Category: Politics

Family of Murdered Border Patrol Agent Want the ATF Prosecuted

Things have heated up for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF). An investigation has been called for and the head of the ATF may have to resign and everybody else will likely get a congratulations and complimentary pat on the pack for their work in suppressing our rights. But as Uncle points out not everybody is happy with simply giving the ATF a slap on the wrist:

The idea was that once the weapons in Mexico were traced back to the straw purchasers, the entire arms smuggling network could be brought down. Instead, the report argues, letting the weapons slip into the wrong hands was a deadly miscalculation that resulted in preventable deaths, including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Terry was killed last year north of the Mexican border in Arizona after confronting bandits believed to be preying on illegal immigrants. Two weapons found near the scene of the killing were traced to Fast and Furious.

“I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t believe it at first,” Terry’s mother, Josephine, said when she learned the ATF may have let some of the guns used in the attack slip through its fingers. Terry’s relatives said they want all those involved in his killing and who helped put the weapons in their hands to be prosecuted.

“We ask that if a government official made a wrong decision, that they admit their error and take responsibility for his or her actions,” Robert Heyer, Terry’s cousin and family spokesman, said in a hearing last week by the House panel.

I wish Terry’s family the best of luck but alas I’m guessing they’re more likely to receive a lesson in the evils of statism than receive any compensation for the murder of their family member. The government has a habit of protecting their own which has lead to many government agencies literally getting away with murder without so much as an apology.

Obama Doesn’t Get Economics

I know you read the title of this post and thought to yourself “no shit Sherlock.” Well it’s worse than we thought because it seems Obama believes automation which increases productivity and frees up labor for other areas is actually the cause of unemployment:

There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.

I think Obama desperately needs to read some Hazlitt, namely Economics in One Lesson [PDF] which can be found freely available at this link. Specifically Obama needs to read chapter 7, The Curse of Machinery:

After the machine has produced economies sufficient to offset its cost, the clothing manufacturer has more profits than before. (We shall assume that he merely sells his coats for the same price as his competitors, and makes no effort to undersell them.) At this point, it may seem, labor has suffered a net loss of employment, while it is only the manufacturer, the capitalist, who has gained. But it is precisely out of these extra profits that the subsequent social gains must come. The manufacturer must use these extra profits in at least one of three ways, and possibly he will use part of them in all three: (1) he will use the extra profits to expand his operations by buying more machines to make more coats; or (2) he will invest the extra profits in some other industry; or (3) he will spend the extra profits on increasing his own consumption. Whichever of these three courses he takes, he will increase employment.

In other words, the manufacturer, as a result of his economies, has profits that he did not have before. Every dollar of the amount he has saved in direct wages to former coat makers, he now has to pay out in indirect wages to the makers of the new machine, or to the workers in another capital industry, or to the makers of a new house or motor car for himself, or of jewelry and furs for his wife. In any case (unless he is a pointless hoarder) he gives indirectly as many jobs as he ceased to give directly.

Claiming that machines cause unemployment does nothing besides demonstrate ignorance in economics. People that blame machines for unemployment doesn’t stop to think about who builds those machines, who maintains them, who manufactures more raw materials to handle the increase in consumption due to ability to produce more, etc. Basically those who believe automation is the enemy of employment are unable to see the whole picture and instead only concern themselves with the part they’re looking at right then and there.

If automation were the enemy of employment then a large portion of the population should have remained unemployed after the Industrial Revolution where automation took over a huge amount of work previously performed manually by people.

Government Using Fear to Justify Its Own Existence

The state of Minnesota has something of a deficit going on which has required a rework of our state budget. Because politicians can’t actually do the job their elected to do we currently have a stalemate between the Democrats who want to reduce our budget by $1 and the Republican who want to reduce our budget by $1. The problem is the two parties can’t agree on which $1 to cut and thus we’re facing a potential government shutdown. As our state government is a government it has already moved to bypass it’s own laws by using fear to justify its existence:

In a petition to Ramsey County District Court, Lori Swanson said that unless a court keeps core services running, sexual predators could be out on the streets, veterans turned out of nursing homes, unemployment checks left languishing, and there would be a “catch-and-release” criminal justice system if no judges were able to preside over hearings.

What the government wants you to see is the reason you need them to live. What you should be seeing is a weakness, a central entity that is critical to the livelihood of many people. A lack of redundancies is a bad thing as any network administrator will tell you. If you only have one central e-mail server and it goes down that means your organization can’t send or receive e-mails until the system is fixed. On the other hand if you have redundant e-mail systems and one goes down you will be just fine.

Having so many services administered by the government means there is a complete lack of redundancies. If the government goes down then peoples’ lives are negatively affected. This is why giving the government a monopoly on anything is a very bad idea (well that and because they use their monopoly on the initiation of force to provide everything they do). Imagine for a minute if the government didn’t have a monopoly on critical services.

Let’s use the police force for this this example. As it sits now the government wants you to believe there will be chaos in the streets if they shutdown because the police will not be funded and thus unable to perform their duties (this of course ignores the ability of individuals to defend themselves without the need of state assistance). Now let’s image police forces were privatized and communities or even individuals could hire the services of any private security company they so chose. If the company you’re currently contracted with goes bankrupt and thus can’t provide their services the solution is simple, you hire a different security company.

When I talk about the privatization of police forces people instantly jump up and yell about why that’s a terrible idea. I disagree but this post isn’t about that, it’s about having redundancies for critical services which the government doesn’t allow for. Either way any system controlled by government is a weak point because private entities are seldom allowed to provide similar systems (either by law or by the fact that government can undercut any private entity as government can run at a constant loss).

Claiming that society will basically collapse if the government shuts down is fear mongering. It’s no different than a fire department allowing a house to burn to the ground to make an example of somebody who wouldn’t play by their rules. In order to maintain their current power and to continue grabbing more the people in the government’s territory must be afraid, they must fear something and believe the government is the only entity that can protect them. The war on terror is a similar tactic used by the federal government to grab power through such atrocities to liberty as the PATRIOT Act.

If you believe society will collapse if the government shuts down you need to open your eyes and realize why that’s such a bad thing. It’s not because the government is glorious and the only thing that separates society from chaos, it’s because they’ve removed any redundancies to the services they provide and thus are a central point of failure. This is one reason for the advocacy of small government, every system you remove government interference from is a system can will be provided by private individuals and thus competition and redundancy will be allowed to flourish. Don’t fear a government shut down, fear government control which causes a shut down to affect so many lives.

The Government’s Attack on Bitcoin Has Begun

One thing many people fail to realize is that government’s like to control what is legal currency as it gives them unprecedented power. This tradition has gone back to the days of kings issuing coins with their images on them and disallowing commerce in their realm unless it was done with the use of coinage bearing their faces. It’s not at all surprising that the United States government eliminated the gold standard, a standard most often chosen in a free market, and created the Federal Reserve to issue all legal tender. Not only did the United States government switch to a fiat currency which they basically control they also made the possession of gold coins illegal and then confiscate coins in private hands.

Every time a new currency starts to make any headway the government steps in and shuts it down. These shut downs are always preceded by justifications for eliminating the potential alternative currency and now the government has unveiled their excuse for attacking Bitcoin, which not surprisingly involves the drug war:

Two U.S. senators have written an open letter to the United States attorney general, asking federal authorities to crack down on “Silk Road,” the Internet black market drug trade, and the digital currency that funds it, Bitcoins.

After reading the report on Silk Road, written by Gawker’s Adrian Chen, Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Reuters reports. The letter states:

“The only method of payment for these illegal purchases is an untraceable peer-to-peer currency known as Bitcoins. After purchasing Bitcoins through an exchange, a user can create an account on Silk Road and start purchasing illegal drugs from individuals around the world and have them delivered to their homes within days. We urge you to take immediate action and shut down the Silk Road network.”

The truth behind this attack though is the bankers aren’t happy with the idea of an alternative currency that they can’t control. Unlike previous currencies though Bitcoins aren’t controlled in any manner by a central system making the elimination of the currency difficult. That being said there is nothing stopping the government from making possession of Bitcoins illegal and then establishing a method of searching for Bitcoin related Internet traffic. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out, especially if Bitcoins become more popular in commerce.

Government Jacking Up The Price of Electricity

Many greenies have been clamoring for stricter regulation of coal burning power plants but at the same time haven’t offered any viable alternatives (except for the few who support nuclear energy). As there is money to be made in slapping “green” on every product and charging more for it I’m not surprised companies and government officials have been catering to these environmentalists. A problem arises though when governments place regulations on private industries, the price of that industry’s products and services goes up because compliance with regulations is a very expensive business. This is exactly what is happening with the power production market:

Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.

The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation’s electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered.

The increases are expected to begin to appear in 2014, and policymakers already are scrambling to find cheap and reliable alternative power sources.

Anybody who understands the damages done by government interference in the market could have told you this was the only possible outcome. By making coal plants more expensive to run the government has effectively increased your taxes by forcing power companies to put the additional cost of compliance onto you.

Many of the people who claim we need greener technologies (without actually offering viable ideas for creating such technologies at an affordable cost) also claim the government needs to step in an help the poor. How the fuck is this working out for you guys? The people most affected by increased costs due to government regulations are the poor. By advocating regulations that negatively impact power production you’ve caused a need to increase power rates and thus have ensure those who can barley afford electricity now are unlikely to afford it when the cost goes up by 60 percent to pay for compliance with your beloved regulations. Great job idiots.

Doctors Suing Over Florida Law Against Them Asking About Firearms

A short while back a Florida law was passed that barred doctors from asking patients whether or not they owned firearms. I posted about disagreement with this law on the grounds that it prohibits free speech. It appears as through some Florida doctors agree with me and are now suing on grounds that the law violates their right to free speech:

Physicians and the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics sued Florida Gov. Rick Scott, claiming the “Physician Gag Law” he signed last week unconstitutionally bars doctors from asking patients simple questions about guns and gun safety, and threatens them with loss of their medical licenses if they do so. More than 170 Florida children die each year from gunshots.

Three Florida doctors sued the governor and four other top Florida officials in Miami Federal Court. The plaintiff doctors are joined by the Florida Chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians.

Unfortunately I find myself in agreement with these doctors. Prohibiting somebody from asking another questions is a form of censorship. If a doctor wishes to ask me if I own firearms that’s their right and it’s my right to tell them where to stick their question. Should the doctor continue with his inquiry I can find another doctor to provide my medical needs. What I don’t agree with are some of the claims being made by the doctors:

The physicians say the dangers are elevated in Florida, which has a higher level of gun ownership than the national average: “Firearms pose particular risks in households with children. Every day in America 65 children and teens are shot with firearms, and eight of them die. One third of U.S. homes with children younger than eighteen have a firearm. More than 40 percent of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked and one quarter of those homes store them loaded.

Anti-gunners spout statistics like this often and then you find out that their definition of a child is a person between 0 and 25 years of age or some other absurd stretch. There is no justifiable reason why a physician needs to know whether or not I own firearms and they shouldn’t be making claims that such information is important to them. I will agree that they have the freedom to ask whether or not I own firearms but they certainly have no reason to know such information.

California Trying to Push Out More Businesses

Seriously are the legislators in California retarded? Don’t answer that, I already know the answer is yet. It just seems that at some point in California’s recent history the lawmakers there would have learned something. Apparently not as California’s economy is going down the tubes faster than an unwanted pregnancy on prom night and that doesn’t seem to be fast enough for their government. With rising unemployment and businesses fleeing the state the politicians in the Assembly just passed a law that would tax online retailers:

The state of California could collect more than $1 billion a year by taxing Amazon and other online retailers if a bill approved by the Assembly becomes law.

Of course this won’t bring in $1 billion a year as companies would have to stay in California to pay which they’re not going to do. Amazon has already left states that have attempted to extract tax dollars from them.

In order for this law to make money California is going to have to go full socialist and ban anybody from leaving the state without government approval. If California wants to make money they’re going to have to create a business friendly environment where companies can flourish instead of being trampled by the boots of government interference.

If you live in that forsaken state it would be wise to get out now before the prevent you from doing so.

FBI Loses in Illegal St. Paul Raid Case

Those of you who lived in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention (RNC) are unlikely to forget how half of the city was turned into a police state within a police state. Heavily armed thugs in riot gear were marching around like they owned the place and they were supposedly the good guys. Before the actual convention the FBI and St. Paul police performed a series of raids on the houses of people suspected of planning demonstrations against the RNC (thankfully they left those of us at Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty kickoff alone). The police stormed into several houses and rounded up the people there like cattle because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Well it wasn’t a good idea and the case filed against them ended poorly for them:

Three activists and their attorneys won a $50,000 settlement today in a lawsuit that challenged an August 30, 2008 police raid on a St. Paul home in advance of that year’s Republican National Convention (RNC). The plaintiffs in the case — Sarah Coffey, Erin Stalnaker and Kris Hermes — are giving most of the award to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and the formation of a national legal defense fund for political activists. The St. Paul house raid was one of several police actions taken against protesters days before the RNC began, including the search and seizure of a central political meeting space, which is also the subject of pending litigation.

Obviously I don’t see this as an amazing victory because the government basically said “Yeah we screwed up so here’s some of your tax money back.” This is always the bittersweet side of winning cases against the government, they’re not really the ones footing the bill, you and I are. Either way as a man who loves irony I really do love the fact that some of the money won by the plaintiffs is being donated to an anarchist organization. Seriously that moves just drips with delicious irony.

The big question is what will this victory symbolize? Not a damned thing. Having to pay three people $50,000 isn’t going to even make a blip on the radar of finances for the government so no lesson is likely to be learned from this. The only possible outcome could be new legislation that legalizes raids like the one performed by the FBI and St. Paul Police Department so the state doesn’t have to worry about getting sued again in the future. At least I’m happy to say the Democratic National Convention (DNC) didn’t end up here this year because we would have had all of this shit happen all over again.

The Senate Votes to Renew PATRIOT Act Provision for Four More Years

Although I never doubted this would happen the Senate has officially voted to extend the expiring PATRIOT Act provisions for another four years:

The four-year extension was approved in the Senate just hours before the deadline at midnight (0400 GMT).

The bill was then sent to the House of Representatives, where it passed by a 250-153 vote.

That’s 250 “representatives” that are perfectly OK with shitting all over your rights.