Month: October 2012

Drones are Terrorizing Civilians, Not Fighting Terrorists

Just pretend that you’re surprised by this:

A new report on the secret U.S. drone war in Pakistan says the attacks have killed far more civilians than acknowledged, traumatized a nation and undermined international law. In “Living Under Drones,” researchers conclude the drone strikes “terrorize men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities.” The study concludes that most of the militants killed in the strikes have been low-level targets whose deaths have failed to make the United States any safer. Just 2 percent of drone attack victims are said to be top militant leaders.

Considering the fact that the current administration had to redefine the term “enemy combatant” to mean any military aged male in order to keep the number of civilian deaths being reported down I’m not at all surprised by this report. A terrorist is defined as “a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.” Considering this fact I think it’s far more apt to call the United States government a terrorist than the people they’re bombing.

The Presidential Debate

Yesterday the first presidential debate was held between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I would normally give you a summary of the debate and criticized basically everything that was said by both candidates but I didn’t watch it. Instead I did productive things that didn’t involve watching a person argue with a mirror. From what I gathered on my Facebook feed I made the right decision, nothing of substance appears to have been said (although I had some very intoxicated friends who were playing the presidential debate drinking game).

Anarchists Aren’t the Problem

When I discuss anarchism it’s inevitable that somebody will claim the lack of a state will inevitable lead to roving gangs of bandits preying on the weak. What people making such an argument have failed to address is how such a system is functionally different than what we live under today. Under today’s system we have a giant roving gang called the state preying on everybody who lives within its claimed territory. As Robert Higgs explained, anarchists aren’t the ones who have perpetuated history’s great atrocities:

Anarchists did not try to Carry Out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not Carry Out a Great Leap Forward that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children. In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

The systematic slaughter of so many people is very difficult without a state. To claim that states are the only thing standing between civilization and barbarism demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge regarding history. States have perpetrated great genocides throughout the world whereas stateless societies such as Medieval Iceland, Medieval Ireland [PDF], the American Old West [PDF], and Neutral Moresnet are notable for their relative peace.

The state isn’t what lies between civilization and barbarism, the state is barbarism.

Caring About the Presidential Election is a Sign of Apathy

I came across an excellent piece that explains why caring about the presidential election is actually a sign of apathy:

One of the most socially destructive traits is apathy. Without paying attention and being involved, one can not only fail to stop, but even perpetuate, the worst social ills imaginable.

That’s why I advocate staying as uninvested in the current presidential election as possible.

[…]

The political campaigns — which exist for the purpose of trying to “win” — give participants the feeling they are doing something. Meanwhile, this feeling of “doing something” fails to translate at all into anything remotely relevant to the causes they hold dear. After it’s all over, the activist is exhausted and unable to take on any action that has real effects on the community.

Of course, one must be first convinced that the two candidates are, in fact, “roughly indiscernible” and irrelevant to the causes one holds dear. But this should be the opinion of many who still plan on voting for either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. The former has alienated serious liberals with an atrocious civil liberties record, expansion of American military involvement and harsh prosecution of the drug war, among other issues. The latter has alienated serious conservatives with his endless politically convenient conversions, most notably in literally crafting the basis of the much-derided Affordable Care Act.

Even if there were serious differences between the two candidates, it’s very hard to overstate the ineffectiveness of voting. Given the huge number of people your vote is up against, the odds show it is literally more likely for you to die in a car accident on the way to the polling place than to cast a decisive vote in the presidential election. This is even more of an issue in a state like Oklahoma that currently has zero chance of even remotely resembling a “swing state.”

Voting is the easy way out. It’s a mechanism for individuals to feel like they’ve done something to enact change without actually having to do anything. Whether Obama wins or Romney wins is irrelevant, they’re more similar than different. On top of that, statistically speaking, your vote doesn’t count. The outcome of the election will be the same whether you go out and vote or stay home.

Change isn’t easy and casting a vote at the polling place on November 6th will not accomplish anything. The only way things will change is if public opinion changes and that can only happen when people realize how entirely corrupt and evil the state is. Unfortunately people will never come to this realization so long as they believe they have a say in how the state operates through the voting process.

Violent Gun Control Advocates

If there is one thing I hate it’s hypocrisy. Needless to say advocates of gun control often prove themselves to be hypocrites. They preach peace and claim their mission is to remove violence from our society. What they never stop to consider is the fact that their mission requires the threat and use of state violence to ban gun ownership. Desiring to use state violence to end violence isn’t the only example of anti-gunner hypocrisy, they also have a proud tradition of issuing threats against advocates of gun rights:

After I went through 16 of the steps to register a gun earlier this year, I had to endure the 10-day waiting period to “cool off.” During that time, I received a terrifying call one evening. The stranger, whose number was blocked, left a minute-long voicemail.

“I know everything about you,” said the caller in a high-pitched voice. “I’ve been watching you. Your every step. I’m coming for you Emily.” Also, “I’m a crazy mother f–er. This is not a game. This is not for some f–ing scary f–ing movie. This is real business.” Finally the caller ended with, “Don’t you think of going to the police.”

What’s more interesting is the reaction from police officers in Washington DC:

“You should know that this might be a threat of violence,” I said pointedly. “I’ve been writing a series of articles in the newspaper about getting a gun in D.C., and some people aren’t happy about it.” That was enough to get her to call a detective to the front desk to take me seriously.

“Detective Kim” (she said her last name was hard to remember) was very thorough and helped calm me down. She told me to call Verizon and ask for them to look up the blocked number. Then Detective Kim gave me a helpful lecture on keeping safe.

She recommended only going to public places, and if I think I’m being followed, go into a store with a video camera to get the person on tape. photo. She suggested notifying neighbors to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. She repeated several times that if I see or sense anything even slightly concerning, call 911.

Washington DC is a gun control advocate’s paradise. There is no method for denizen of that city to legally carry a firearm and simply owning a firearm is an extremely difficult proposition as Emily pointed out in her series of articles. When somebody does make a threat of violence the police can only offer false promises of protection and tell you to stay in public areas that are under surveillance (at least the police will have some evidence in your murder).

Gun control advocates claim they want less violence but offer no solution to people under the threat of violence. Their entire movement is based on the false premise that gun cause violence and that violence will disappear completely once guns have been removed from our society (apparently no violence occurred before the invention of firearms). In order to achieve their desired goals they’re willing to threaten violence against their opponents, apparently unaware of the irony of such statements.

The Serfs Aren’t Buying It

We’re being bombarded with advertisements telling us we need to register to vote. Somehow we’re supposed to believe that we have a choice in this election, that Romney is somehow different than Obama and vise versa. Thankfully the serfs aren’t buying it this time around:

The Democratic and Republican parties are struggling to engage new voters in this year’s presidential race, with an apparent deficit of enthusiasm suppressing the number of people who have registered to vote ahead of the 6 November election.

A Guardian survey of six of the most crucial swing states upon which the outcome of the presidential ballot is likely to depend has found that new voter registrations recorded between January and August this year are markedly down compared with the same period in 2008. The drop is particularly pronounced in several states for the Democrats – a likely indication that Barack Obama’s re-election team has been unable to match the exceptional levels of voter excitement generated by his candidacy four years ago.

The six states included in the Guardian survey – Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia – are all being bitterly fought over by Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney.

The state is desperate to get people out voting. Why? Because participating in the political process through voting makes people think they have skin in the game. Voters usually believe they are part of the state and thus are responsible for where the state goes. Fiscal conservatives will blame the voting public when the state continues to spend and spend, anti-war activists will blame the voting public when the wars continue to wage on, and advocates of gay marriage will blame the voting public when gay marriages continue to be illegal. The state gets to continue its reign so long as popular opinion allows it and popular opinion will continue to allow it so long as the people believe they are responsible for the ills of the state.

It’s reassuring to see that fewer people are buying into the bullshit of democracy.

Not an Entirely Bad Thing

I seems the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are unable to detect loaded firearms:

After reports of two loaded guns making it past airport screeners and on to passenger flights this week, one congressman says “hundreds” of prohibited items get past screeners every day, a situation he calls “intolerable.”

In one of the incidents last week, Transportation Security Administration screeners allowed a New Orleans Hornets executive to board a plane from New Orleans to Newark, N.J., with a loaded handgun in his baggage.

[…]

Just one day earlier in Orlando, TSA officers missed another loaded gun. This time, a firefighter had mistakenly left the gun in her purse and carried it right through security screening and on to her plane. The firefighter realized on her own what had happened and alerted authorities.

This isn’t an entirely bad things mind you. If would be hijackers knew that travelers could be armed they would probably be less inclined to make an attempt to take the plane. Unfortunately this news is being treated almost exclusively as a bad thing because people who lack imaginations don’t see the upside of armed travelers.

The Dangers of Leasing Equipment

Leading equipment can be a dangerous proposition, especially when you’re doing something controversial with it:

Cody Wilson planned in the coming weeks to make and test a 3-D printed pistol. Now those plans have been put on hold as desktop-manufacturing company Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer rented out for Wiki Weapon, the internet project lead by Wilson and dedicated to sharing open-source blueprints for 3-D printed guns. Stratasys even sent a team to seize the printer from Wilson’s home.

“They came for it straight up,” Cody Wilson, director of Defense Distributed, the online collective that oversees the Wiki project, tells Danger Room. “I didn’t even have it out of the box.” Wilson, who is a second-year law student at the University of Texas at Austin, had leased the printer earlier in September after his group raised $20,000 online. As well as using the funds to build a pistol, the Wiki Weapon project aimed to eventually provide a platform for anyone to share 3-D weapons schematics online. Eventually, the group hoped, anyone could download the open source blueprints and build weapons at home.

Stratasys is simply trying to delay the inevitable. Gun control is impossible because guns are mechanically simple devices that can be manufactured with little in the way of tooling. 3D printers could revolutionize the speed in which an individual can manufacture their own firearm but some companies are scrambling to put the genie back in the bottle.

If we’re going to make firearms with 3D printers we must relay on printers that are owned outright. If we rely on leased equipment we’ll face the equipment owners pulling the lease after a minimal amount of pressure from gun control advocates.

Losing Count

I guess when you’re killing so many people it’s easy to lose count:

Government officials claim they’re ultra-precise killing machines that never, ever miss their targets. Outside groups say they’re covered in children’s blood. The fact is no one has a clue exactly how many militants and how many innocents have been slain in the U.S. drone war that spans from Pakistan to Somalia. Remember that before you start your next Twitter feud about the drone war.

Neither the American government nor the independent agencies have the consistent presence on the ground needed to put together true assessments of the damage drone strikes do. Most of the evidence is third-hand, whispered from a local soldier to a far-off reporter. The death toll claims, which vary wildly, are all educated guesswork.

This isn’t surprising when you consider the way drones are used. Drones fly over a target area, launch a missile into the area, and buzz off hoping the mission was accomplished. The United States government doesn’t care how many innocent people are killed in the missile blast nor do they have a method of actually determining such a number. In their eyes the people killed by those missiles aren’t actually people, they’re merely foreigners who are potentially associated with somebody who may dislike America.

The ramifications of drone usage should scare everybody. Many of the people killed by drone fired missiles are only guilty of being near somebody who hasn’t been proven in a court of law to have done anything wrong. It’s not even guilty by association because the people within the blast radius could have merely been passing through the area. How can a government that finds it acceptable to murder innocent bystanders be considered legitimate?