Month: April 2017

Just Like Government Police Departments

One of the funniest forms of criticism, in my opinion, is claiming that a new entity will be able to do the same thing a current entity is doing. For example, Alabama just voted to allow churches to establish their own police departments. My favorite part about this isn’t the idea of churches with inquisitors police departments though, it’s this:

Critics of the bill argue that a police department that reports to church officials could be used to cover up crimes.

Oh no! Church police departments may be able to do the exact same thing government police departments already do on a daily basis?!

These critics may want to think really hard about what they’re saying. They may come to an interesting revelation.

Degrees of Separation from Hitler

One form of propaganda I’m getting tired of is character assassination. Whenever somebody runs afoul with police officers the tough on crime folks and the media begin performing a thorough background check. Their goal is to find something, anything, that can be used to justify the actions of the police officers.

David Dao, who was roughed up by airport police on behest of United Airlines, is now in the media’s crosshairs and, not surprisingly, they found some dirt on him:

Dao was trying to regain his medical license when he worked at the practice from August 2015 to August 2016, Nadeau said. Dao had surrendered his medical license in February 2005 after being convicted of drug-related offenses, according to documents filed with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure last June. Broadcast and print coverage of Dao’s arrest, conviction and sentencing made his name familiar to some Kentuckians.

What?! Mr. Dao was convicted of a drug-related offense 12 years ago? Well that changes everything! He totally had that beating on United coming!

The absurdity of this practice is difficult to overstate. What does something that happened 12 years ago have to do with the beating Mr. Dao received last weekend? Nothing. But it gives the tough on crime people and propagandists something to latch onto to justify their view of officer infallibility.

And this practice becomes more absurd every year. At one point stories might be run if a victim of police brutality had a history of violence. Then stories might be run if a victim had a history of drug use. Now stories are run when somebody was convicted of a crime over a decade ago. At this rate it’s only a matter of time until the media starts playing Degrees of Separation from Hitler.

“Up next, on CNN, we present a chilling story. Our researchers have discovered that the unarmed man who was gunned down by police after he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car only had 37 degrees of separation from Adolf Hitler!” Mark my words, we’re going to start seeing stories like this (although, perhaps, not exactly this) run when people have been brutalized by police officers.

More Corruption at the ATF

Here we go again, another story of corruption at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)! This time the agency that likes to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels was caught using an off the books bank account for some rather luxurious expenditures:

WASHINGTON — Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used a secret, off-the-books bank account to rent a $21,000 suite at a Nascar race, take a trip to Las Vegas and donate money to the school of one of the agent’s children, according to records and interviews.

Agents also used the account to finance undercover operations around the country, despite laws prohibiting government officials from using private money to supplement their budgets, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the account.

Before you make the mistake of assuming that those expenses were related to an investigation:

Other expenses, such as renting a 16-person suite at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, had no obvious connection to law enforcement operations. A.T.F. agents, along with some community members, used the suite in 2012 for the Irwin Tools Night Race, a Nascar event, according to two people who worked closely with the bureau at the time. A receipt obtained by The Times shows the suite cost $21,000.

Agents also donated money from the account, according to documents and interviews, including thousands of dollars to the high school and volleyball team of the daughter of an A.T.F. agent in Bristol. The agent, Thomas Lesnak, is now retired and did not respond to messages seeking comment. He has previously dismissed suggestions that anything was done improperly.

It’s good to be the king’s men and family of the king’s men!

Although every government agency is corrupt, the ATF seems to excel at corruption. There doesn’t seem to be a year that goes by where the agency isn’t caught in some kind of major scandal. The story notes that this latest incident shows the lack of ATF oversight but this is really a minor offense when it comes to the shenanigans of the agency. And if arming Mexican drug cartels didn’t result in more agency oversight this certainly won’t.

What this story really illustrates is how ineffective it is to give an organization a monopoly on holding itself accountable. The government maintains such a monopoly. The consequences of this have become obvious. When an agency is caught doing something corrupt no punishment, or at least no noteworthy punishment, is dispensed. Usually a hearing happens before Congress. During the hearing some members of Congress pretend that they’re shocked to find corruption within the agency in question. The hearing will be followed by a few days of government officials appearing on news channels berating the corrupt agency. Then, after the week’s news cycle is over, the entire matter vanishes from the headlines and people’s memories.

Human Rights Violations and War Crimes

The United States spent tens of millions of dollars on Tomahawk missiles so it could totally fail at destroying a Syrian airport. Supposedly the operation was done in retaliation for the Syrian government using chemical weapons on rebel fighters. You see, under no circumstance will the United States tolerate human rights violations and war crimes! The might of the United States military will be brought to bear against anybody who crosses such a line!

Unless, of course, the human rights violations and war crimes are occurring in a country the United States has no vested interest in:

More than 100 gay men have been detained in concentration camp-style prisons in the Russian region of Chechnya, according to reports by local newspapers and human rights organisations.

The arrests are being made as part of a widespread anti-LGBT purge in the area. The prison camps are the first to be established for LGBT people since the Second World War.

It’s difficult to claim the moral high ground when it’s obvious your morality is based entirely on your interests. People start to think you’re not sincere when you selectively invoke your morality as justification for your actions.

But morality to a government is nothing more than propaganda. It’s pulled out and cited when it’s convenient to forward one of the government’s causes but then buried again once it has served that purpose. When you see a government cite moral grounds for actions know that you’re being propagandized. The actions aren’t being done for moral reasons, the actions were being done for entirely selfish reasons and morality just happened to be a convenient excuse that sounded far better than greed.

You Better Bring Cash

One of the reasons healthcare in the United States costs so much is because dealing with health insurance companies is a hassle. The cost of dealing with insurance companies gets pushed onto the consumer. Fortunately, some doctors are starting to see the light and moving towards doing business in cash:

In March, Business Insider reported on a new movement happening with primary care doctors. It’s called direct primary care, and it works like this: Instead of accepting insurance for routine visits and drugs, these practices charge a monthly membership fee that covers most of what the average patient needs, including visits and drugs at much lower prices.

It’s happening at a time when high-deductible health plans are on the rise — a survey in September found that 51% of workers had a plan that required them to pay up to $1,000 out of pocket for healthcare until insurance picks up most of the rest.

And it’s not just happening in primary care. A number of specialists — oncologists, physical therapists, and even some hospitals — are jumping on board as well.

As government entangles itself more in the health insurance market the costs will continue to increase. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many people are already at the point where they can’t afford health insurance. I hope the continuously increasing cost of insurance will cause this slow trend of cash-only doctors to take off like a rocket. The more the medical industry divorces itself from the State the more healthcare quality will increase and costs will decrease.

Fly the Extremely Hostile Skies

When you buy a plane ticket you’re renting a seat aboard a particular flight from one airport to another, right? Wrong. You’re buying a chance to use a seat aboard a flight, not a guarantee. Buying a planet ticket is like playing a lottery, albeit with much better odds:

In plain language under Rule 25—on page 35 if you print it out—the agreement says exactly what happens if the flight is oversold. “If there are not enough volunteers, other Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily,” the language reads. (Of course, the deplaned man was not denied boarding, he was already boarded.)

I’ve been on many overbooked flights. Since I don’t fly very often the fact that I’ve been on many overbooked flights illustrates how prevalent the practice of overbooking is. This mostly works because whenever a flight is overbooked the poor schmuck working at the front desk will offer people who volunteer to take a later flight some kind of compensation and they usually get enough volunteers. However, I’ve often wondered what would happen if they didn’t get enough volunteers. Fortunately, United answered the question:

CHICAGO, IL — A man aboard a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville was forcibly lifted from his seat, dragged down the aisle and removed from the plane as horrified passengers protested and recorded the episode on their smartphones Sunday night at O’Hare International Airport.

The man was among four passengers randomly selected on the full flight to give up their seats for United Airlines employees who needed to be in Louisville by Monday, according to witnesses. Flight 3411 was overbooked, according to the airline.

If a flight is overbooked and the airliner doesn’t get enough volunteers then a few cops are sent aboard to rough up a passenger and forcefully remove them. As an aside, I’ll note that the officers had no problem roughing up and removing that paying passenger. But I’ll leave the moral judgement of that fact for you to make.

I would go so far as to accuse United, and every other airline, of fraud since they’re misrepresenting their product. With the exception of the 3,000 pages of legalese hidden in some dark recess of their websites, every airline strongly implies that when you buy a flight ticket you’re reserving a seat aboard a selected flight. Some airlines even allow you to select a seat. However, you’re not reserving a seat, you’re buying a chance at getting a seat, which is not what is being advertised. What makes matters worse is that the State is willing to subsidize this fraudulent practice by providing the muscle to deal with any customers who are unhappy about getting ripped off.

While other airlines also sell lottery tickets instead of flight tickets, they haven’t been caught sending police aboard when somebody loses. Because of that, I would recommend playing the lottery with another airliner. At least then if you lose you might not get roughed up.

Oregon Considering Legalizing Dueling Between Public Officials

Because most politicians today lack any kind of spine, most states have laws against public officials solving disputes by dueling. Oregon might changed that. There may be a ballot initiative in that state to remove the prohibition from the constitution:

Should ongoing discussions in Salem materialize, voters would see a question on their general-election ballots asking if a 172-year-old ban on dueling by public officials — as in, the old-fashioned way of resolving fights — should be erased from the Oregon Constitution.

The constitutional ban in question is Article II, Section 9, which says anyone who offers, accepts, knowingly participates in a “challenge to fight a duel … or who shall agree to go out of the State to fight a duel, shall be ineligible to any office of trust, or profit.” (this is exact language from the constitution)

I’m of the opinion that dueling between politicians shouldn’t only be legal, it should be mandatory! They’re constantly looking for ways to use the State’s capacity for violence to enforce their will upon the people. That being the case, they should have to face some of that government violence themselves. Although I have my doubts that this proposal will gain any traction, if it does I hope the people of Oregon eagerly support repealing the prohibition.

The Letter of the Law

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Oftentimes people will discuss the intent of a law versus the letter of a law. This discussion usually happens when it comes to light that a law that was passed with good intentions ends up being abused by enforcers following the letter.

In an effort to thwart tax evaders (which qualifies as good intentions to statists although I’m not sure why), a law was passed that required individuals and businesses to report all bank deposits greater than $10,000. It’s a little known law, which means many small business have been running afoul with it. Since the intention of the law was to catch tax evaders you would think that these accidental violations would result in little more than a notice being sent to the offending businesses alerting them of the law’s existence so they wouldn’t violate it in the future. But the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), not surprisingly, has been following the letter of the law, not the intent:

While structuring is technically a crime, it’s something of a secondary one. The reporting requirements were enacted to detect serious criminal activity, such as drug dealing and terrorism. They “were not put in place just so that the Government could enforce the reporting requirements,” as the IG’s report puts it.

But according to the report, that’s exactly what happened at the IRS in recent years. The IRS pursued hundreds of cases from 2012 to 2015 on suspicion of structuring, but with no indications of connections to any criminal activity. Simply depositing cash in sums of less than $10,000 was all that it took to arouse agents’ suspicions, leading to the eventual seizure and forfeiture of millions of dollars in cash from people not otherwise suspected of criminal activity.

The IG took a random sample of 278 IRS forfeiture actions in cases where structuring was the primary basis for seizure. The report found that in 91 percent of those cases, the individuals and business had obtained their money legally.

Structuring is the crime of breaking up bank deposits over $10,000 into multiple deposits under $10,000. That’s right, breaking up larger deposits is a crime in the United States because of the “good intentions” of a few politicians.

But the IRS doesn’t care what the intention of the law was, it only cares about the letter of the law. Instead of using the Bank Secrecy Act to pursue individuals and organizations trying to conceal illegal activities by breaking up larger bank deposits, the IRS has been pursuing individuals and organizations who have been performing perfectly legal activities. By doing this the IRS has managed to seize millions of dollars from innocent people.

Is there any reason why the IRS is despised by basically everybody? Is there any reason why libertarians flip out whenever a seemingly innocent law is passed?

I doubt the IRS will suffer any punishment for this since it was technically doing its job by enforcing the law. But this story should serve as a warning to people who often let the intention of a law cloud their judgement. When it comes to enforcement the intention of a law doesn’t matter, only the letter.