Chronicling the depravities of the State.
If there’s one thing the United States is good at it’s killing people overseas:
29 dead in a little over a week. Nearly 200 gone this year. The White House is stepping up its campaign of drone attacks in Yemen, with four strikes in eight days. And not even the slaying of 10 civilians over the weekend seems to have slowed the pace in the United States’ secretive, undeclared war.
But remember, they hate us for our freedom.
Obviously the Middle Easterners hate Americans for their freedom:
A U.S. drone strike targeting al Qaeda suspects in Yemen killed 13 civilians, including three women, three security officials in the restive Middle Eastern country said.
A United States drone killed 13 civilians and didn’t even manage to hit the target. Let that sink in for a moment, 13 innocent individuals were snuffed out by a United State drone. How would the average American react if 13 innocent people in their country were killed by a Yemen drone strike? They would probably demand war with Yemen as payback. Guess what? People in the Middle East aren’t any different than people in America, when their fellow people are murdered they want to make those responsible for the murders pay.
What compounds the issue is the reaction:
“This was one of the very few times when our target was completely missed. It was a mistake, but we hope it will not hurt our anti-terror efforts in the region,” a senior Yemeni Defense Ministry official told CNN. The official asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Yup, that’s it, the strike was merely a mistake. The only thing that’s actually important, according to the sociopath quoted, is that the anti-terror efforts in the region aren’t hurt.
Go ahead, explain to me how the Middle Easterners hate America because of its freedom and not because of the mind boggling number of hellfire missiles it rains down upon them.
Today’s life lesson is this: only do business with those you trust. If you do business with those you can’t trust then you may find yourself missing large quantities of money:
An invite-only online hedge fund that promised lucrative returns for investors called the Bitcoin Savings & Trust has shut down, and with it have disappeared the service’s administrator — a user known in the digital currency community as pirateat40 — as well as millions of dollars’ worth of the cryptocash, currently valued at around $11 USD per coin.
Pirateat40 claimed that Bitcoin Savings & Trust had collected from investors roughly 500,000 worth of the currency, or around $5.49 million in US dollars, but not before disappearing off the face of the Web. The virtual hedge fund went offline this month following pirateat40’s announcement that the site would be shutting down soon, but the investors that had their own Bitcoins tied up in BS&T say that they think the e-bankster in charge has bolted with their money.
From what I can gather nobody involved with the ponzi scheme actually knew who Pirateat40 was. Why would you trust a person you’ve never met with your money? More importantly, why would you trust a person whose identity is concealed from you with your money? The answer to both questions is you shouldn’t.
Earlier this year France elected a socialist as their new president, which I predicted would end badly for the country. Needless to say the unemployment rate hasn’t improved:
The number of French unemployed has broken through the 3-million barrier for the first time since 1999, the country’s leaders say.
The latest total adds pressure on President Francois Hollande, whose administration is under attack for doing not doing enough to fix the economy. France’s unemployment rate is currently 10 percent.
Perhaps the new socialist president has been too busy ordering the confiscation of property from French gypsies to address current economic issues. Either way, things aren’t looking good for those living in France.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) were just granted the power to confiscate cash by Attorney General Eric Holder:
Attorney General Eric Holder has granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) authority, for a one-year trial period, to seize and administratively forfeit property allegedly involved in controlled substance offenses pursuant to United States Code Title 21 › Chapter 13 › Subchapter I › Part E › § 881.
Yes, the same agency that has been smuggling guns to Mexican drug cartels to both advance gun control and arm cartels that are favored by the United States will now have the power to seize property allegedly involved in drug crimes. How does it make sense to reward a government agency that has been caught performing operations that have gotten people killed? It doesn’t, which is why I’m not surprised the state is doing it.
The Republican National Convention (RNC) attracts people from all walks of life. You have the hardcore Republicans, the Ron Paul advocates of liberty, anti-war protesters, and even anarchists. As usual the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is trying to pin potential violence on anarchists and it looks like they have revealed their plan to incite violence:
The joint bulletin, titled “Potential For Violent or Criminal Action By Anarchist Extremists During The 2012 National Political Conventions,” says anarchist extremists likely don’t have the capability to overcome heightened security measures set up by the conventions themselves. In addition, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor said Tuesday that fences have been established around “some of the more attractive government targets.”
Instead, extremists could target nearby infrastructure, including businesses and transit systems, according to Wednesday’s bulletin.
The bulletin mentions possible violent tactics anarchist extremists could employ, including the use of molotov cocktails or acid-filled eggs.
Acid-filled eggs? Really? If that’s what the FBI is planning to distribute I’ll give them points for doing something different at least. Yet this should serve as a warning to attending protesters, if somebody dressed as an anarchist is walking around, passing out eggs, and encouraging people to throw them don’t take them up on their offer. In all likelihood that person is an FBI agents who is attempting to incite violence so his agency can swoop in and save the day from the problem they caused.
An interesting claim made by anarcho-communists is that the state is necessary to maintain private property and if the state were abolished private property would go with it (which they see as a positive thing). The opposite is true, the state is the biggest infringer of private property:
Environmentalists and mining companies are fighting over the fate of the remote Klappan Valley in northern British Columbia. The different sides struggle for government approval of their particular plans, but almost no one fully acknowledges the property rights of the first owners of the valley, the indigenous Tahltan people.
[…]
By Canadian law, the Tahltan do not strictly own the valley. This is because their claim to it predates the existence of the Canadian state — and the government officials who conquered or negotiated treaties with most of the rest of Canada’s indigenous people never came into most of what is now British Columbia (BC).
We see this time and time again, property rights are usurped by the state to the benefit of itself and its cronies. The case of the Tahltan people is a perfect example of this. Mining companies want to extract resources on the land that has been inhabited by the Tahltan since before European settlers arrived. As the rightful owners of the land who use its natural resources to survive the Tahltan have a vested interest in preserving the land. They also have an interest in selling mining rights. Needless to say they are willing to let mining happen on their property so long as there is a balance between mineral extraction and land preservation.
The mining companies have little interest in preserving the land as it’s not theirs so they turned to the Canadian government. Even though the Canadian government didn’t come into existence until well after the Tahltan settled the land the government claims complete authority over the territory. Because of this claimed authority the mining companies know that they can take minerals from the Tahltan land without having to concern themselves with extracting said minerals in a manner that the Tahltan agree with. In this case the property rights of the Tahltan are being overthrown by the Canadian government for the benefit of mining companies.
This is what the state does. Anarcho-communists are incorrect when they claim the state is required to maintain property rights. As an entity that exists solely off of expropriating wealth from individuals the state is the biggest infractor against property rights. In fact the state is willing to go so far as to use violence against property owners:
The Tahltan did not believe their elected government had the right to give away their property, so they set up a blockade on the only road into the Klappan Valley. They let in tourists and anybody else they felt would not harm their turf, but they blocked out all mining equipment.
On, September 16, 2005, at the behest of Fortune Minerals, the Mounties rolled in and arrested 15 of the protestors, 9 of whom were elders.
Even though the Tahltan were acting in a nonviolent manner, they were simply refusing to allow mining equipment to enter their property, the state moved in with armed thugs to arrest the protesters so that the mining companies could enter and extract the resources sold to them by the Canadian government. This was merely a repeat of history though, the state has always existed by violating the property rights of others and, in fact, must violate the property rights of others in order to exist.
The irony can barely be described in words:
The central bank union is demanding an average pay increase of 23 percent to compensate for inflation since June 2008, Belsito said. The union may call a longer strike later this month, he added.
Brazil’s central bank likes to play many of the same games as the United States central bank. The Brazilian central bank enjoys printing money and fractional reserve banking. In fact the Brazilian central bank recently dropped the reserve requirement in the hopes of boosting automobile loans. Needless to say a drop in reserve requirement is actually a grant of permission from the main central bank to the lower banks to counterfeit more.
Now that the employees of Brazil’s central bank are suffering the consequences of their employer’s actions they are demanding a wage increase. Perhaps they can remain on strike indefinitely, cripple the central bank’s operations, and help prevent inflation from increasing.
Collectivists like to throw around words such as bourgeois, proletariat, exploitation, etc. One of the most interesting words they seem to enjoy haphazardly tossing here and there is nationalize. In the eyes of collectivists nationalizing businesses will make them more “socially responsible” by transferring ownership away from a single or handful of wealthy individuals to the public. What actually happens is that the ownership is transferred from a single or handful of individuals to a single or handful of individuals. Nationalization transfers ownership from private individuals to the state, which is why this article in Slate is so incredibly stupid:
Over the last several years, Facebook has become a public good and an important social resource. But as a company, it is behaving badly, and long term, that may cost it: A spring survey found that almost half of Americans believe that Facebook will eventually fade away. Even the business side has been a bit of a disaster lately, with earnings lower than expected and the news that a significant portion of Facebook profiles are fake. If neither users nor investors can be confident in the company, it’s time we start discussing an idea that might seem crazy: nationalizing Facebook.
Let me see if I follow the author’s idea. Facebook has been performing poorly compared to expectations and, in general, behaving badly. The solutions to this problem is to prop Facebook up by nationalizing it. Interesting. Here I thought the best way to deal with a problematic company was to let it go broke and fade into the irrelevance of market failures. If the author’s accusations are true then Facebook is misallocating resources that could be put to more productive uses, shouldn’t we allow those misallocated resources to be freed so that they could be used to provide services that people actually want? Wouldn’t it be wrong to force everybody to continue giving Facebook resources as since shown a propensity to use those resources poorly?
Let’s see what the author has to say:
By “nationalizing Facebook,” I mean public ownership and at least a majority share at first. When nationalizing the company restores the public trust, that controlling interest could be reduced. There are three very good reasons for this drastic step: It could fix the company’s woeful privacy practices, allow the social network to fulfill its true potential for providing social good, and force it to put its valuable data to work on significant social problems.
What? Excuse me, I need to get some Aspirin to continue with this post.
In Odin’s name, where does the author come up with the idea that nationalizing Facebook would fix the company’s woeful privacy practices? The the fuck is “social good” and how does nationalizing help Facebook provide it? What significant social problems can Facebook work on after being nationalized that it couldn’t work on before?
I want to focus on the claim that nationalizing Facebook will improve its privacy practices. As I explained earlier, when a company is nationalized ownership is transferred from private individuals to the state. The state that would gain ownership of Facebook in this case is the United States, the same state that said it was legal to wiretap your phone and track your cellular phone without a warrant. Does that sound like an entity that has the protection of your privacy in mind? I want to emphasize the stupidity the author is advocating:
It would be better to have a national privacy commissioner with real authority, some stringent privacy standards set at the federal level, and programs for making good use of some of the socially valuable data mining that firms like Facebook do. But in the United States, such sweeping innovations are probably too difficult to actually pull off, and nationalization would almost get us there. Facebook would have to rise to First Amendment standards rather than their own terms of service.
Since there are concerns about privacy on Facebook the author wants to put the federal government in charge of enforcing Facebook’s privacy policies. Yes, the same federal government that ruled wiretapping and tracking cellular phones doesn’t even require a warrant. I wonder if the author, fearing babysitters may molest his child, uses the sex offenders registry in the find babysitters.
I’m completely baffled by the author’s claim that putting the federal government in charge of Facebook would require it to rise to Fist Amendment standards when that very same federal government doesn’t itself rise to such standards.
With 80 percent of market share, Facebook is already a monopoly, and being publicly traded hasn’t made it more socially responsible.
No, it’s not a monopoly. Monopolies aren’t defined by arbitrary market shares, monopolies are defined by whether or not competition can freely enter a market. The fact that the state hasn’t made any laws protecting Facebook’s market share, demonstrated by Twitter and Google entering the social networking market unhindered, proves that no monopoly exists. Once again the author makes an accusation that Facebook isn’t “socially responsible” without actually stating what does or doesn’t make a company “socially responsible.”
But Facebook can also make mistakes with political consequences. The company has come under fire for missteps like prohibiting photos of women breast-feeding and suddenly banning “Palestinian” pages at one point. Facebook communications are an important tool for democracy advocates, including those who helped organize the Arab Spring. Yet the user policy of requiring that democratic activists in authoritarian regimes maintain “real” profiles puts activist leaders at risk. And dictators have figured out how they can use Facebook to monitor activist networks and entrap democracy advocates.
But since the security services in Syria, Iran, and China now use Facebook to monitor and entrap activists, public trust in Facebook may be misplaced. Rather than allow Facebook to serve authoritarian interests, if nationalized in the United States, we could make Facebook change its identity policy to allow democracy activists living in dictatorships to use pseudonyms.
Just a second, I need more Aspirin.
How does transferring ownership of Facebook to the federal government stop it from serving authoritarian interests? The United States government is an authoritarian regime.
Nationalizing Facebook would allow more resources to go into data mining for public health and social research.
We must nationalize Facebook to protect user’s privacy by violating their privacy! War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength! It’s kind of impressive to see an author invalidate almost nine paragraphs of argumentation in one 17 word sentence.
Many academics are finding that big social network data sets can generate surprising and valuable information for addressing social problems—for instance, public health and national security.
National security? I think it’s a well-known fact at this point that the words “national security” are mutually exclusive with “protecting privacy.”
Nationalization could allow us to review the ethical implications of their management decisions.
We’re going to put an entity that assassinates American citizens without a trail in charge of determining whether or not management decisions are ethical? Can anybody explain how that would work out?
I know the author was thinking, “Gosh, nationalizing ownership of Facebook would take ownership away from those evil bourgeois pricks and transfer it to The PeopleTM!” The author must have read a great deal of socialist propaganda and decided the writings about the evils of private ownership were great while the writings about the evils of the United States government could be ignored. Even the most ardent socialist wouldn’t dream of nationalizing Facebook under the current United States regime. Nationalizing Facebook wouldn’t suddenly turn the service into a guardian of privacy, it would merely grant a gross violator of privacy absolute ownership over the service’s data. Facebook wouldn’t be wrenched from the hands of evil bourgeois and put into the hands of The PeopleTM, it would be wrenched from the hands of investors and put into the hands of a state that ceased representing The PeopleTM long ago (if it ever did in the first place).
I don’t believe I’ve spent much time discussing WikiLeaks. In general it appears that WikiLeaks enjoys popular support on the Internet although there are a few statists who disagree with what the organization has done. WikiLeak’s critics usually cite the potential dangers that could be caused by the information they leak. It is my belief that any country willing to murder its own citizens without so much as a trail has forfeit any right to keep secrets. It’s obvious that the United States government cannot be trusted with secrets and thus I entirely support any attempt to leak confidential state information.
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julius Assange, has obviously pissed off the wrong people (or the right people, depending on how you look at it). To avoid being extradited Assange sought asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London, which was granted. The United Kingdom, apparently hellbent on arresting Assange, threatened to invade the Ecuadorian embassy:
“Today we received from the United Kingdom an express threat, in writing, that they might storm our embassy in London if we don’t hand over Julian Assange,” he said.
“Ecuador rejects in the most emphatic terms the explicit threat of the British official communication.”
He said such a threat was “improper of a democratic, civilised and rule-abiding country”.
He added: “If the measure announced in the British official communication is enacted, it will be interpreted by Ecuador as an unacceptable, unfriendly and hostile act and as an attempt against our sovereignty. It would force us to respond.
“We are not a British colony.”
Embassies are considered sovereign soil and an invasion of an embassy can be treated as an invasion of the embassy’s country. In essence the United Kingdom are willing to threaten war against Ecuador in order to arrest Assange. I think Nigel Farage’s tweet summed up the situation concisely:
The EU arrest warrant has made us so subservient to the EU we’re now storming the territory of another country in their name.
It’ll be interesting to see this story play out. Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuador embassy but the United Kingdom government has stated they won’t guarantee safe passage for Assange to leave the country:
Though the UK government says it wants to continue talks, it says flatly that it will not guarantee Mr Assange safe passage out of the country and will not compromise over its obligation to extradite him to Sweden.
This guy has obviously pissed off some higher ups, something that should be commended. I hope he survives but if things are this bad I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with an assassin’s bullet in his head. The state doesn’t tolerate those who stand against it and will happily employ violence to silence them.