Month: June 2013

Why are Gun Control Advocates so Violent

Gun control advocates like to position themselves as peaceful individuals however they have a habit of advocating violence against those who disagree with them. Consider this op-ed written by an advocate of gun control:

Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad. The B.S. needs a serious gut check. We are not a tin pot banana republic where machine gun toting rebel groups storm the palace and depose the dictator.

I’m not sure when the National Rifle Association (NRA) advocated armed rebellion (I must have missed a mailing) but even if they did it’s not worthy of a firing squad. Being an anarchist I find the crime of treason to be bullshit in of itself but even those who recognize the state as a legitimate entity must also acknowledge that advocating armed rebellion, which the NRA hasn’t done as far as I know, is protected by the First Amendment. Unless the NRA was actually involved in an armed rebellion against the state they couldn’t be found guilty of treason.

Beyond advocating violence the author also invalidates his own argument. In the above paragraph he implies that armed rebellion is not the proper way to resolve disagreements with the duly elected government. However, in the previous paragraph he argues that might makes right:

And how does choosing a white, rich old man with an offensive degrading speech about the war of “Northern Aggression” as NRA president forward a sense of reasonableness? History lesson: It was an awful Civil War won decisively some 150 years ago. Over slavery. The Confederacy wanted to keep African-Americans in chains and President Lincoln didn’t.

Sure, there were states’ rights issues, but nullification, secession, and treason were settled at Appomattox Courthouse. Sure, Reconstruction left a bad taste. But, resurrecting these same things, the way South Carolina is as we speak, is to invite a return to the whole concept of a Union.

This man isn’t too bright if he thinks the Civil War was about slavery. If that were the case slavery would have been illegal in the Union but it wasn’t. In fact the Emancipation Proclamation would have only ended slavery in Confederate states that refused to rejoin the Union by January 1863. Slavery was one minor issue amongst a great many. What started the session movement that preceded the Civil War was the United States government’s continuous encroachments on the powers reserved for the individual states. In other words the Confederate states were sick of the federal government and decided to vote with their feet. They left the Union peacefully and formed a confederacy.

The Union wasn’t very happy with such open disobedience. Eventually the war broke out and the Union used violence to coerce the Confederate states to rejoin the Union even though the duly elected government of the Confederate states chose a different option. According to the author armed rebellion against a duly elected government is treason except when it’s not.

The closing of this op-ed is where the real content is. In three short paragraphs the author demonstrates just how much of an authoritarian blood thirsty psychopath he really is:

Normally, I am a peaceable man, but in this case, I am willing to answer the call to defend the country. From them.

To turn the song lyric they so love to quote back on them, “We’ll put a boot in your —, it’s the American way.”

Except it won’t be a boot. It’ll be an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles. Try treason on for size. See how that suits. And their assault arsenal and RPGs won’t do them any good.

According to the author he is normally a peaceable man except when people disagrees with his position on gun control. He’s all for murdering those people with guns. In fact he wants to suppress free speech so badly he’s willing to use weapons of war to kill anybody who expresses an opinion different from his own. Think about that for a minute. A man who opposes guns wants tanks, fighter jets, and Hellfire missiles used on people who have, according to his accusation, done nothing more than express an opinion that differs from his own. I’m starting to think that the author has a shrine to Pol Pot somewhere in his domicile.

Also, if the author doesn’t believe people with rifles can stand up to the American war machine he should read The Sling and the Stone by Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. The United States hasn’t fared well against poorly equipped opponents.

Where There’s a Will There’s a Way

One of the major criticisms of the United States healthcare system is the exorbitant costs associated with almost every medical procedure. Proponents of letting the free market solve healthcare problems often mistaken the United States healthcare system for a free market healthcare system. This mistaken belief leads them to defend the American healthcare system. When asked to justify the extremely high costs of healthcare in the United States these people often claim such costs are necessary to provide quality technology. These people forget to mention that cheaper alternatives are actively suppressed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whose high certification costs ensure cheaper alternatives never get approval. Thankfully this isn’t the case in every country. Even in a supposedly communist country such as China cheaper alternatives to expensive medical technology aren’t strictly prohibited:

When a devastating accident with a homemade fishing bomb destroyed both of Sun Jifa’s hands, the farmer from Jilin province in Northern China couldn’t afford the expensive prosthetics provided by the hospital. Faced with a family to take care of and rudimentary prostheses that made it impossible to do farm work, Sun began an eight-year quest to design and build his own bionic arms using whatever materials he had available. After a series of prototypes built from pulleys, wires, and scrap metal, Sun settled on a final design that proved so successful that amputees in neighboring towns have been clamoring to buy them. In this video from New Tang Dynasty Television, Sun reveals that he’s already sold 1,000 of the arms at around $490 US apiece, turning his personal catastrophe into a prosperous family business.

The primary reason healthcare costs so much in the United States is due to protectionism. Politically connected corporations are protected by small competitors through state-created barriers to entry such as FDA approval requirements. When such restrictions are absent small competitors can offer alternatives to expensive technologies.

Another Example of the State’s Priorities

Although I try to point out that the primary purpose of the police is to expropriate wealth from the general population people continue to think that their duty is to protect and serve. You may have heard that Stockholm is experiencing some difficulties as of late. The people are pissed and have decided to let their aggression show by rioting. During times of civil unrest you would expect the police to get into their armor and pull out their fancy tanks to protect the areas threatened by rioters. Instead the police of Stockholm have chosen a different strategy:

Since last Sunday, May 19, rioters have taken to the streets of Stockholm’s suburbs every night, torching cars, schools, stores, office buildings and residential complexes. Yesterday, a police station in Rågsved, a suburb four kilometers south of Stockholm, was attacked and set on fire.

But while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. ”Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,” Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.

[…]

Swedish parking laws, however, continue to be rigidly enforced despite the increasingly chaotic situation. Early Wednesday, while documenting the destruction after a night of rioting in the Stockholm suburb of Alby, a reporter from Fria Tider observed a parking enforcement officer writing a ticket for a burnt-out Ford.

The police won’t protect property threatened roaming rioters but they will issue parking tickets for vehicles that have been destroyed by rioters. Expropriation is the name of the state’s game.