Category: Liberty

Another Successful Business Owner Screwed Over by Erroneous Regulations

I’m sure most people read the this story and don’t really think much of it:

One of the most famous faces in the Twin Cities bar scene says he has sold his stake in the four pubs he co-founded: Kieran’s Irish Pub, The Local, Cooper and the Liffey.

Why? Folliard wants to go into the whiskey business full time. Earlier this year, he replaced much of the top-selling Jameson Irish Whiskey at his four pubs with his own brand, 2 Gingers. Now he wants to take his product out into the marketplace by selling it to liquor stores and other bars.

But liquor laws prevent the ownership of both a distillery arm (he imports his brand from Ireland) and a retail outlet (such as a bar). Therefore, he has to leave his pubs behind. He said he anticipates that the move will be scrutinized, but insisted that his exit from the pubs is a “complete severance.” He informed the bars’ staff Tuesday of his departure.

When I read the story the first thought that popped into my mind was the fact there is another successful business owner who was fucked over my erroneous legislation. It’s true, in Minnesota a person can’t own both a distillery and liquor retail outlets. This means if you currently own one type of business your only option to enter the second type is to sell off your stakes in the latter.

There is absolutely no reason a person shouldn’t be able to make their own liquor and sell it at establishments that they also own. Unfortunately for many business owners they’re stuck having to make a decision between what type of business they wish to pursue. I don’t personally know Kieran Folliard but I don’t know the four bars he co-founded have been successful ventures (Kieran’s Irish Pub and The Local are great establishments by the way) meaning he’s a person willing to put a lot of work and effort into making a product people want. Thus I’m sure his new venture will do well but sadly he was forced to throw away all his previous success just to try something new.

Regulations that force a person to abandon previous success just so they can try their hand at something new serve no purpose. Such regulations simply punish those who do well by keeping them from competing in other markets where they do equally well, if not better, than current actors in that market. These regulations are nothing more than anti-competition measures that protect those currently in markets from having to worry about somebody new coming in and offering a better product.

It Shouldn’t Cost Anything to Fight a Ticket

Let’s get something straight, speeding tickets are issued because going faster than an arbitrarily selected speed is dangerous, they’re issued because speeding tickets are sources of profit. Actually this is true of almost every type of fine and citation that the government issues and that’s why they try to make it as difficult as possible to fight.

Take a look at Northampton, Massachusetts; it costs $319.90 to fight a ticket:

Vincent Gillespie said the $319.90 cost of appealing his July 19, 2005, parking ticket in Hampshire Superior Court far exceeded the $15 fine.

[…]

Because Northampton’s system did not include the option of appearing before a hearing officer, as it does now, Gillespie filed for summary judgment in Hampshire Superior Court, saying he was denied his rights. Judge Bertha D. Josephson found in his favor, but ruled in the city’s favor on Gillespie’s Constitutional argument that the fee system effectively denied him access to the courts.

A common complain when you mention privatized courts is that those without means won’t be able to receive justice as they couldn’t afford going to court. To that I ask, what’s the difference between private and public courts? As it currently sits many courts require you to pay a large fee, much larger than most citations issued by the government, in order to fight a citation. This is by design though, the government just wants your money and in order to get it they’re making it difficult for you to contest their decision to write you a citation.

I received a parking ticket in St. Paul last winter for $35.00. My options were to go before a hearings officer who would then determine whether or not I had a valid reason to contest the ticket. If he didn’t agree my reason was valid the cost of going to court was something akin to $100.00 (plus all the time I’d have to take off of work, gas to get there, etc.). Having the option of going before a hearings officer is also malarkey because the government shouldn’t be in charge of determining whether your grievance with the government is valid. Anytime a grievance occurs a neutral third-party should be used to judge whether a grievance is valid or not. After all, if you had a grievance against Ford you wouldn’t go to an employee of Ford to determine the validity of your grievance.

In summary the cost of fighting a citation is purposely set to prevent people from fighting them. The government wants your money and they want to get it with the least amount of hassle possible. If you fight it they have to utilize their resources (which you pay for, so you’re effectively paying them to fight you as well) which requires work and as we know government goons are adverse to work.

As people living in a supposedly free society we should demand that the government hears our grievances with them at no additional expense to ourselves. We already pay for the government, we pay them to write us citations, we pay them to run the court, we pay for the paper citations are written on, we pay for the whole damned thing. Since we’re already paying for a whole system we shouldn’t be required to pay more when we believe the system that we pay for has wronged us in some way.

Protecting Us From Unlicensed Lemonade Stands

I’m starting to believe our country lacks any markets where the government hasn’t stabbed its tentacles of taxes and regulations into. Even children can’t run a lemonade stand proper licensing:

Police in Georgia have shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls trying to save up for a trip to a water park, saying they didn’t have a business license or the required permits.

[…]

The girls needed a business license, peddler’s permit and food permit to operate, even on residential property. The permits cost $50 a day or $180 per year.

How is it that we as a society find this type of behavior from our government acceptable? Why should children be required to buy a $50.00 a day permit to run a fucking lemonade stand where they’re probably selling their product for something akin to $0.50 a cup? At that price they would have to sell 100 cups of lemonade just to break even.

This situation is a perfect example of what happens on larger scales in other industries. Part of the reason it costs so much to do business in the United States is because so many permits, licenses, and regulations must be complied with. Complying with all of the government’s malarkey costs a lot of money and that costs has to be forwarded to the consumer.

These regulations are getting a bit ridiculous though when we start applying them to children. Then again it’s a good life lesson for them, they can learn that going into business is a huge pain in the ass because the government will try to siphon off much of their business’s wealth and success as possible.

Another Person Advocating We Punish the Successful

There are always people out there who demand that we steal money from “the rich” and redistribute it to “the poor.” To many of these people “rich” simply means anybody making more than themselves and “poor” means themselves. What these people generally are is angry and jealous that somebody has been more successful in life than themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I recognize the difference between legitimate wealth and illegitimate wealth. If you’ve obtained your wealth through coercion or using the government’s monopoly on initiating force either rub out any competition or force people to buy your product then you should be forced to refund every dollar and face civil suits for their use of violence to rob innocent people.

Alas, most people don’t stop to make that distinction which leads to be read letters like this and shake my head:

At a time when the middle and working classes find it harder and harder to even tread water, while their bosses are becoming wealthier and wealthier by comparison, I found the July 8 article “Top earners cool to paying more” deeply depressing.

When through the benefits of their wealth those who hold the power and make the rules become more and more divorced from the struggles of those who depend on them, that’s a dangerous road for our country.

From both pragmatic and moral standpoints, the wealth needs to be shared. If businesses won’t do that through truly livable wages, then it should at least happen through taxing supersized salaries.

Greed has always been around, but it’s taken awhile for it to be cultivated into the open as a positive value. So now you have people who won’t be content with a half-million-dollar job at home when they can move elsewhere to take the same job but pay lower taxes.

Ouch! Part of political and business leadership is to continually cultivate a vision for community, shared responsibility and the sort of compassionate society in which we all thrive best.

JOEL WARNE, PLYMOUTH

Notice how this guy brings up “truly livable wage” without defining it? What exactly is a “truly livable wage?” The government already mandates that employers must pay employees a “living wage” (what we usually call minimum wage). Is that not enough? Why not? What is enough? People who throw around these terms without realizing how meaningless they are truly annoy me. What do I mean by truly annoy? Well when I read or talk to these people it increases my rage levels and decreases my intelligence.

Here’s the other thing I don’t get, the author is claiming that taxation should be used if employers aren’t willing to pay a “truly livable wage.” Increasing the amount of money the government forcefully steals from an arbitrary number of people (depending on who is defined as rich) doesn’t help those working for a living, it harms them.

Most people that are defined as “rich” by those advocating higher taxes on said “rich” are employers. By definition an employer is somebody who exchanges their money for the labor of others. When you take more money from employers it gives them less to pay to current employees and hire new employees. Not only that but it also increases the chances that these employers will simply throw up their hands in frustration and move to a friendlier state.

Punishing those who have been successful in life also sets a poor precedence. What motivation is there to succeed if that success will only be met by the government stealing more and more of your money?

Finally tax dollars have no guarantee that they’ll reach “the poor.” Government is great at mindlessly tossing money at stupid things. Look at the state budget and then look at the percentage of money that goes to “help the poor.” Hell 7% of Minnesota’s expenditures go to paying former state employees pensions. Then there is that nice 20% chunk that simply goes to a category labeled “remainder.” Increasing the amount of money the state confiscates from an arbitrary number of people isn’t guaranteed to reach people advocates intent it to reach.

If you want to help the working class then demand that government remove itself from economic issues entirely. Let’s rid ourselves of government regulations that exist to push competitors to their favored companies (those who can make the most campaign contributions) out of the market. We should strive to make every industry like the personal electronics industry which is free of many government regulations, producing products people want, and most of all successful. Allow people to be successful and stop punishing them for it.

Data Encryption and The Fifth Amendment

Yesterday I mentioned that I keep all of my personal data encrypted meaning outside of being compelled to reveal my keys nobody would be able to obtain that data. Then I mentioned in the case of government entities stealing my equipment I would avoid revealing my encryption keys by simply stating my fifth amendment right, well apparently the Department of Justice (DoJ) believes that right is null and void (like all of our other so-called rights):

The Colorado prosecution of a woman accused of a mortgage scam will test whether the government can punish you for refusing to disclose your encryption passphrase.

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home.

Because Fricosu has opposed the proposal, this could turn into a precedent-setting case. No U.S. appeals court appears to have ruled on whether such an order would be legal or not under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which broadly protects Americans’ right to remain silent.

Although this turn of events isn’t at all surprising it is depressing. The justification being used by the DoJ is completely idiotic as well:

Prosecutors stressed that they don’t actually require the passphrase itself, meaning Fricosu would be permitted to type it in and unlock the files without anyone looking over her shoulder. They say they want only the decrypted data and are not demanding “the password to the drive, either orally or in written form.”

Let’s stop and take a look at what the fifth amendment states:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I’ve emphasized the important part for this post. Our supposed fifth amendment right is against being forced to bear witness against yourself. Note how the amendment doesn’t state in what way you’re protected from being a witness against yourself. What the DoJ is arguing is the fifth amendment states you can’t be compelled to speak against yourself or write information that could be used against you. What the fifth amendment actually says is that you can’t be compelled to be a witness against yourself, period. By having to enter encryption keys you would in fact be a witness against yourself as it would reveal potentially self-incriminating information.

Obviously the actors of the state are going to go with an analogy that best benefits them in incriminating anybody they wish so they are going to claim that encryption keys are the same as safe combinations which you can be forced to provide. Here’s the thing, as written the fifth amendment would protect you against even providing a safe combination because that would make you a witness against yourself.

Thankfully the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed an amicus brief arguing that being forced to provide encryption keys is a direct violation of fifth amendment protections. Their argument is sound albeit against the desires of the state so will likely be ignored:

Decrypting data on a computer is a testimonial act that receives the full protection of the Fifth Amendment. This act would incriminate Fricosu because it might reveal she had control over the laptop and the data there. The government has failed to show that the existence and location of the information it seeks is a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, the limited immunity offered by the government is not coextensive with the scope of Fricosu’s privilege. The Court should therefore find that the government has failed to take the steps necessary to secure Fricosu’s Fifth Amendment rights and deny the application.

You should read the entire amicus brief as it makes for interesting reading and presents several previous court cases that favor the EFF’s argument.

Following the wording of the fifth amendment and the spirit in which it was written logical conclusion would be that you are not required to do anything for the state that would allow it to prosecute you. Of course being the government gets to rule on the scope of protections against the government the amendments in the Bill of Rights has little meaning. This is why jury nullification is such an important right, even if the government rules that the fifth amendment doesn’t apply a jury could rule in favor of the defendant on grounds that being forced to reveal encrypted information is a violation of fifth amendment protections.

The PATRIOT Act and Cloud Services

I’ve briefly described my attempt to get all of my “cloud” data moved to personal servers that I directly control. Part of my reasoning for doing this is the simple fact that I like having complete control over my property (and I consider my data personal property). The other reason is I don’t like the idea of federal agents being able to obtain my personal information without my knowledge. At the very least if the feds want to take my personal data now they will have to alert me when they come to take my server out of my dwelling (and since the data is all encrypted they’ll need my key to access anything… which will really frustrate them when I claim my fifth amendment right instead of giving over my encryption keys).

Some people have claimed another solution for this is to put your data in a foreign country. I never found that solution viable because the government of the country where your data is stored likely has access to it and will hand it over if the United States government puts in a request. Well Microsoft has confirmed that your data isn’t safe anywhere:

Organisations should be wary when entrusting their data to Cloud providers based in the U.S.

Microsoft, one of the first Cloud providers to come clean, have revealed that the U.S. authorities have the right to access any data stored by them, even if that data resides within the EU.

[…]

In addition, Gordon Frazer CEO of Microsoft admitted that customers would only be informed “whenever possible” with respect to authorities extracting data.

Such an example is where the FBI has the ability to issue a ‘National Security Letter’ demanding a company’s data. Frazer stated that in this case he wouldn’t even be able to admit he had received such an order.

Many people forget that those subject to “National Security Letters” are legally prohibited from even saying they received such a letter (note to the feds: if you hand me one of those letters I’m telling everybody, fuck you and your attempt to shit on the first amendment). This means if the feds to take your data you’ll never be notified because the company hosting said data will be legally muzzled.

I feel the best option in regards to your data is to maintain it all on systems that you have direct control over. Unless you have that direct control you can never be sure who is rummaging through your data (I’m not just talking about government agents at this point) or for what purposes. If you control the systems then you control who does and doesn’t have access to anything on that system.

So Much for Property Rights

I often say that those who own property in the United States don’t actually own their property. If you actually owned your property you’d not have to pay the government rent (property taxes) and could do as you please on your land so long as you didn’t harm others or their property. Unfortunately governments have seen fit to regulate almost every activity people do whether it’s on “their” property or not. Take Oak Park, Michigan for instance, property “owners” there wanted to grow their own food but the city said all food grown on “private” property must be inedible:

However, Bass’ garden is a little unique because it’s in her front yard.

“We thought it’d be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help,” she said.

Bass’ cool garden has landed her in hot water with the City of Oak Park. Code enforcement gave her a warning, then a ticket and now she’s been charged with a misdemeanor.

Of course the city enforcers’ excuse for fining the land “owners” if flimsy at best:

Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what’s “suitable?”

We asked Bass whether she thinks she has suitable, live, plant material in her front yard.

“It’s definitely live. It’s definitely plant. It’s definitely material. We think it’s suitable,” she said.

So, we asked Rulkowski why it’s not suitable.

“If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster’s dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what’s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers,” he said.

Basically they find Bass’s garden unsuitable because that’s not what most people have. Well by that logic those parking a Dodge Viper in their driveway should be written up for violating some stupid law because most people don’t have Vipers and therefore they’re not suitable by this statis’s “logic.”

There are only two possible options when it comes to ownership; you either own something or you don’t. Governments have seen fit to ensure they own everything and simply let the peasants occupy and work the land… so long as they pay their tribute to the King of course.

If a person wishes to grow a garden on their property then they damn well should be allowed to do so without some pencil-necked bureaucrat coming in and demanding not only payment of a fine but also destruction of the garden. Honestly if the Bass’s really wanted to piss of the city they could plant cacti and and cover their entire front yet in sand because that’s very common in places like Arizona and therefore “suitable” by Mr. Rulkowski’s definition.

People Who Tell Libertarians to Move to Somalia are Idiots

I’m sure a majority of my readers are libertarians to some degree. If you’ve described yourself as libertarian long enough then it’s likely some statist has said, “If you believe that why don’t you move to Somalia?” The “logic” is that Somalia is supposedly some kind of libertarian paradise since the region has been without a state since 1991. Of course this is the statis’s version of the race card is only gets pulled out when they lack any actual counterpoints to libertarian statements.

What makes this card so worthless, and the people using it such idiots, is the fact that Somalia is a third-world country with poor living conditions. It is interesting to note that most conditions have been steadily improving since the fall of the state there but Somalia is still recovering from the fact that they were under dictatorial control for so long. Don’t Tread on Mike has an excellent post describing the conditions in Somalia and why those telling libertarians to move there sound like pompous idiots lacking any true understanding of either libertarian philosophy or conditions in Somalia.

The conditions in Somalia can be summed up as a stateless destitute third-world country that was a destitute third-world country with a state before 1991. Libertarians in the United States want to take a developed country with a massively large state and turn it into a developed country with either a very small or completely absent state. In other words libertarians want to remove the largest barrier between the people of the United States and the freedom to succeed, government interference in the economy and daily lives of people.

Privatizing Everything

I’m sure it’s obvious to anybody who’s read this site for any length of time that I believe in privatizing everything. As you’re likely away I’m also fairly vocal about my beliefs, Hell I have a shirt that says this. Being vocal about one’s beliefs leads to discussions and many of those discussions are with people who don’t agree with you. I greatly enjoy civil discussions with those who don’t agree with myself because it forces me to look at my beliefs and hopefully forces the other person to look at their beliefs.

When talking about privatization the first argument always made against it relates to logistics. I’m going to use the example of city water. Many cities, including Minneapolis, require people living within it’s territory to purchase water from a monopoly source. No competition exists in Minneapolis, or most other cities, for water provision because these cities often grant a legal monopoly to a single company or themselves. I would love to eliminate these monopolies and allow for competition in this era to flourish.

This counter argument to this is that you can only lay so much pipe and thus it’s impossible for any competition to crop up. Those claiming that competition in this arena is impossible usually spout something about “natural monopolies.” The inability to see a possibility for competition is actually an inability to think outside of currently established norms. When a free market is allowed to exist competition is guaranteed because there is always money to be made when a monopoly exists. Monopolies are generally large and inflexible beasts which opens the market for more efficient operators. This means new solutions will come up that few have likely even thought about.

There are several options available in the market of providing water. Let’s first discuss pipes. As it stands cities usually claim ownership on all water pipes running through its territory (even the water pipes on your own property although they often make you pay for them outside of just taxation). In a free market either the property owners would own the pipes crossing their territory or there would be several companies that owned spans of pipes. This is similar to Internet cabling, a handful of companies own the main cables. The thing is the companies that own the cables also want to make money off of those cables. The motive of profit leads them to license the usage of those cables to other companies withing to provide Internet services to their customers.

One possibility in the free market of providing water would be pipe owners making money by licensing the usage of their pipes to water providers. That way one company can spend its time creating pipe infrastructure while another can worry about the logistics of providing clean drinking water to customers. Such a scenario would be a great example of division of labor which is ultimately the whole point behind economics.

The building and licensing of pipes isn’t the only option to get water from one location to customer homes. It’s very likely that many peoples’ homes would sit above a well and thus those people would simply pay to have a well drilled and plumbing hooked up (this is what most people in rural areas do). But let us assume a piece of property was sitting over an area with no well access and no pipe infrastructure. If you live in a rural area you’ve likely noticed that many homes are heated using furnace fuel. Long pipes aren’t running through rural areas that get furnace fuel from one location to the farmers’ homes, the fuel is delivered by trucks.

There is no logistical reason why those living in areas that lack a well and have no piping infrastructure can’t use trucks (or trains, or any other means of transportation) to move water from a source to a holding tank. This option would actually be easier in many cases then running endless miles of pipes from a reservoir to rural areas. Such an option would also likely involve people catching rainwater to store in their water tank which would be another aspect to take into consideration.

These are two potential solutions to a problem that likely has many more. The beauty of the free market is that it allows for experimentation to find the most efficient solutions to various problems. The government seems to believe only in one size fits all solutions which is a symptom of being a monopoly. We can’t even imagine some of the innovative way services would be provided in a market free of government tyranny. A statist can argue that a natural monopoly exists in the provisions of certain services, but only if you are unwilling to realize other solutions exist to providing those services. Just a little thinking outside of the box will allow you to realize natural monopolies don’t exist. People are innovative and using that innovation to provide services better than a current provider is likely to lead to profits which is as noble a motivator as any.