Category: Politics

I’m Beginning to Think a Sinister Plot is Afoot

The United States is preparing to war with Syria. Hoping to prevent the impending war many anti-war activists have been urging people to contact their “representatives.” Contacting “representatives” seems to be the go-to solution whenever one becomes unhappy with political matters. This is especially funny because it’s also the most meaningless act one can make, which leads me to a theory. I’m beginning to believe that having the ability to call, write, and e-mail government officials is a sinister plot.

When you think about it, being able to contact government officials gives people an out. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and taking direct action people can be satisfied that they “did something” by making a phone call, typing a letter, or sending an e-mail. They contact their “representatives.” They let him or her know, in no uncertain language, their feelings on the matter. After that their “representative” becomes the responsible party.

As I explained yesterday, political participation is nothing more than acting by proxy. You elect an individual to do the work you want done. If he or she does as you want you give them a gold star, if he or she doesn’t do what you want you give them a demerit. In the latter case you can absolve yourself of any responsibility because it was your proxy who failed. You elected him or her based on promises that weren’t fulfilled. Contacting “representatives” is little different. If they fail to do as you want you can blame them for the consequences.

Why I Hate Politics: Everybody is Right, Everybody is Wrong

It’s fairly common for gun bloggers to be active in politics. I used to be active in politics but I gave it up. My reason for doing so was simple: politics is pointless. It’s the single biggest waste of time and energy in any society. Although I’ve performed no scientific study I theorize that as a nation’s bureaucracy increases, that is to say as the amount of time sunk into politics increase, its productivity decreases.

Every second you sink into politics is a second you sink into accomplishing nothing of value. Last week I pointed out that individuals involved with politics have a tendency to oversimplify complex issues. Productivity can only occur when problems can be solved and problems can only be solved when they are properly understood. Because politics lends itself to oversimplification it’s impossible to properly identify and solve problems. One of the reasons politics may lend itself to oversimplification is because matters quickly become a form of religious dogma within factions. This brings me to another thing I hate about politics: everybody believes they are right and everybody else is wrong.

Here in the Twin Cities we’re having a political debate about expanding the light rail network. Like any good debate this one has supporters and detractors. The supporters claim that light rail brings economic development and empowers the poor while the detractors claim that light rail is a boondoggle that wastes tax victim money. It’s a black and white issue for both sides. Neither side is willing to even consider what the other side is saying.

Supporters of the light rail project will often point to economic studies that conclude light rail expansions lead to economic development. These same people will marginalize studies that conclude light rail expansion simply moves economic development from one location to another and, since light rail systems require resources to build and maintain, leaves less overall resources for said economic development. Detractors wave studies that show how much building and maintaining a light rail system costs, which is almost always more than the supporters claim. These opponents of light rail will also point out the amount of economic damage done to areas where light rail construction leaves current transportation infrastructure unusable for a year or more. If nobody can get to your business then they can’t buy your wares.

Both sides have a tendency to outright ignore the other side’s arguments. There is no debate. Everybody is sure that they’re right. Being arrogant normally isn’t a problem but being arrogant and political is a recipe for disaster. This is because politics is a strategy to coerce your neighbors into doing what you want.

Consider what the supporters are really trying to do. Deciding that they want a new toy, the supporters have gone to the biggest bully on the playground, the government, and asked him to take other children’s lunch money. Detractors, on the other hand, have gone to the biggest bully and asked him to prevent the supporters from ever purchasing another toy.

Neither side is paying much attention to the people who are actually affected by this project. How do the business owners and residents feel about the light rail expansion? Knowing that light rail construction could harm their business for an extended period of time may lead business owners in the area to reject the project. Residents may want a rail system to ease their commute from home to work. But these people aren’t the ones being asked. The project is being argued by people living in different parts of the Twin Cities and Minnesota. It’s no longer about them. In fact, it was never about them. This argument, from the beginning, has been about political dogma. One side believes light rail is amazing and the other believes it’s the great evil of our time.

What’s the point of a debate when both sides already know that they are, for a fact, right? Political debates are seldom debates, they’re just two sides screaming “I’m right, you’re wrong!” at each other. Facts are quickly tossed aside in favor of talking points. Supporters are quick to claim that detractors hate the poor while detractors are quick to claim that supporters want to make everybody poor.

I see no point in wasting my time arguing with brick walls, which is what politics is. Instead of wasting my time with futile arguments I prefer to use my time actually doing things.

Watch Rand Paul Get His Statist On

I you’re a libertarian who believes the political process is the way to achieve liberty and envision Rand Paul as a critical part of your political strategy then, well, you’re not going to like this post. Between his political grandstanding, implicit approval on the drug war, and change of heart on domestic drone usage it’s pretty clear he’s a through and through statist. But if there is still any doubt in your mind that Rand isn’t a defender of liberty then put it to rest:

Sen. Paul reasoned that there need to be some laws that protect certain secrets and that Manning put many lives at risk by releasing millions of pages “willy-nilly”. His main concern is that whistle-blowers break laws in order to reveal state secrets.

“There do have to be laws to protect some secrets. I think if you’ve got the, you know, the plans on how to make a nuclear bomb that is a state secret. If you give that to the enemy, that is being treasonous,” said the Senator from Kentucky, “Even if you reveal it, you just have to have laws against that. What Manning did was just willy-nilly, just released millions of pages of things and I think some people have said there is potentially some harm from that. You know individual agents that could have been killed or put at risk from this. So there is a problem with that. So I just can’t support that.”

It appears, at least in the mind of Rand Paul, that Manning’s decision to collect documents, as he put it, “willy-nilly” trumps the fact that he revealed war crimes that were being perpetrated by the United States. Even if I believed in the legitimacy of the state I would believe that a state that conceals criminal activities loses the right to keep secrets.

A warrant is, effectively, a revocation of an accused person’s right to keep secrets. When you are accused of wrongdoing your home, business, personally electronics, and other properties can be riffled through by state agents. The same should apply to the state. It has been accused of war crimes since it entered Iraq (well, truthfully, before that) so the people should have a right to riffle through all of its stuff. But Rand seems to believe that the state has a special privilege to keep secrets even when its accused of wrongdoing. Rules are for thee, not for me after all.

If this is the type of person who you belief will deliver freedom to the United States then you’re sorely mistaken. On numerous occasions he has advocated giving the state special privileges that would allow it to maintain its reign of tyranny. Liberty cannot exist unless all members of society are subject to the same rulebook. As soon as one member gets to play by a different rulebook then the door is open for them to obtain power over others.

Another Reason I Find Politics Trite

Yesterday I headed over to /r/Libertarian hoping to skim a blog worthy story or two from the cesspool of neoconservative talking point. My quest almost turned out to be fruitless until I decided to look at things from another perspective. Instead of looking for an interesting story to discuss I decided to look for a link that embodied some of the reasons I find politics to be a pointless exercise. That quest was a rousing success. I could have posted many stories here but I settled on one that managed to unintentionally summarize one of the things I hate most about politics into a simple image. Take a look at this comic:

If you’re a neoconservative who thinks that the only thing wrong with America is the president then this image probably gives you a throbbing hard-on or makes you moist between your legs. It’s pure, unbridled Obama hatred packed into a 71 kilobyte, 555×380 pixel image. But, like most political cartoons, it’s a lie. The author would lead you to believe that Obama has claimed all the power for his branch of government and rendered the other two impotent. It’s a crock of shit, which brings me to one of the things I hate a politics the most: the tendency to grossly oversimplify matters.

Although the example I picked is neoconservative in nature, the neoliberals aren’t innocent of such chicanery. In fact it was only two election cycles ago where the neoliberals blamed all of the world’s ills on George W. Bush. Now that their man is the figurehead of America all of the ills of this country are due to “obstructionist Republicans in the House.” You can see that both sides share a common trait: everything bad is always the other side’s fault and everything good is always their side’s doing.

I have a theory about why such behavior is prevalent in politics. Politics requires one to believe in the currently established system, at least to some extent. How else could one claim that the country can be saved so long as the “right people” get into office? Why else would one work for the “right person’s” campaign unless they believed the system itself can be used to affect positive change? If you truly believe the system is broken, if you truly believe the system can’t be used to create a better future then you will find no point in participating in it. Since individuals who participate in the political system believe that, at least in some capacity, the system is legitimate they must find another reason why their vision for the “best future” isn’t being executed. Some of these people blame uneducated voters while others blame certain politicians.

You see, if the system is legitimate then society’s ills must be caused by something besides the system itself. Taking the system itself off of the table removes a great deal of complex societal issues. Fixing society’s ills, for example, is as simple as putting the “right people” in charge of the legitimate system. Since most people believe that their vision is the one true vision they inevitably find the parties responsible for society’s ills: those who hold different political ideologies. We now have an “us” them and a “them” team. Depending on how you identify yourself politically the composition of “us” and “them” will differ. In the case of Republicans the “them” team is made up of Democrats. Team libertarian sees team “them” as a bunch of pinko socialists. Self-declared conservatives have a tendency to blame “the liberals.” It’s very convenient but it boils very complex issues down to gross generalizations.

Returning to the comic we see that the author believes the executive branch has all the power. I’m sure, in his head, all would be well again if the three branches had equal power. The good news is that each branch does have equal power. How the hell do you think the executive branch enjoys its vast power? Congress has to pass the budget that allows the executive branch to execute its whims. The judicial branch has been more than happy to rule the vast powers of the executive branch as constitutional. We don’t have a compartmentalized system where each branch fights the other two branches. What we do have are three members of the same team. All three branches of government are helping each other because they know if they scratch their fellow’s back they will likely get their back scratched in return. But since individuals involved in the political process believe the system, in some capacity, is legitimate they can’t bring themselves to make such criticisms.

There you have it, a long-winded rant about one of the inherit characteristics of politics that I detest. This, among many other reasons, is why I refuse to further participate in the political process. I will note work on a campaign, run for office, or vote. As far as I’m concerned the entire system is part of the problem and any work performed within that system is a complete waste of my time. If I want to have heated debates about meaningless topics I will stick to ones about which superhero is more bad ass. At least debates about superheroes are entertaining because the characters involved are larger than life. Debates about political figures are depressing because the characters are petty criminals who get their rocks off on wielding power over their fellow individuals.

Congress Attempting to Crush Bitcoin

You have to give Congress credit, it has remained consistent at trying to prevent any notable societal advancements. Now that Bitcoin is becoming kind of a big thing Congress has decided it’s time to being the process of putting its boot on Bitcoin’s neck:

Bitcoin, the once-obscure virtual currency, is getting attention from the most mainstream of all institutions: Congress. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Thomas Carper (D-Del.) and his Republican counterpart Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have announced plans to begin probing the virtual currency and the regulatory regime that governs it.

The new inquiry was announced in a Monday letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “Virtual currencies appear to be an important emerging area,” the senators wrote, arguing that the subject “demands a holistic and whole-government approach to understand and provide a sensible regulatory framework.” Similar letters were also sent to the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve, Department of Treasury, the Securities and Exchanges Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

“A holistic and whole-government approach” has to be one of the most meaningless statements ever made in the history of mankind. But I digress. Congress is attempting to do the only thing it knows how to do with a new technology, regulate it. Historically its ability to regulate has stemmed from its ability to identify individuals in charge of developing, maintaining, or administering new technologies and coercing them into submission. Bitcoin, being a completely decentralized network, has no such person. In fact the person credited with creating Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is a pseudonym used by the developer(s).

I predict that Congress will implement numerous laws and regulations in an attempt to curtail Bitcoin’s expansion but those attempts at imposing order will accomplish nothing. Decentralized systems have traditionally been impossible for centralized forces to defeat. While Congress may pass laws making it illegal to use Bitcoin those laws will remain impotent because Bitcoin can be used in a mostly anonymous manner. In the end, Congress will find itself unable to deal with Bitcoin just as it has found itself unable to deal with any determined decentralized force.

James Clapper to Front Privacy Review Committee

What happens when you’re the Director of National Intelligence and lie to Congress during a review of your actions that clearly violated the privacy of the American people? You’re appointed to head a review committee that is tasked with determining whether or not you violated the privacy of the American people:

At the direction of the President, I am establishing the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies to examine our global signals-intelligence collection and surveillance capability.

The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.

I know many people are outraged by this but if you look at it from a political standpoint it makes sense. Congress was briefed on and approved the National Security Agency’s (NSA) widespread spying operations. Clapper provided Congress with an out by lying to it, which gave it the opportunity to claim it was misinformed about the NSA’s operations. Since Clapper was a good sport and gave Congress a means of covering its ass, he is being rewarded by being placed in a position where he can further cover Congress’s, and the president’s, ass.

Politics is a dirty game that rewards the meritless.

Nothing Changes Through Politics

A lot of anger was created when Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) was actively spying on every American. If one believed in the political system they would likely be lead to believe that a majority of senators would move to shutdown the NSA’s Stasi-esque activities. Once again those individuals have been proven wrong:

In a 205-217 vote, lawmakers rejected an effort to restrict the National Security Agency’s (NSA) ability to collect electronic information.

What should be taken away from this vote is that no meaningful change can be achieved through the political system. The United States like to sell itself as the land of the free and the home of the brave, but there is nothing less free than widespread surveillance and nothing more cowardly than hiding behind a bully, in this case the state, in the hopes he will beat up anybody who may pose a threat to you. This vote merely reinforced the fact that the United States is the land of the subservient and home of the fearful.

Fortunately, there are other options. Instead of relying on a bunch of politicians to grant you freedom from Big Brother you can make use of currently available technologies to make yourself free immediately.

The State is Cutting Out the Middle Man

For as long as I’ve been alive the mainstream media outlets have served as the propaganda arm for the state. I’ve always wondered why the state relied on third parties to spread its propaganda. As it turns out there were laws in place that prohibited the state from directly disseminating propaganda (it did it anyways, it was just more subtle). Those laws have sunset and the state is now looking to cut the mainstream media middlemen out of the equation:

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

Who says the state can’t become more efficient?

Conscription

One of the ugly concepts that rears its ugly head from time to time is the idea of mandatory “national service.” One of my friends, who is ironically as Democratic as they come, posted this opinion piece by Michael Gerson:

The impetus for this discussion has come from the military. During an event at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival last year, Gen. Stanley McChrystal offhandedly endorsed universal national service for young people graduating from high school or college, fulfilled in either a military or civilian setting. His particular concern was the growing disconnect between the less than 1 percent of Americans who serve in the armed forces and the rest of the country. The result is not only an unequal distribution of burdens but also the unequal development of citizens. “Once you have contributed to something,” McChrystal said, “you have a slightly different view of it.”

The first sentence really shows what mandatory “national service” is about, finding more meat for the grinder. America has embroiled itself in several overseas wars and it wants to embroil itself in more. Empire building on this scale requires a lot of soldiers and enlistment rates aren’t what they used to be. Conscription, which the fascists are trying to relabel national service, is an easy way to fill the military ranks.

Relabeling conscription allows the state to use another ploy, civilians service options. Before Obama’s election most of my friends that self-identify as Democrats were anti-war and most of them remain anti-conscription today. Needless to say, since my friend who posted this self-identifies as Democrat, I had to point out the obvious fact that “national service” is merely a fancy word for conscription. In reply he said that there would be civilian options for “national service” such as AmericCorps and the Peace Corp. The civilian option is the carrot on the stick that lures people who otherwise oppose conscription to support the practice.

While most of my friends who self-identify as Democrat oppose mandatory military service many of them support mandatory civilian service. Collectivism, after all, always entails some kind of mandatory service and people who self-identify as Democrat, at least in my experience, are generally collectivists in disguise. What my friend, and many supporters of mandatory civilian service, fail to consider is that the civilian options can be taken away. Passing a law that requires individuals to perform work of the state’s choosing is easier to accomplish if a majority of supporters of both major parties can be suckered into supporting it. Passing said law is difficult, changing the rules of conscription once the laws is passed is relatively easy. In the end, if said law was passed, the civilian option would be stricken from the record in a short amount of time. Before you know it “national service” will be synonymous with military service.

Those who accept conscription must also accept the idea that the state owns individuals. If the state owns individuals it can make them do whatever it wants. Since the state’s existence is entirely dependent on expropriation, and the primary purpose of the military is to expropriate wealth from foreign countries, it will use individuals to expropriate wealth, which means anybody conscripted will almost certainly be placed in the armed forces. I hear several self-identified Democrats saying, “But they promised a civilian option!” Once you accept the idea that the state owns individuals you also necessary accept the idea that the state can change the rules whenever it wants because the people are its property to do with as it pleases.

Mandatory conscription would be a disaster in this country. The only reason higher ups in the military advocate the practice is because they want more people to send overseas to die. No matter what they promise to get popular support for conscription they will ensure that, in the end, every conscript is forced into the military.

Why Third Parties Will Never Succeed in Politics

Inevitably, when people become disenfranchised with one or both of the two major political parties, somebody suggests that they go a third party to “really change things.” While working in a third party is certainly better than one of the two major parties that reason is simply because third parties are impotent so people working in them aren’t able to use the state’s capacity for violence to inflict their will on the general populace. The reason for their impotency is because the two major parties already control the state and can rewrite the rules whenever they want:

Last year, Republican Jonathan Paton lost his bid for Congress to Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick by about 9,000 votes. Meanwhile, Libertarian Kim Allen in the race got just over 15,000 votes.

But for the Libertarian, Paton would be a congressman today – assuming, as Republicans do, that Libertarian votes would logically slide over to the R column.

What’s a good Republican to do about a bunch of spoilers who are keeping them from electoral glory?

Well, today we found out.

This afternoon, Gov. Jan Brewer signed an elections bill that basically wipes out Libertarian and other third-party candidates, boosting their signature requirements to unattainable levels. Green Party candidates would actually have to collect more signatures than they have party members.

This is exactly the kind of shenanigan that I predicted would happen if Gary Johnson would have obtained anywhere near the 5% of the popular vote needed to qualify for federal campaign funds. Whenever a third party begins to obtain any meaningful power the two major parties rewrite the rules. In Arizona the Green Party is effectively through since they need more signatures than they have party members and, if the Libertarian Party is able to achieve anywhere near enough signatures, the requirement will be increased again.

Working within the political system will never lead to liberty because the system is rigged against change.