Month: January 2018

Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay

Those who say crime doesn’t pay obviously never took up crime as a profession:

State lawmakers got their first pay hike in years, courtesy of Minnesota voters. The salary for the state’s part-time lawmakers rose sharply — from $31,141 a year, to $45,000. But that does not include money they also receive for their daily expenses.

House members receive $66 dollars a day for expenses, on top of their salaries. That’s seven days a week during the legislative session, no receipts required. In 2017, Representatives got an average of $8,812 in per diem, bringing total pay to almost $53,812.

$45,000 a year might not seem like a lot but as the story noted legislators in Minnesota only work part time. In addition to the rather sizable salary for doing absolutely nothing productive the legislators also get a pretty decent per diem.

Imagine getting paid $53,812 per year to rob everybody in a state for a short stint every year. In addition to the salary you receive from that you are also in a position to make political deals. You can promise companies legislation that will hinder their competitors for a fee (not directly payable in cash to your bank account but you end up receiving it in a roundabout manner in order to avoid accusations of corruption). On top of that you can also hold another job.

Crime pays quite well in Minnesota.

Out of Touch Plebs

I’ve seen a lot of people, primarily conservatives, flipping their shit because Nancy Pelosi referred to the up to $1,000 employee bonuses several companies announced after the latest tax legislation was passed as “crumbs“:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the bonuses being handed out to workers by businesses across the country following the passing of the Republican tax act are mere “crumbs.”

[…]

“In terms of the bonus that corporate America receives versus the crumbs they are giving to workers to put the schmooze on is so pathetic. It’s so pathetic,” Pelosi said during a press briefing on Thursday.

Instead of criticizing her maybe people should take some time to empathize with her situation. Pelosi is a multimillionaire. $1,000 is literally crumbs to her.

I can’t help but be disgusted by how out of touch the plebs are with the ruling elite!

Formalizing a Tradition

For too long the specter of responsibility has hung over the heads of our brave boys in blue. Although the tradition is not to hold law enforcers responsible for their actions, it’s still just a tradition. But the governor of New Mexico wants to formalize that tradition:

Updated | The Republican Governor of New Mexico could soon propose legislation that would protect police officers from lawsuits—essentially granting them immunity from cases of excessive force.

Governor Susana Martinez’s bill would shield officers who fail to comply with police orders but would not protect officers who do not obey orders or break from training, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

This is the kind of strong backing of the thin blue line that this country needs. For too long just following orders or training has been an informal get out of jail free card. Now it can be a formal one, which means all of that pesky showmanship to make it appear as though rouge officers are held accountable can be discarded. This should save taxpayers some money since internal investigations, prosecutors, and other people involved in the showmanship don’t have to waste their time with it.

Agorism’s Greatest Contribution

When people think of the counter-economic strategy advocated by Samuel Edward Konkin III they usually think about it in terms of toppling the State. While Agorism as a strategy can be useful for wounding the State I think its greatest feature is the establishment of enterprises divorced from the State.

So-called legitimate businesses are more often than not coupled to the State. Consider all of the technology companies that reside in the United States. The rely heavily on the State to defend their intellectual property. Patents and copyrights are an American technology company’s bread and butter. Without the State to subsidize defending their intellectual property, technology companies would find themselves facing an even vaster sea of competition than they already do on the international market.

Above ground agricultural enterprises, likewise, have become dependent on the State. Without the State’s crop and livestock subsidies many agricultural enterprises would likely collapse.

Statism isn’t a permanent condition. There isn’t a single chunk of land on this planet that has been ruled by the same state for all of human history. States come and go and with them the enterprises that rely on them. Agorist enterprises, however, can survive the collapse of states because they were never reliant on states to begin with. If anything, the collapse of a state will benefit an Agorist business.

Agorist enterprises can ensure goods and services continue to be provided when a state inevitably collapses. That is probably a greater overall contribution than its ability to injure states through counter-economics.

Rules of Evidence Don’t Apply

The legal system of the United States has a concept of admissible and inadmissible evidence. If, for example, a prosecutor uses evidence that was acquired illegally, it is supposed to be thrown out. However, this concept like most concepts developed to protect defendants is little more than a fairytale told by politicians, judges, and law enforcers to create the illusion of legitimacy in the minds’ of the masses. In reality there are a lot of options for those who wish to submit “inadmissible” evidence. Parallel construction is one such option:

The Special Operations Division receives raw intelligence from the NSA’s surveillance programs, including from the mass surveillance programs revealed in documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. DEA agents in this unit then analyze the surveillance data and disseminate leads to federal and local police nationwide. But the information comes with a catch. Law enforcement can’t use it to secure search warrants or in any way reveal the intelligence community as the source of their leads. Instead, they must find another way to justify their searches and broader investigations.

[…]

The convoluted and secretive process of building a case to obscure the use of underlying intelligence, known as “parallel construction,” is meant to protect the intelligence community’s sources and methods, according to internal DEA documents. It also often deprives the accused of a fair shot at defending themselves in court because some of the evidence against them is not made public.

If a domestic law enforcement agency is given evidence by the National Security Agency (NSA), it’s not supposed to be able to use it because the NSA is supposed to be prohibited from spying on American citizens. So when the NSA finds evidence that is of interest to a domestic agency, it gives the agency the evidence and orders them to make up a story about how it was uncovered by the agency’s personnel. The agency then works in reverse. It creates a story about how it discovered the evidence. After charges have been filed the defendant has no knowledge of the NSA’s involvement and therefore can put up a meaningful defense.

You may get your day in court but does it really matter when the court is rigged to favor the prosecution?

Firebirds

Humanity has enjoyed its position as an apex predator for only a brief period of Earth’s history. And while this time at the top was fun, the time to hail our avian overlords will soon be at hand:

The claim is that the birds pick up burning twigs from existing fires and drop them elsewhere to start new blazes. This would flush out prey hidden in the brush.

It starts with them using fire to flush our prey but it will end in them using fire to flush humans out of their cities!

Welcome to Costco, I Love You

I’m starting to believe that Costco may actually love its customers. Seattle implemented a ridiculous tax on sweetened beverages. As usual for sin taxes the politicians who championed this tax claimed that it would promote healthier living. What it actually did was jack up prices and piss people off. But Costco, unlike so many businesses throughout the country, decided that it wasn’t going to take the fall for government induced price increases:

Mega-chain Costco isn’t feeling the surge either and put in big black numbers how much the new tax is costing their customers. Not only that, they’re putting signs next to the price display that tells shoppers where they can get their fizz fix outside the city!

More companies should do this. I know if I owned a retailer, all of my prices would be posted as what I’m charging and what the government is charging. Most businesses just post the price so the customer doesn’t see just how much they’re paying the local, state, and federal governments for goods and services that they had no part in creating or brining to market. Costco also deserves bonus points for twisting the knife by pointing out to customers that they can get soda are normal prices outside of the city.

When You Just Want to Mess with Your Subjects

If you watch a politician being grilled by the press, you can often see the disgust in their face as clear as day. Politicians don’t like being questioned by lowly plebs but they usually put up with it because it helps them uphold the appearance that they care. The Prime Minister of Thailand isn’t one of those politicians:

Thailand’s prime minister has evaded journalists’ questions by bringing out a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself and telling the reporters to quiz it instead of him.

Prayuth Chan-ocha then turned on his heel and walked off, leaving the mock-up behind, to bemused looks and awkward laughter from the Government House press pack.

I appreciate how upfront he is about not giving a damn about what the plebs think. It’s too bad this kind of honestly wasn’t more prevalent amongst politicians. Perhaps if it was, the masses would see the government for what it is instead of what they want it to be.

Cliven Bundy Walks Free

A few days ago the case against Cliven Bundy, the man who had the guts to defend his property against federal agents, was dismissed. While a lot of people have talked about the dismissal of the case, usually with statists screaming in outrage, I think the reason the case was dismisses is the most noteworthy element:

An hour earlier, Bundy sat stoically in prison garb and shackles as a judge dismissed the case against him, two of his sons and a militia supporter, saying federal prosecutors violated the men’s rights to a fair trial by withholding evidence.

[…]

U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro said federal prosecutors acted recklessly and engaged in a “deliberate attempt to mislead and distort the truth” by failing to turn over evidence that could have helped exonerate the four defendants.

People often make the mistake of believing that the government seeks justice. However, it’s usually not justice that the government wants but a prosecution. Oftentimes a government prosecutor will go to great lengths to prove an innocent individual’s guilt. Government prosecutors have done everything from withhold evidence to use scientifically unsound forensics to put people behind bars.

Bundy was lucky that his case was being run by a judge who felt that the withholding of evidence was grounds enough to dismiss the case. Many innocent people aren’t so lucky.