Month: November 2012

Dissuading the Liberty Movement from Participating in the Republican Party

This year’s presidential election demonstrated that the Republican Party has no interest in fighting for liberty. From the very beginning the Republican Party barred Gary Johnson from participating in the Republican Presidential Debates. During the presidential nomination process the Republican Party worked hard to prevent delegates for Ron Paul from making it to the Republican National Convention (RNC). At the RNC the Republican Party actually cheated to ensure Romney received the nomination even though there was no need for such shenanigans since Romney had a majority of delegates.

In what is likely a response to the liberty movement’s hijacking of the Minnesota Republican Party Ben Golnik is looking to reform the state party’s nomination process. His reason? Ron Paul delegates were able to use the current system to their advantage:

With the complicated process, a well-organized minority can defeat a poorly organized majority. At the Republican caucuses in February 2012, Ron Paul received about one-quarter of the votes cast. At the Republican state convention a few months later, Paul supporters represented more than half of the delegates. Bills, a teacher and first-term state representative, was selected by the ardent Paul supporters as the U.S. Senate candidate.

As Republicans look to run serious challengers to Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken in 2014, strong candidates must be recruited — from both inside the existing structure and from outside. Prospective candidates should skip the endorsement process and run in a primary, rather than focusing solely on the endorsement process. Credible candidates must be able to demonstrate an ability to raise money and communicate a message to a broader audience than 2,000 Republican delegates.

The rules put into place by the Republican Party failed to prevent the liberty movement from interfering with the party’s statist agenda. Impromptu rule changes were successful at preventing liberty advocates form gaining too much influence in the nation Republican Party. Now the party bigwigs are looking to change the rules to ensure impromptu rule changes won’t be necessary during the next election. The establishment now recognizes the dangers of the delegate system. It allows a crafty and motivated group of individuals to gain influence. A straight primary system is harder to influence as the candidate with the most money and influence in the Republican Party has a much better chance of winning.

Once again I reiterate that advancing liberty through the political system is hopeless. Third parties are prevented from gaining influence and the two major parties have the exact same agenda: maintain the powerful federal state. Since the two major political parties control everything from federal campaign funds to presidential debates there is no hope for third parties to gain a foothold. Likewise since both major parties have the same agenda there is no hope in achieving liberty through either of them. Using the political system requires that the current establishment play by a consistent set of rules but the current establishment has demonstrated to willingness to change the rules whenever it suits them.

The State Reduces the Cost of Committing Violent Acts

After hurricane Katrina the number of thefts skyrocketed. Individuals scrambled to defend themselves and their property from roving bands of looters. Likewise after hurricane Sandy struck the Eastern seaboard looting in affected areas skyrocketed. Once again individuals found themselves scrambling to defend themselves and their property. What isn’t mentioned by most people is that the state lowered the cost of committing violent acts such as looting.

In the aftermath of Katrina the National Guard actually confiscated firearms from individuals. Likewise many of the states heavily affected by Sandy, including New York and New Jersey, have very stringent gun control laws on the books. In both cases looters could be reasonably sure that their victims were unable or poorly able to defend themselves.

Whenever the state moves to make self-defense more difficult, either through confiscating weapons or implementing laws that make legal self-defense difficult, it reduces the cost of performing violence. Robert Heinlein wrote, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” in his novel Beyond the Horizon. It’s true, an armed society is a polite society. Criminals, like everybody else, perform actions as a means to achieve ends. In the case of a thief their ends are to obtain property. They may want the property for personal use or to exchange it for something else. Either way they have determined that taking the desired property from another is a better method than exchanging voluntarily for it. This brings us back to cost-benefit analysis.

The cost of robbing an armed individual is higher than the cost of robbing an unarmed individual. An armed individual may resist the robbery attempt with a great deal of violence whereas an unarmed individual will only have access to the violence they can produce with their bare hands. Therefore a criminal faces far greater bodily harm, and even loss of life, when they rob an armed individual but likely face little risk of bodily harm or death, especially if they themselves are armed, when robbing an unarmed individual. The cost of robbing an armed individual is relatively high compared to the cost of robbing an unarmed individual.

By disarming individuals or severely restricting the ability of individuals to arm themselves the state reduces the cost of committing violent acts. Laughably they usually justify disarming individuals under the guise of protecting individuals. Gun control is usually justified to the public by claiming it will prevent violent individuals from obtaining firearms. Ironically gun control laws actually increase the likelihood of violent crimes by reducing the cost of initiating violence. I would argue that allowing everybody to remain armed, even individuals with a history of violence, would be far safer than preventing anybody from being armed. Why reduce the cost of performing violent acts? Perhaps a great number of violent criminals would have been dissuaded from committing their violent crimes had they faced the likely threat of bodily harm or death.

The state’s reduction of the cost of violence doesn’t stop at disarming individuals or passing laws that make self-defense more difficult. Through its monopoly on violence the state reduces the cost of violence for individuals in its employ. Consider the man who is facing the death penalty for defending himself against police officers. Why are officers so willing to perform no knock raids? Because the state has granted them special legal protection from consequences caused by unannounced raids. Individuals inside a targeted home face potential death if they defend themselves from police officers whereas police officers seldom face any consequences for harming a homeowner. If somebody wants to commit a violent act they simply need to join the state’s employ; receive an official costume, badge, and gun; and enforce the state’s decrees. So long as your perform violence in the name of the state the cost is relatively low.

People often ponder about the cause of high violent crime rates in the United States. One of the causes is that initiating violence is relatively cheap. Combining a generally disarmed populace with legal methods for psychopaths to perform violent acts nets you a lot of violence. The state protecting us from violent individuals is a farce. We’re subjected to more violence because of the state.

EDIT: 2012-11-14 14:40: General spelling and grammatical fixes. Thanks to Steven for pointing them out.

The Border Patrol, Arming Mexican Drug Cartels So You Don’t Have To

There has to be some amount of irony in the fact that the United States government won’t allow persons it labels as prohibited persons to own firearms but gladly gives such weapons to members of drug cartels that qualify as prohibited persons. Testimony by a Mexican drug cartel assassin indicates that the United States Border Patrol has been arming members of Mexico’s drug cartels:

The testimony of a Mexican hitman turned government witness has revealed some astonishing details of life inside Mexico’s criminal underworld. Most astonishing of all: claims that cartel assassins obtained guns from the U.S. Border Patrol.

According to Mexican magazine Revista Contralinea, the testimony comes from a protected government witness and former hitman, who cooperated in the prosecution of a Sinaloa Cartel accountant by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. The testimony details a series of battles fought by a group of cartel members attempting to drive out rival gangsters from territory in Mexico’s desert west. To do it, the group sought weapons from the U.S., including at least 30 WASR-10 rifles — a variant of the AK-47 — allegedly acquired from Border Patrol agents.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anybody that’s been following Fast and Furious. Evidence has shown that the United States government has been arming favored Mexican drug cartels so they can fight other drug cartels. The United States government has made alliances with those is claims to fight in order to fight others it claims to fight. Having the Border Patrol arm cartel assassins seems like the next logical step to that operation.

It’s sad how the United States government says people living here who have been convicted for drug use and selling drugs aren’t eligible to own firearms but people living in Mexico who have done the same thing and commit acts of murder are eligible to own firearms. In fact the latter has firearms supplied to them by the United States government.

I will also raise the following question: how can an organization that supplies guns to known murders be trusted to enforce any form of gun control? Aren’t gun control advocates also demanding that violent criminals be disarmed? Why do they trust the same organization that’s arming violent criminals with implementing laws regarding guns?

You Don’t Need Permission to Secede

After the election people have been petitioning the Obama administration to allow their respective individual state to secede from the union:

More than 100,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to allow their states to secede from the US, after President Barack Obama’s re-election.

The appeals were filed on the White House’s We the People website.

Most of the 20 states with petitions voted for Republican Mitt Romney.

I think the people filing petitions have little understanding of secession and statism. Secession is not something you need permission for, you can secede from anything at any time you desire. You may be violently punished for seceding but it is still your right as a free human being to decide you no longer wish to association with an organization. That brings is to our second issue, statism. States exist from expropriating wealth from others. Each individual state expropriates wealth from the people living within its borders and the federal government expropriates wealth both from individuals living within its borders and the individual states that makeup the Union. Because of this petitioning the federal government to allow your individual state and, by association, yourself to secede is pointless. The federal government isn’t going to allow such a thing to happen because you and your individual state are sources of revenue for itself.

Wars aren’t cheap and the federal government is waging plenty of them. The United States military is dropping bombs that costs thousands of dollars from drones that cost millions of dollars. Fighter jets and bombers that cost millions of dollars are launched from aircraft carriers that cost billions of dollars. There’s no way the federal government is going to voluntarily allow a source of its revenue to leave. In fact the last time states and individuals tried to leave the Union the federal government used a great deal of violence to prevent them.

Secession is the right of every individual. Individual states should be allowed to secede from the federal government, counties should be allowed to secede from individual states, towns should be allowed to secede from counties, and people should be allowed to seceded from towns. Unfortunately each of the mentioned state entities will use violence to prevent secession because it goes against their interests.

People Take Politics too Seriously

Politics is a joke, and not a very funny one at that. Yet people take it very seriously. I had several people defriend me on Facebook (Whatever shall I do?) when the election was heating up because I was viciously ridiculing their candidates. People got to the point of screaming at me because I expressed distain for their candidates. There were even a couple of instances where I thought somebody was going to resort to physical violence because of what I said about their candidates. Matt Tanous brought yet another example to my attention of people taking politics too seriously:

Holly apparently believed that Daniel’s failure to exercise his right to vote had caused President Barack Obama to win re-election, and thought that a second Obama term would be bad for their family, according to local news sources.

Witnesses said Holly chased Daniel in her Jeep while he was on foot, all the while yelling at him.

“Daniel reportedly took refuge behind a light pole while Holly drove around the pole several times while continuing to yell at him,” the ABC affiliate reported.

Holly then struck her husband with the SUV, pinning him between the car and the light pole.

How ironic. Holly claims that Obama’s reelection will be bad for their family so she attacks her husband, who is a family member. I guess hypothetical threats to her family are more worrisome than direct acts of violence against her family.

Considering Romney received 902,831 votes in Arizona and Obama only received 713,858 votes I think it’s pretty hard to claim Obama’s victory was caused by Daniel not voting. His state went to Romney by a notable margin, his vote wouldn’t have changed anything.

Creating Fear to Justify Law Enforcement

Consider law enforcement agents for a moment. What is their primary task? Most people would say protecting the public is the primary task of law enforcement but the truth lies in their name: law enforcement. The primary job of law enforcement officers is to enforce the state’s laws. Some of these laws revolve around activities that harm others such as rape, murder, and assault. Most of these laws revolve around activities that don’t harm others such as smoking marijuana, tax evasion, and producing distilled spirits. What the latter category of laws create is a revenue source for the state. Being caught smoking marijuana often involves fines. Evading taxes deprives the state from its stolen goods. Distilled liquors are heavily taxes so producing your own, even for personal consumption, stands to deprive the state of more stolen goods. Effectively law enforcement agents are gloried tax collectors.

Why do law enforcement agents ever protect anybody? It’s not because they’re required to. They offer minor protection because it’s the only way people will put up with them. Think about it. Would you put up with a gang of thugs roving your neighborhood and forcefully taking money from individuals that partook in activities that the gang didn’t approve of? Most people would not and without the support of public opinion the state would be unable to inflict its tax collectors on society. On the other hand people like to be safe so selling them protection is fairly easy. Instead of claiming law enforcement agents exist to expropriate wealth from the people the state sells them as protection officers.

What are they protecting people from? They are primarily protecting people from imaginary threats. The state is very good at making up threats or exaggerating threats. One example of these made up threats is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) numerous arrests of agency-created terrorists. Even though the threat of terrorism in this country is very low the state spends a great deal of time propagandizing the populace into believing terrorism is a common threat. Another interesting example of a state-create threat is hitchhiking:

Before the Second World War, it was a common practice for people in all walks of life. Hollywood films often had cute hitchhiking scenes like the one in “It Happened One Night,” where Claudette Colbert flashes a leg to get a ride. Magazines like Sports Illustrated declared it fun to thumb a ride and, during the war, picking up soldiers was nothing less than a patriotic duty. Even the etiquette doyenne Emily Post gave hitching a green light in the 1940s, offering tips on how to keep the conversation light and impersonal.

But it was the ’60s and ’70s counterculture that embraced hitching as an anti-consumerist, pro-environment celebration of human interdependence. Students were hitchhiking to antiwar demonstrations. Civil rights advocates thumbed rides to register voters in the South. The American automotive industry, by then, had gone into overdrive: there were more cars than ever on the road. Yet an entire generation of young people, it seemed, was on the move without buying them.

This, apparently, irked local police officials, as well as the F.B.I. First, in the late 1950s, the F.B.I. began warning American motorists that hitchhikers might be criminals. A typical F.B.I. poster showed a well-dressed yet menacing hitchhiker under the title “Death in Disguise?”

Demonizing hitchhikers was likely a precursor to stranger danger, another very minor risk exaggerated by the state. Most people naturally fear the unknown and therefore it’s easy for the state to exploit this fear in order to justify its own existence. Hitchhiking, ultimately, can be viewed as a form of mutual aid. Those unable to afford automobiles can cooperate with those who can afford automobiles. High school and college students are well aware of the fact some people can’t afford automobiles. To get around this lack of automobiles many students offer to exchange something; be it gas money, alcohol, or food; for transportation. Through the miracle of cooperation students with automobiles and students without automobiles can come together and benefit one another. Hitchhiking is similar but introduces the risk of unknown persons.

It’s the risk of the unknown that the state exaggerates in order to create fear in the populace. We’re told by law enforcement agents that hitchhikers are dangerous individuals who usually have murder in their hearts. According to the state hitchhikers aren’t looking for a ride, they’re looking for somebody to rape, murder, or torture. By exploiting this threat the state is able to create fear and offer a solution to alleviate that fear, law enforcement. While a majority of law enforcement activities revolve around issuing traffic tickets and enforcing other finable offenses, the people welcome the presences of officers because it alleviates their fear of the unknown.

Fear is one of the state’s most powerful weapons. Because of this they constantly create new fears and then claim they are the sole protection from that fear. We’re constantly told about the dangers of terrorism, strangers, poisonous products, diseased food, greedy capitalists, and other assorted boogeymen. The state then offers to protect us from these dangers, an offer most people gladly accept. Sadly most people can’t see through the propaganda and are doomed to submit to the state’s tyranny for their entire lives.

Consider this thought exercise. Have you ever been the victim of non-state terrorism, assault, or theft? For those of you who have how many times have you been the victims of such crimes? Now, how many of you have been the victims of a speeding ticket, parking ticker, or a tax audit? For those of you who have how many times have you been the victims of such crimes? In all likelihood more people of members of the latter group or, perhaps, both groups. What is more dangerous then? Threats exaggerated by the state or the state itself?

Buying Debt Just to Forgive It

I feel almost alone in the realm of libertarian bloggers who doesn’t despise everything the Occupy movement does. Many participants in Occupy are hardcore socialists but even hardcore socialists come up with good ideas. One of the ideas recently spawned from the Occupy movement is the Rolling Jubilee project, which is looking to buy up debt just to forgive it:

The Rolling Jubilee project is seeking donations to help it buy-up distressed debts, including student loans and outstanding medical bills, and then wipe the slate clean by writing them off.

Individuals or companies can buy distressed debt from lenders at knock-down prices if it the borrower is in default or behind with payments and are then free to do with it as they see fit, including cancelling it free of charge.

As a test run the group spent $500 on distressed debt, buying $14,000 worth of outstanding loans and pardoning the debtors. They are now looking to expand their experiment nationwide and are asking people to donate money to the cause.

I really like this project because it stands to erase much of the debt currently facing individuals voluntarily. No funds from tax victims is required, no money has to be printed, and no coercion has to be used. Instead individuals can voluntarily donate money to the cause of helping people currently facing crushing debt.

Another interesting potential of this project is the creation of a market for distressed debt relief. One of my friends mentioned that this project could cause the price of distressed debt to increase as demand by the Rolling Jubilee project increased. If that happened the project would effectively be self-defeating because it would raise the cost of buying distressed debt higher than its donors could afford. I see another potential outcome, it could decrease the cost of distressed debt. As a general rule a creditor would rather receive something from one of their debitors than nothing. Losing $90,000 is better than losing $100,000 after all. Because of this it’s possible that creditors could enter a bidding war with one another for Rolling Jubilee’s money. Creditors could try to undercut one another in the hopes that the Rolling Jubilee project will buy their debt. Instead of getting nothing from their debitors creditors could get a portion of what they loaned.

It’ll be interesting to watch if this project gets off of the ground.

How Laws Against Price Gouging are Causing Gasoline Shortages

After hurricane Sandy caused immense damage to the Eastern United States government officials moved in to prosecute price gougers. Anybody caught charing higher prices for goods faced prosecution and punishment by the state. What did this prohibition against raising prices lead to? Shortages. Many desperately needed goods, including gasoline, have been in short order. These shortages could have been avoided though if sellers were allowed to adjust their prices to match supply and demand:

Had gas stations been allowed to raise their prices to reflect the increased demand for gasoline, only those most in need of gasoline would have purchased gas, while everyone would have economized on their existing supply. But because prices remained lower than they should have been, no one sought to conserve gas. Low prices signaled that gas was in abundant supply, while reality was exactly the opposite, and only those fortunate enough to be at the front of gas lines were able to purchase gas before it sold out. Not surprisingly, a thriving black market developed, with gas offered for up to $20 per gallon.

Thank the gods for the “black” market for without it there would be no gasoline anywhere. The need for a “black” markt wouldn’t exist if the state didn’t prevent sellers from raising their prices to match the increase in demand. Furthermore the price of gasoline would likely be lower than it is now because “black” market entrepreneurs increase their prices partially in response to the risk they face. Anybody selling goods on a “black” market must make enough profit to outweigh the risks of being caught and punished by the state. Additional risk tends to transform into additional costs for consumers.

When the state implements prohibitions against raising prices they cause shortages.

Man Facing the Death Penalty for Defending Himself from State Agents

If you were woken from your sleep early in the morning by the sound of people breaking into your home what would you do? I’m guessing that most readers of this site would arm themselves and prepare to defend their lives. It’s a logical response as home invaders are rarely interested in helping you. Unfortunately the police have resorted to the criminal activity of breaking and entering to enforce their employer’s erroneous drug prohibition, and this has put both officers and homeowners in danger. What makes this worse is that defending yourself from possible burglars is illegal if those burglars are police officers:

Four officers wounded in a Utah drug raid described a chaotic scene of gunfire, bodies and blood Thursday as they presented testimony against the Ogden man accused in the shootings.

Matthew David Stewart, 38, could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder in the January shootout that killed one officer and wounded five others at his Ogden home.

[…]

Stewart insisted a day after the raid that he didn’t hear agents identify themselves and that he believed he was going to be robbed and killed when “a bunch of guys” broke his door open, an investigator for the prosecutor’s office testified Thursday. The hearings have focused heavily on how agents say they shouted out police commands.

Stewart was just waking up for a nightshift at Walmart and “felt like he was being invaded,” said Robert Carpenter, the investigator for the Weber County attorney’s office who recorded the interview at Stewart’s hospital bed.

Stewart said he pointed a 9 mm Beretta from his bedroom into a hallway but maintains police fired first.

Stewart’s testimony sounds all too familiar. No-knock raids, raids where police officers don’t identify themselves before storming in, have become more popular for drug enforcement operations. The police claim that no-knock raids are needed for officer safety as they don’t give potential drug deals time to dig in and defend themselves. What the police fail to acknowledge is the possibility of a homeowner defending themselves against unknown assailants, which puts officers in danger when they are the assailants.

The state protects its own. Even when police officers give homeowners every reason to believe they are being attacked by non-state thugs, and thus have grounds of legal self-defense, the state prosecutes the homeowners. Apparently homeowners are supposed to be telepathic and know that the people kicking down their doors in the middle of the night are police officers and not non-state thugs.

Using the State to Stifle Competition

How do you know a company has a good idea? Currently established companies in that market initiate lawsuits:

Friday’s news is less flattering: A judge in New York will take up a lawsuit against the company about how Tesla sells its cars.

[…]

This isn’t a typical sale for Tesla Motors, but according to car dealers in Massachusetts, if it had happened there, it would have been illegal.

The issue is that Tesla sold the car through its own store, instead of through a local dealership.

Robert O’Koniewski, the executive vice president of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, is suing Tesla for opening a store in a local mall.

In Massachusetts, franchise law 93B prohibits a manufacturer from owning a dealership, O’Koniewski says. An auto dealer association in New York is also suing Tesla.

Tesla, the company that produces one of the few electric cars that doesn’t suck, has managed to get its foot in the door of the automobile market. Needless to say currently established automotive companies and their partners are moving quickly to stop Tesla through the most commonly used method, the state’s gun. This shouldn’t be surprising considering the failures experienced by the currently established automotive companies in the field of electric cars. If a company can’t competed against a new competitor they can always bleed the them dry through the court system.

This is one of the problems with the legal system in the United States. Due to the complexity of the system specialized knowledge is required in order to prosecute somebody or defend yourself. Specialized knowledge, as a general rule, is expensive and therefore being involved in a lawsuit can quickly bleed and individual or small company dry. Larger established companies on the other hand usually have enough reserve capital to continue a lawsuit for however long is necessary to bankrupt their new competitors. I won’t be surprised if Tesla continues to face new lawsuits from individuals and companies involved with established automobile manufactures.