Month: July 2017

What’s the Difference Between the IRS and a Thief

What’s the difference between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a thief? There isn’t one:

The unmarked vehicles arrived in the morning. More than 20 armed agents poured out.

Hours later, Mii’s Bridal & Tuxedo was out of business after serving customers for decades. Its entire inventory of wedding gowns and dresses as well as sewing machines and other equipment were sold at auction.

The hastily-called sale held inside the store netted the IRS about $17,000 — not enough to cover the roughly $31,400 in tax debt alleged, court records show. The balance is now likely unrecoverable.

[…]

Regarding the speed of the sale, the government said in legal filings that the IRS used a special law that allows for a streamlined procedure if the agency determines the goods seized could “perish or waste” or become greatly reduced in value.

As a result, the IRS didn’t have to post advance public notice of the Mii’s sale or wait at least 10 days before selling the goods, as is normally required.

How are tuxedos, wedding dresses, and sewing machines perishable goods? They’re not. The IRS just made shit up so it could perform this act of theft without giving the owners enough time to involve lawyers.

While I spend a great deal of time brining up civil asset forfeiture laws, there are other laws on the books that allow the State to legally steal property without convicting the owner. Arcane tax laws are often used in this way. In this case the IRS once again used, or should I say abused, laws against structuring. I’ve mentioned this before but there is a law that requires people making deposits greater than $10,000 to report them. Many businesses don’t realize this is a law, they only realize that the bank requires them to fill out a bunch of additional paperwork if their deposit is above $10,000. So to avoid paperwork many businesses take deposits over $10,000 and divide them into multiple deposits that are each under $10,000. Doing this violates the law against structuring so the IRS combines the fact that many small business owners are entirely unaware of this law with the fact that it’s illegal to justify rolling in, seizing a small business’s assets, and auctioning them off.

These kinds of laws violate the concept of private property. So long as they continue to exist nobody in the United States can be said to actually own property, they can only lease property for as long as the State permits them.

But Wait, There’s More

Yesterday’s story about another puppycide committed by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) was already horrible. However, in the words of the great philosopher Billy Mays, “But wait, there’s more!” Not only did the MPD officer shoot two dogs for no reasons whatsoever, he apparently lied to the owners about having called in to get the dogs medical aid:

The family didn’t instantly take the dogs to the emergency vet because police told the family that “animal control” would be there in minutes to access the dogs’ medical needs. No one showed up, LeMay said.

I’m super sorry I jumped your fence like a burglar and gunned down your dogs. Don’t worry though, I totally called animal control and they’ll get here before your dogs bleed out. I promise.

If history is any indicator, this officer will receive either no punishment at all or a paid vacation while the department waits for this fiasco to fall out of the news cycle. Even if by some miracle the officer is fired the police union will likely step in and get him reinstated. And that is the problem. So long as officers remain unaccountable for their actions they will have no motivation to stop acting badly and stories like this will continue to hit the front page.

Another Day, Another Puppycide

On Saturday a 13-year-old girl accidentally tripped her home’s burglar alarm. This accident set into motion a series of events that has become all too common. The Minneapolis Police Department dispatched an officer to respond to the burglar alarm. Instead of walking up to the front door and knocking the officer entered the fenced in backyard, presumably by jumping the fence. Upon seeing the officer two friendly dogs approached him. The officer responded by showing the dogs good old fashion police love by pumping rounds into them:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A woman in north Minneapolis says a city police officer responding to a home burglary alarm Saturday night shot her two dogs.

Jennifer LeMay posted home surveillance video of the shooting to Facebook, showing what looks to be a Minneapolis police officer firing his gun at two approaching pit bulls in a fenced-in backyard.

After firing, the officer is then seen jumping over the backyard fence.

There is a video of the shooting caught from the woman’s surveillance camera. It’s pretty clear from the video that the dogs weren’t aggressive. Unfortunately, the video doesn’t answer the question as to why the officer decided to jump the backyard fence instead of go to the front door.

The woman setup a GoFundMe campaign to pay for her dogs’ medical expenses. I feel the need to point out that absurdity of having to setup a GoFundMe campaign to deal with the expenses involved in police responding to a burglar alarm. It’s at the point where you’re often better off letting a burglar steal your shit than notifying the police that you’ve been robbed.

The Freest Country on Earth

A lot of people in the United States mistakenly believe that peacekeeper and law enforcer are interchangeable terms. In a nation where the only laws on the books were laws against harming others that could be true. But a vast majority of the laws in the United States have nothing to do with harming others, which is what a vast majority of prisoners are being held for victimless crimes:

In light of that, let us review some statistics which demonstrate just how destructive the mass incarceration of victimless criminals has become to our society. The 2009 federal prison population consisted of criminals who committed these crimes:

Drugs 50.7%

Public-order 35.0%,

Violent 7.9%

Property 5.8%

Other .7%

Drug offenses are self-explanatory as being victimless, but so too are public-order offenses, which also fall under the victimless crimes category. Public order offenses include such things as immigration, weapons charges, public drunkenness, selling lemonade without a license, dancing in public, feeding the homeless without a permit. etc….

86 percent of prisoners in the United States are incarcerated even though they didn’t harm anybody. In other words, the officers who arrested them weren’t keeping the peace but were disrupting it.

Cop apologists are quick to claim that without police officers society would deteriorate into Mad Max. Again, this argument might carry some weight if police officers were peacekeepers but they’re not. The job of a police officer is to enforce the law as it is written. Since a majority of laws create victimless crimes that means the majority of police interactions involve individuals who haven’t disrupted the peace in any way. In order to do their jobs police officers necessarily have to be the initiators of aggression in the majority of interactions.

Without law enforcers the United States would actually be more peaceful since less people would be aggressed against for perpetrating victimless crimes.

To Server and Protect, Just Not Too Often

One claim statists continue to make is that the government is necessary to provide for those in need. They claim that in a world absent of government the most vulnerable people in our society would starve to death, be tossed off of cliffs by family members who are tired of caring for them, or thrown into cages and forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the mob. But in a society with a government all of their needs will be provided for… unless, of course, they need too much:

West St. Paul and South St. Paul have taken steps to restrict housing options for people who receive state assistance for being both low-income and disabled, despite Dakota County’s misgivings.

City officials say such residents call police too often and that their communities have more than their fair share of rental properties catering to their needs.

“We have enough of these properties in the community,” said Tom Seaberg, a South St. Paul City Council member. “It’s not a discriminatory thing, it’s an economic issue.”

It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.

The statists’ claims fall apart once you analyze the nature of government. Government isn’t some benevolent entity that can triumph over human greed. Government is simply the largest criminal gang in a territory. Like any other criminal gang a government is interested in gaining at least some approval from the community since an approving community makes its job of expropriating wealth easier. To this end it offers people within its territory the option to buy protection from it… to protect against it, provides jobs by hiring people within its territory to perform menial tasks, and diverts some of its loot to people within its territory. However, as with any other criminal gang, when an individual becomes too bothersome to the government it will either cut them off or execute them.

Governments don’t provide welfare for altruistic reasons, they provide welfare to buy the acceptance of at least some of the people they’re exploiting. But if the welfare starts eating into the politicians’ profits they cut it off. The municipal governments of West and South St. Paul have made a simple business decision by telling people who use “too much” of their services to buzz off. By doing so those two municipal governments should be able to increase their profits by both immediately cutting the amount of services provided and creating an atmosphere where residents avoid using their services for fear of being the next individuals run out of town.

Survival Tips for Minnesotas for the Next Two Weeks

For the next two weeks the road pirates are going to be increasing their fund raising efforts enforcement of the arbitrarily set speed limits:

On Wednesday, Zak, a lieutenant with the State Patrol, joined with officials from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety to put on the demonstration to show how long it takes to stop while traveling at various speeds and how drivers’ reaction time goes down the faster they go. It comes as law enforcement from 300 agencies statewide begin a two-week speeding enforcement campaign from Friday through July 23.

[…]

The state’s crackdown on speeding coincides with a national effort and is paid for using funds allocated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

While officers will be on the lookout for lead-footed drivers statewide, target teams will be stationed along routes known to see fast drivers, including I-494 in Bloomington, near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and on I-94 in the construction zone from Minneapolis to Brooklyn Center.

Since the threat of violence against motorists is going to increase I feel the need to point out some survival tips.

  1. Don’t be black. Studies have shown that road pirates tend to respond more violently to black individuals.
  2. Use Waze to both report any road pirates and to receive warnings about any reported road pirates.
  3. Turn on your smartphone’s camera, preferably to livestream the stop, and lock the screen. You want to have a record of the entire stop in case you’re murdered but you don’t want the phone unlocked because the officer might decided to rummage through it for evidence of more crimes. While such a search may be illegal the Supreme Court has ruled that illegally collected evidence is admissible in court.
  4. If you are a permit holder remember that Minnesota law only requires you to disclose if you’re carrying a firearm to an officer if they specifically asks. Don’t volunteer such information. If you do the police officer may panic and fire multiple rounds into you at point blank range. If this happens the officer will be acquitted of any wrongdoing.
  5. During a traffic stop make sure you have your license and proof of insurance out before the officer gets to your window. Failing to do so will require you to move your hands when the police officer is at your window and that might spook them. Like any wild animal, a spooked police officer is unpredictable.
  6. Have both hands firmly of your steering wheel at all times. By firmly I mean gripping your steering wheel so hard that your knuckles turn white. Only consider moving from this position if the officer gives you a direct order to do so.
  7. Assume the most submissive position possible. Police officers like to feel dominant. If they feel that their authority is being questioned in any way they might “fear for their life” and shoot you dead.

While this list could be extended I’m going to keep it brief in the hopes that you’ll be able to remember every point if you’re pulled over. If you follow these tips your chances of surviving a police encounter should increase. If for some reason, say due to your genetic makeup, you’re unable to follow one or more of these tips, well…

Deescalating the Police

Cop apologists love to point out that police officers are trained professionals and that their training makes them more trustworthy than the people who complain about their actions. Why is it then that untrained civilians are expected to deescalate the police:

The system is designed to exonerate police officers, not provide justice for their victims. My incident, however, gives me new insight into just how much the law values police lives over the citizens they are supposed to protect.

Chief Rausch said that when investigating complaints, it is essential to understand an officer’s mindset to determine the facts. A mindset is not a fact.

Here are the facts that Janish appeared to focus on – the unmarked cab, a black person, the duffel bag and the license plate.

Then here are other facts that he ignored – he knew his mother-in-law was selling the car, it was broad daylight, and I knew her first name, but not her last name. I offered to show him the keys, registration and bill of sale signed by his mother-in-law.

Those are the actual facts. Officer Janish’s mindset was the scenario he created in his head. His fears weren’t facts.

The moment I arrived at Officer Janish’s mother-in-law’s house I became a suspect, and under the law, it seems that Officer Janish became a victim. He could have stayed at his house, called 911 and waited for the sheriff’s department to arrive. Instead he grabbed his weapon and came outside to confront me.

Had I not reacted calmly, Officer Janish likely would have been within his legal rights to shoot me although I wasn’t doing anything illegal. My mere presence with a duffel bag was deemed a threat.

Had the author, Tonya Jameson, not reacted calmly he could have been another Philando Castile and it’s likely Officer Janish would have suffered no consequences. This is yet another situation where an untrained civilian was required to deescalate a supposed trained law enforcer.

Cop apologists have a lengthy list of appropriate responses during police encounters. If it’s a traffic stop make sure to have your proof of insurance and drivers license in hand before the officer gets to your vehicle. Make sure both of your hands are firmly placed on the steering wheel. Ask the officer how he wants you to proceed and follow his instructions to the letter. Don’t make any sudden movements. If you’re stopped by an officer on foot make sure your hands are visible and nowhere near your pockets. As with during a traffic stop, ask the officer how he wants you to proceed and follow his instructions to the letter and avoid sudden movements. Oh, and remember that if an officer is abusing their authority or using unnecessary violence against you that you must shut up and take it. The only appropriate place to deal with that kind of situation is in the courts.

According to cop apologists law enforcers are trained professionals but must be treated in a similar manner to wild animals. This attitude is nonsense. Since law enforcers are trained professionals the burden of deescalating situations should be on them. However, the legal system is setup to require the opposite, which is one of the reasons why police remain mostly unaccountable for their actions.

Colorado Initiative to Hinder Education

Why are there so many people who believe that everything they don’t like should be illegal? There’s an initiative in Colorado to prohibit children under the age of 13 from using portable electronic devices:

If a Colorado initiative gets its way 49 other states are going to be looking like anarcho-capitalist havens. Initiative 29 or the “Preservation of a Natural childhood” could make selling smartphones, tablets, and any sort of handheld wireless technology to anyone aged 13 and younger illegal which is anything but natural.

A group of concerned parents decided that since they didn’t have such wonderful tools growing up they are “unnatural” and therefore bad for children. Parents not wanting their children to have portable electronic devices isn’t bad in of itself. But these concerned parents aren’t keeping their rule within their own homes. They’re demanding that the State enforce their household rules throughout Colorado.

Their claim is also fucking stupid. Children using portable electronics is unnatural? I wonder if parents who were born immediately before the invention of the printing press tried to prohibit children from acquiring books because they believed books were unnatural. If technology is unnatural then we’ve all been deprived of a “natural” childhood because we’ve all grown up in an era where technology is pervasive.

Not only is their claim stupid but they are also advocating that children throughout Colorado be deprived of incredible educational tools. Smartphones, tablets, and other portable electronic devices offer direct access to mankind’s greatest collection of knowledge, the Internet. There is also a plethora of education apps available for these platforms. I frequently use several foreign language apps such as Duolingo and Memrise on my iPhone. Apps exist for teaching children mathematics, how to read, how to code, about science, and many other valuable skills. To deprive children of these tools just needlessly handicaps their education.

The TSA Continues Its 95 Precent Failure Rate

Two years ago we learned that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) failed 95 percent of red team exercises. With such an abysmal record the agency must have been spending the last two years furiously improving its security screening processes, right? If the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) is any indication, the TSA hasn’t improved its processes at all:

Last Thursday, what’s referred to as the “Red Team” in town from Washington D.C., posed as passengers and attempted to sneak items through security that should easily be caught.

In most cases, they succeeded in getting the banned items though. 17 out of 18 tries by the undercover federal agents saw explosive materials, fake weapons or drugs pass through TSA screening undetected.

Two sources said that the tests carried out Thursday were eventually stopped after the failure rate reached 95 percent.

It’s pretty sad when the exercise has to be stopped because the failure rate was only a hair’s breadth away from 100 percent.

I’m sure a spokesperson for the MSP TSA will have a list of excuses to try to explain away the 95 percent failure rating. But there’s no arguing that a 95 percent failure rating is touch to distinguish from having no security at all. If the TSA were abolished today and replaced with nothing the only real difference would be that air travelers wouldn’t have to show up at the airport two hours early just to get through the security line and the taxpayers would save a lot of money. Of course the TSA wouldn’t be replaced with nothing, it would be replaced with private security, which would be a significant improvement. Unlike the TSA, which has faced no repercussions for its ongoing 95 percent failure rating, private security firms can be held accountable and are therefore motivated to improve.