama first enjoyed fading quickly. Even though many of Obama’s most zealous supporters still worship the ground he walks on it appears the general populations’ disillusion is finally breaking. Unfortunately the United States isn’t poised to offer any change, we have the option of a murderous psychopath or a person who wants to be a murderous psychopath.

People Living in Greece are Doing it Right

The Greek economy is in the toilet and things aren’t looking to improve anytime soon. Fortunately the people living there are doing the right thing:

Bankers said up to 800 million euros ($1 billion) were leaving major banks daily and retailers said some of the money was being used to buy pasta and canned goods, as fears of returning to the drachma were fanned by rumors that a radical leftist leader may win the election.

This is the most proper response. Get your fiat currency away from those thieving bankers and convert it into tangible goods. A fiat note has no actual value because it has no actual use. Commodities on the other hand are useful and thus have actual value. As people living in the Weimar Republic learned, times of hyperinflation require one to resort to barter. Nobody wants to accept a wheelbarrow full of fiat currency because that currency is constantly becoming less valuable. Sure, they may be able to buy a loaf of bread with it today, but by tomorrow they won’t be able to buy a slice of bread with it. Instead they will ask for the thing they actually want, bread.

On the other hand canned goods will give you purchasing power. Even if you don’t want to eat canned beans somebody else will, and you can ask for something in exchange. The beans will last for ages and, if nothing else, you can eat them. In economic terms the can of beans is said to have intrinsic value, that is to say the value of an item is contained within itself. This is why gold backed currencies have worked, gold has actual uses and therefore is has intrinsic value.

It’s good to see the people of Greece waking up to the reality that’s been inflicted upon them. I hope the people of my country are as smart when the dollar starts to topple down.

How the Regulation Game Works

It seems you need a license to do anything in this country. So many career paths require a stamp of approval from the state that starting a personal business is becoming harder and harder. In fact this licensing craze has reached such an absurd level that it’s actually illegal to braid hair in Utah without a license:

Then, one day, she got an email from a stranger. “It is illegal in the state of Utah to do any form of extensions without a valid cosmetology license,” the e-mail read. “Please delete your ad, or you will be reported.”

It takes nearly two years of school and about $16,000 in tuition to get a cosmetology license in Utah. And schools teach little or nothing about African hair braiding.

This article is a good read because it explains how the licensing game works:

But it’s also been driven by a push from professions themselves. Licensing rules make it harder for new people to enter a field. That’s good for people who are already in the profession, because it limits competition and allows them to raise prices. So professions go to lawmakers and say: You need to regulate us.

“Everyone assumes that private interests fight like crazy not to be regulated,” Charles Wheelan, who teaches public policy at the University of Chicago, told me. “But often, for businesses, regulation is your friend.”

Whenever you hear a business owner demanding the state regulation his industry don’t cheer him for being “socially responsible” because he’s merely trying to push competitors out of his market. The biggest threat to an established business are new startups entering the market. This is why taxicab companies demanded cities put a cap on the number of taxicabs that can operate within city limits. Such limits allow taxicab operators to charge absurd amounts of money knowing that there is a permanently fixed supply and a demand that increases with population.

Let’s face it, braiding hair isn’t rocket science and you don’t need a college degree to do it. The worst outcome of braiding hair incorrectly is a tangled mess of hair. The only reason the state of Utah requires a cosmetology license to braid hair is because cosmetologists wanted to prevent new competitors from entering the market, and $16,000 in tuition is a pretty big barrier to entry.

The next time you heard some business owner telling the state, “Regulated me!” give him a one finger salute. He’s trying to use the state’s gun to prevent competitors from entering his market so he can charge more for his services. There is no altruism going on, he’s merely trying to enrich himself at your expense.