Month: May 2015

Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Imply Freedom from Criticism

The freedom of speech has received a lot of press lately. Between people stomping on American flags and religious bigots painting the entirety of Islam in bad colors a lot of people have been either defending freedom of speech or condemning it. What’s especially interesting to me though are the people who are labeling anybody who criticizes acts of free speech as opponents of free speech. It seems that many people have forgotten that the freedom of speech doesn’t imply freedom from criticism.

Case in point, Pamela Geller. Neocons and other bigots are holding her up as a paragon of free speech for her Islamophobic tirades. Anybody who calls Geller an asshole is accused of infringing on her freedom of speech. I think Geller is an asshole because she is blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few. With that said, I also believe she has every right to say what she’s saying. Why? Because I believe everybody has the right to say what they wish. But part of that right is that I am free to criticize anybody I disagree with for what they say.

Freedom of speech is a two-way street. If you are free to say something I disagree with then I am free to say that I disagree with you. Doing so doesn’t mean I’m infringing on your freedom of speech. Infringement would only occur if I used force to silence you. If somebody says, “All Muslims are evil.” and I respond by saying, “You’re an ignorant asshole.” I haven’t infringed the first person’s freedom of speech. However, if I were to pull a gun on the first person and say, “Shut your mouth or I’ll kill you!” then I have infringed on their freedom of speech.

What about flag stomping or burning? Is that an exercise of free speech? That depends entirely on whether or not the person who owns the flag is doing or has authorized such actions. Somebody purchasing a flag for the sole purpose of stomping or burning it is exercising their right as a property owner. When something belongs to me I have every right to do with it as I please. If somebody steals another person’s flag to stomp or burn then they are thieves. In my opinion free speech isn’t the important question in regards to flag desecration, ownership is. Threatening somebody who is stomping or burning their own flag is an infringement of property rights. You have every right to disagree with their choice in how they use their property but you have no right to use force to stop them unless their use is an initiation of force.

The line between criticism and infringement isn’t a fine one that is easily missed. So long as force isn’t on the table no infringement exists. This is true of free speech and property rights.

It’s the Man, Not the Machine

There are several well-known figures in the shooting community that, for the life of me, I can’t understand why they’re famous. One of those figures is Bob Owens. His advocacy of guilty until proven innocent leaves a bad taste in my mouth but when I read prime derp like this I’m left questioning is credentials:

In terms of mechanical design, there are few flaws with Glock pistols. If a law enforcement officer, soldier or citizen does exactly what they are supposed to do all of the time with cyborg certainty, there will be no problems with the Glock or other popular pistols mimicking its basic design. Unfortunately, “RoboCop” is only a movie, and humans are liable to make similar mistakes over and over again.

The underlying problem with these pistols is a short trigger pull and the lack of an external safety. In real-world encounters, a short trigger pull can be lethal, in part because a significant percentage of law enforcement officers — some experts say as high as 20% — put their finger on the trigger of their weapons when under stress. According to firearms trainers, most officers are completely unaware of their tendency to do this and have a hard time believing it, even when they’re shown video evidence from training exercises.

For more than 35 years, officer-involved accidental discharges with Glocks and Glock-like weapons have been blamed on a lack of training or negligence on the part of the individual cops. What critics should be addressing instead is the brutal reality that short trigger pulls and natural human reflexes are a deadly combination.

Here is another problem with Owens, he’s a cop apologist to a fault. In his world, as far as I can tell, police officers are seldom, if ever, at fault for their screw ups. But the reason people blame the lack of training for negligent discharges is because it is entirely due to a lack of training. Blaming the short trigger pull of a Glock pistol ignores the fact that an officer who fired negligently had their finger on the trigger before they were ready to shoot. There’s a reason that’s one of the four rules of firearms safety: so long as your finger isn’t on the trigger the gun will not fire.

Adding a manual safety won’t solve this problem because an officer will likely train to disengage that safety as they’re drawing their weapon. Longer trigger pulls don’t address the problem of the finger being on the trigger when the officer is not intending to shoot. So long as an officer’s finger lies on the trigger when they’re not planning to fire the chances of catastrophe are infinitely higher than they would be otherwise.

It’s no secret that police officers receive substandard training. Many officers only fire their gun during annual or biannual qualifiers. Some hit the range between qualifiers, which is good. But I think officers should also be participating in action pistol sports to get some semblance of handling their primary firearm under stress (granted, a sport isn’t as stressful as getting shot at but it at least familiarizes you with how you will operate a firearm under stress).

How to Create an Anarchist

I, like many people, suffer from allergies this time of the year. Of all the allergy medications I’ve taken the only one that has demonstrated any effectiveness is Zyrtec-D. When you’re feeling like death warmed over the last thing you want to do is go through the process of buying Zyrtec-D.

Zyrtec-D is one of those wonderful drugs that contains pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine, in addition to being effective medication, happens to be an ingredient used to make meth. Because the state is determined to fight the unwinnable drug war any medication containing pseudoephedrine is now locked behind the pharmacy counter. In order to buy it you must go up to the counter, which often involves standing in line for some time, and ask for it specifically. Before the pharmacist can give you the medication you must show your ID so it can be logged and sign a waiver that is nothing more than a threat to fine you $250,000 and/or lock you in a cage if you don’t use the medication in a state approved manner. After submitting yourself to that monkey dance you will get a box of 12 measly pills, which means you will have to repeat the entire process in 12 days unless your symptoms vanish. And before you get the crazy idea of heading to another pharmacy to get another box of allergy medication be warned that doing so is against the law. That’s why your ID was logged, after all.

I’m not that old but I still remember a time when I could just walk into the pharmacy, grab several boxes of Zyrtec-D, and be set for the entire allergy season. It was a good time when I wasn’t being punished for “crimes” (quotes used because making meth doesn’t have a victim and is therefore not actually a crime) committed by other people (gotta love the Freest Goddamn Country on Earth’s® collective punishment system).

This entire process really makes me consider buying meth, which is readily available, and converting it back to pseudoephedrine. That would be a lot easier than going through this monkey dance every 12 days.

Croatia Declares War on Liberland

That didn’t take long. Not even two weeks since Liberland declared independence the Croatian government has decided to declare war on the small country by kidnapping its president:

Croatian authorities could not be reached for comment to confirm the arrest of Vít Jedlička, a libertarian politician from the Czech Republic. A group calling itself the Liberland Press Association, which has spoken in the past for Jedlička, made the announcement in a statement emailed to FoxNews.com.

“The president of the self-proclaimed micro-nation of the Free Republic of Liberland, Vít Jedlička, has been arrested by Croatian police for illegally trespassing an international border,” read the statement. “The arrest may have taken place on no man’s land territory. This would raise issues on the Croatian-Serbian border and could start a new crisis in the Balkans.”

What was his crime? Occupying an unclaimed chunk of land apparently. I was kind of curious whether Serbia or Croatia would be the first country to declare war on the small nation. After all, the inhabitants of a 2.7 square-mile piece of unclaimed territory are quite the threat to established nations such as Serbia and Croatia. Perhaps Croatia was concerned its serfs would migrate to the small nation to enjoy the voluntary taxes.

Monday Metal: Pilli On Pajusta Tehty by Korpiklaani

Korpiklaani just released their new album, Noita. If you’re a fan of Korpiklaani’s previous works you’ll love the new album. If you found their previous albums to be lackluster I can’t help for your shitty taste in music. Pilli On Pajusta Tehty is my favorite song off of Noita so I’ve chosen is for this week’s Monday Metal. Enjoy:

By the way, Korpiklaani is going to be playing in Minneapolis at Mill City Nights on Sunday. They throw a great concert and I highly recommend going.

Record Any Police Interactions You Come Across

Many people believe that police departments have only recently become corrupt cesspools. Others believe police departments have always been violent cesspools but pervasive cameras have allowed individuals to raise awareness of the problem. Either way it’s apparently that recording police interactions is absolutely necessary. To this end many departments have started mandating officers to wear body cameras when on duty. Although this could be a nice step in the right direction the two major problems with body cameras is that the officer wearing them can turn them off (and claim it malfunctioned) and the recorded footage remains under the control of the department. Even if every officer in the country wears a body camera I will still advocate what I’m going to advocate in this post: everybody should record every police interaction they come across.

It doesn’t matter if the police are interacting with you or you just happen to come across police interacting with other individuals; if you see cops interacting with people pull out your camera phone and start recording because that’s the only way shit like this gets noticed:

A Minneapolis police officer has been relieved of duty while his department investigates a profanity-laced video in which he apparently threatens to break the legs of a suspect if he attempts to escape.

The March incident was recorded on a camera phone by one of the young men being arrested in south Minneapolis. In the video, the unidentified officer can be heard telling the suspect: “Plain and simple, if you [expletive] with me, I’m gonna break your legs before you get a chance to run.”

Had the young man not recorded the interaction this claim would be nothing more than his word against the officer’s and we know courts tend to side with officers in such cases. The officer may not receive any punishment for his threat of violence, since officers usually get off scot-free, but the public now knows how this officer chooses to interact with people and that can help them better defend themselves against him. Videos like this are also important to raise awareness of the violence inherent in modern policing. Unless there is public outrage the problem will never be fixed and there won’t be public outrage so long as the public can keep lying to itself about the nature of modern policing.

If you come across a police interaction or are being threatened by police yourself make sure you record everything.

Being a Bigot Can Pay Surprisingly Well

I’ve seen the name Pamela Geller pop up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. One side of the isle, mostly the jingoists, have been jerking themselves off to her because of her strong anti-Islam stance. The other side, because there are only every two sides to an issue in this country, see her as a bigoted bitch. Not surprisingly the former side has been trotting this woman around as a hero of free speech. But I think love of free speech isn’t a big motivator for her. In fact I’m not even sure if she really hates Muslims as much as she says she does. Why else would an individual be such a vicious person if not for heroism or exaggerated fear? Money. Lots of fucking money:

It was Geller’s second victory over the MTA, which in 2012 lost a battle to prevent ads in the subways that included the words, “Support Israel, defeat Jihad.”

The group was described in 2013 tax documents as a nonprofit “dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and individual rights under the law.” It listed contributions and grants that year of more than $958,000, compared with $157,855 the year before. Geller, its president, is paid about $200,000 a year, according to the group’s filings.

For $200,000 per year I could probably be convinced to say some pretty terrible shit (just kidding, my price is a bit higher). Geller’s organization, which carries the Orwellian name American Freedom Defense Initiative, seems to be raking in some decent cash. This also isn’t very surprising considering the number of people in this country who has Muslims. But it does make one wonder if the organization is full of true believers or just people who recognized that there are suckers who will throw their money at anybody who confirms their bigoted biases.

One of these days I might have to start an organization that panders to people’s unwarranted fears. Maybe I can help fund the construction of a bunch of mosques or something else that will send these jingoists into a tizzy.

The Future is Here

If there are any questions about my belief that technological advancements will save us before political actions this story should answer them:

Snuggly situated in an industrial section of Oakland, CA is Next Thing Co. a team of nine artists and engineers who are pursuing the dream of a lower cost single board computer. Today they’ve unveiled their progress on Kickstarter, offering a $9 development board called Chip.

The board is Open Hardware, runs a flavor of Debain Linux, and boasts a 1Ghz R8 ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of eMMC storage. It is more powerful than a Raspberry Pi B+ and equal to the BeagleBone Black in clock speed, RAM, and storage. Differentiating Chip from Beagle is its built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and the ease in which it can be made portable, thanks to circuitry that handles battery operation.

$9 for a computer with a 1Ghz process, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage? And it runs Linux? Sign me up! I never thought I’d live to see this day. My family’s first computer, and we came to the computer game fairly late, was a real piece of shit 3.11 machine and must have cost at least $2,000 or $3,000. Back then the idea that a computer would be available for $9 was inconceivable.

This is another example of the market providing real solutions to real problems. Is there any wonder why us market anarchists have more faith in it than politicians who seem incapable of identifying, let alone solving, real problems?

Agorism and Decentralized Power

One of the major news items this week was Elon Musk unveiling the Powerwall, a battery pack aimed at making renewable energy sources more useful. The idea isn’t a new one. People, especially those living in remote areas, have been making homemade energy storage mechanisms, usually out of car or marine batteries, charged by solar panels for some time now. What the Powerwall brings to the table is an affordable prepackaged solution that you can have professionally installed. Advocates of renewable energy have been cheering this announcement while detractors have been pointing out the return on investment:

But as of right now, the ROI still takes too long to reach break-even for people to view it as an economic benefit.

Why? Basically, it boils down to how much you pay per kWh put into the battery, which is then retrieved later. And if you don’t already have a big enough photovoltaic system to get off the grid, paying the estimated $0.30/kWh for electricity through the Powerwall may not make much sense. On average, grid prices for electricity in the US are about $0.12/kWh. Rooftop solar PV is estimated to reach grid parity in most places by 2016, but it’s not quite there yet.

The author of this statement makes a common economic mistake by assuming the only return one gains from an investment is monetary. Value is subjective and there are many advantages to a product such as the Powerwall other than saving money on the power bill. For agorists the biggest advantage may be decentralization.

Relying on a centralized power infrastructure has several downsides. First, if the complex centralized system goes down you have no power. This is becoming a bigger deal as we come to rely on our electrically powered appliances and devices more heavily. By having your own solar array and battery to storage energy for cloudy days and nights you can keep your gear running even if the centralized power grid goes down.

Second, and this is a big one for agorists, a centralized power system is more easy for a state to tax. One of the reasons states prefer big businesses over small ones is that they reduce the costs of enforcing a tax scheme. It’s easier for a state to keep tabs on a handful of large businesses than thousands of little ones. Since businesses act as tax collectors themselves by withholding payroll taxes for the state having a handful of large employers further reduces the state’s overhead. Power is the same. By having everybody hooked into a centralized system the state can collect power-related taxes easily by putting the power provider in charge of collecting. Even if the state declared a tax on power generated by personally owned solar panels it would be a nightmare to enforce. The more decentralized the power infrastructure is the more difficult it is for the state to use it as a tax collecting mechanism.

Third, and this is probably even more important for agorists, the state can more readily utilize a centralized power infrastructure to enforce its decrees. It’s possible for the state to utilized power usage to detect cannabis growers. With a centralized system it’s trivial to convince the power company to report large spikes in customer power usage by either offering a reward or through coercive means. Any prohibited activity that requires a large amount of power could be caught by monitoring the centralized power system. By relying on your own solar panels you can more readily conceal you power usage since you don’t have nosy power providers checking how much you’ve used every month.

By making solar power more accessible the Powerwall stands to be a good product for agorists because it allows one to further decouple themselves from the state. Because of that it stands to have a much quicker return on investment that most people are giving it credit for. I know the value of being able to further separate myself from the state is enormous, especially if the means of separating myself open up additional revenue sources that were otherwise too risky.

Self-Defense is Not Victim Blaming

I came across a link on my Facebook feed of a page showing pictures of women being photographed with the objects they carry to defend themselves. My first response was to note how poor the items pictured were for self-defense. But then I came across something:

She believes the objects they’re holding represent a “larger reality of victim blaming”.

[…]

“These loaded objects on key chains where trinkets should be really do portray how women are expected to always be on guard to protect themselves…when the rapists should not be raping,” she said.

Self-defense isn’t victim blaming, it’s simply being prepared for a potential life threatening situation. While I agree that rapists shouldn’t be raping the fact of the matter is the universe is a cruel place and only grants us the ability to control our own actions. That means we must prepare ourselves for situations created by other people. Rape isn’t the only scenario where one may have to defend themselves. Assaults, muggings, burglaries, attempted murders, and an extensive list of other violent crimes are all situations one can find themselves in that were created by somebody else. Having a means of self-defense is no different than keeping a first-aid kit in your vehicle. Life happens and sometimes it requires the application of bandages.

Victim blaming can only exist when there is a victim. Telling somebody to have a means of self-defense, not to walk down a dark alley alone on the bad side of town at night, wear a seat belt, and lock their doors at night are not instances of victim blaming because no victim exists. When victim blaming comes into play is after a crime has been perpetrated. If you tell a rape victim they were at fault for being raped because they didn’t carry a gun then you are victim blaming. The victim wasn’t at fault for the crime. Only the person who initiated the aggression holds any culpability.

Having a means of self-defense is an acknowledgement that bad people exist. It’s also an acknowledgement that you cannot control their actions but can take measures to increase your odds of resisting them. Victim blaming is the belief that a person is somehow responsible for somebody else choosing to attack them.