Category: Wall of Fame Assholes

Giuliani Wants Black Parents to Raise Their Kids to be Better Slaves

I’m a firm believer that respect is earned, not given. But I’m also not a statist. In the mind of a statist respect is owed to anybody in a position of authority, no matter how ridiculous the authority is. With the police’s war on the people being waged across the country a bunch of statists have gone into victim blaming mode. Rudolph Giuliani, the former warden of New York City, made sure to take time out of his day to blame black people for not being good enough slaves:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani thinks black Americans need to worry less about police violence and more about teaching their children to respect police and fear other black people.

In light of the killings of five police officers in Dallas last week, Giuliani went off on the Black Lives Matter movement, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. He called the slogan “inherently racist” and “anti-American,” while neglecting statistics that show black people are disproportionately targeted by police.

“There’s too much violence in the black community,” he said. “[I]f you want to deal with this on the black side, you’ve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police and you’ve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police; the real danger to them, 99 out of 100 times, 9,900 out of 1,000 times, are other black kids who are gonna kill them. That’s the way they’re gonna die.”

Why should anybody respect the police? They spend most of their time enforcing victimless laws such as drug use, driving faster than arbitrarily selected speeds, parking in the wrong place or for the wrong amount of time, and other such nonsense that their department usually get a nice payout for. Meanwhile, if you call the police because somebody has broken into your home and is trying to murder you you might be left waiting for hours, if the police dispatch anybody at all. If a burglar breaks into your home and steals your valuable the only purpose the police generally serve is giving you a report that you can give to your insurance company.

In other words, the police aren’t working to earn our respect so why should people be expected to respect them? If Giuliani actually cared about reducing the number of deaths of black children, or anybody else for that matter, he would be demanding an end to the drug war, which is probably the single largest contributor to police militarization in this nation. After ending the drug war he could move to advocate for the repeal of all victimless crimes so that the police were focused on something other than revenue generation. But he doesn’t give a shit. He’s just upset because he can’t own a few black people to perform manual labor for him anymore.

Watch Our Brave Boys in Blue Defend Themselves Against a Pinned Down and Helpless Man

It’s a day ending in “y”, which means police officers somewhere in the United States gunned down a man whose only crime was having a complexion darker than mine. But this time some high quality video has surfaced that leaves little doubt that the act was little more than a summary execution (obviously the video is graphic as it involves somebody being gunned down at point blank range):

The new video shows officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II on top of Alton Sterling, threatening him not to move. One of the officers is seen with his gun drawn and pointed directly at Sterling’s head, then the camera pans away when shots are fired. After the camera pans back to Sterling, he’s seen struggling to breathe with a massive gunshot wound in his chest. The officer is still pointing his gun at Sterling, while his partner grabs an unidentified object from Sterling’s pocket.

The suspect, Alton Sterling, was lying on his back. One officer was on top of him, pinning his body down. The other office was pinning his left arm down with his legs. His other arm was stuck under the bumper of the car. From this position the officer pinning Sterling’s left arm apparently felt his life was in immediate danger because he drew his pistol and put it over Sterling’s chest. Shortly after drawing his pistol he fires into Sterling’s chest.

As expected, the neocon news sources have jumped into action and dug up as much dirt on Sterling as they could find in some strange attempt to justify the shooting. Of course none of what they present matters. Whether Sterling was a gang member, a felon, or even a pedophile is irrelevant in a self-use of force situation. What matters in a use of force situation is whether the threat at the time of the situation warranted the amount of force that was used.

The officer drew his gun, which a regular person like you or me could only legally do if we had a reasonable belief that we were in immediate danger of great bodily harm or death. I can’t see how the officer could reasonable believe that with the suspect immobilized on the ground. Even if Sterling was armed he wasn’t in a position where he could retrieve his weapon and use it. Those are the facts that matter in this case. Sterling’s past is entirely irrelevant. But some people hold a misguided belief that all police officers are heroes and will therefore go to any lengths and twist logic in any way to justify what would be unjustifiable if the perpetrator wasn’t wearing a badge.

Until society overcomes its hero worship of police officers and begins to focus solely on the facts the scourge of abusive officers will remain unaddressed. As long as the issue remains unaddressed innocent people will continue to die and the hands of almost entirely unaccountable officers.

How the State Uses Donations for the Homeless

When you donate funds to a small charity organization that specializes in assisting the homeless there’s a decent chance that those funds will go to help the homeless. When you donate funds to the State for the purpose of assisting the homeless there’s a decent change that those funds will be used to make the lives of homeless individuals more miserable:

DENVER (CBS4)– A CBS4 Investigation has found that the City of Denver used thousands of dollars in public donations intended to help Denver’s homeless with food, shelter and counseling to instead pay costs associated with a sweep of the homeless population out of Denver’s Ballpark neighborhood in March.

[…]

The CBS4 Investigation found that when city administrators were planning the March sweep, they immediately wanted to use donations that had been made to Denver’s Road Home to assist the homeless population.

In a series of city emails obtained by CBS4, city officials from the mayor’s office, public works and a host of other city agencies grappled behind the scenes with an anticipated bill of nearly $60,000 to pay an environmental company to move, store and redistribute personal property confiscated from homeless men and women during the sweep.

I must once again reiterate the fact that the State hates the homeless. The State is an organization built upon theft so it sees those who have nothing to steal as a burden.

A common criticism of libertarianism is that it advocates the charity to help those in need. The critics claim this is proof that libertarians don’t care about the poor. Quite the opposite is true. Libertarians do actually care about the poor, which is why they want to rid society of the State. The State preys on the poor and tries to take what little they have.

Surviving Encounters with the Police

Tony Cornish gains a lot of favor with Minnesota gun owners for being pro-gun rights. However, he’s also a ruthless statist and apologist for rampant abuses of power by police. Two days ago he submitted a letter to the editor to the Star Tribune that offers tips on how us lowly peasant can survive police encounters. Let’s take a look at his tips and translate them into laymen’s terms:

Lately, some advocacy groups have been asking what we can do to “reduce the use of force by police.” Well …

1) Don’t be a thug and lead a life of crime so that you come into frequent contact with police.

So… don’t be a cop?

2) Don’t rob people, don’t use or sell drugs, and don’t beat up your significant other.

Again, don’t be a cop?

3) Don’t hang out on the street after 2 a.m. Go home.

Don’t work night shifts.

4) Don’t make furtive movements or keep your hands in your pockets if told to take them out.

Shut up, slave, and do what the aggressive man who is showing intent to cause you harm demands you to do!

5) Don’t flap your jaws when the police arrive. Don’t disobey the requests of the police at the time. If you think you are wrongfully treated, make the complaint later.

Again, shut up, slave. If you think you’re being abused you should take it! You can file a complaint later, if you survive.

6) Don’t use the excuse of a lack of a job or education for why you assault, rob or kill.

Instead become a cop so you have the excuse of having a job to assault, rob, and kill!

Tips one and two seem to disagree with tip six. The first two advise you to not live a light of thuggery, theft, and violence, which means you should avoid becoming a law enforcer. But then tip six advises you to have a job that allows you to commit assault, robbery, and murder, which is what law enforcers do. Tip three is bizarre since it’s basically a variation of blaming a woman’s clothing choice for her being raped. The only difference is he’s blaming a person’s work shift for being harassed or assault by the police. I also find the other two tips alarming because they advise you to submit to and cooperate with your abuser.

It probably won’t surprise any of you that Tony Cornish is a former police officer. It also shouldn’t surprise anybody that a man who sought a career choice that gave him power over others sought another career choice that gave him power over others. As you can probably tell from his letter he really enjoys being in a position of power. I wonder how he would feel if he was on the receiving end of the State’s truncheon instead of the giving end.

FBI Director Concerned That Videos Of Police Beating People May Dissuade Police From Beating People

James Comey, the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), has a lot of concerns on his plate. One of his biggest concerns is the propagation of effective cryptography, which is making it harder for his agents to snoop through any random schmuck’s data. Another concern of his is the propagation of high quality cameras:

WASHINGTON — The director of the F.B.I. reignited the factious debate over a so-called “Ferguson effect” on Wednesday, saying that he believed less aggressive policing was driving an alarming spike in murders in many cities.

James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a “viral video effect” — with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video — “could well be at the heart” of a spike in violent crime in some cities.

“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he told reporters.

“Marginal additional policing” is a fancy way of saying harassment. Consider the example he gave. Why should a police officer pull over a car at two in the morning just to ask what the occupants are doing? If the officer didn’t catch them actually doing something illegal he shouldn’t have pulled them over. Period.

But the viral videos that Comey is referring to are videos of police using force. I’m an advocate of recording all police interactions. If you are a party to a police interaction you should record it, even if it’s something as minor as getting pulled over for speeding. You should also record any police interactions you come across. Police are almost never held accountable for wrongdoing in this country but the few times they are usually only happen because there was a video of the misconduct.

If the threat of being recorded on video dissuades police officers from harassing innocent people I would consider that an added bonus. Apparently Comey feels differently.

Being Able To Lookup Your Neighbor’s Income Online Is A Terrible Idea

Statists come up with the dumbest ideas. One of latest stupid statist ideas is the idea that Norway’s practice of posting everybody’s tax returns online is a good idea:

But maybe the demand that Trump post his returns doesn’t go far enough. Maybe everyone’s tax returns should be a matter of public record. It sounds nuts, but in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, it’s the law, and it works. Norway’s been putting out records since 1814; in Sweden, they’ve been public since 1903.

Public tax returns help reduce gender and racial pay disparities, make labor markets more efficient, encourage workers to bargain for higher pay, prevent tax evasion, and create a rich font of data for economists and other researchers. The US ought to give the idea a try.

Why should anybody have any right to privacy at all? We might as well just put our medical records, voting records, and any other type of records online for everybody to see! And fuck those people who want to have control over their personal information. They’re obviously hiding something.

If you read the article you will discover that the author is a jealous individual trying to disguise that jealousy as pragmatism. He starts off by arguing that making tax return information publicly available would improve the job market. This claim is backed up by a great deal of statist nonsense such as imply that markets require perfect information (they don’t) and claiming that it’s impossible for employees to find out what their fellows at other companies are making if tax return records or private (apparently it never occurred to the author that you can just ask). But he eventually get’s to his real point:

Another thing about pay transparency: It makes it harder to evade your taxes. Adding scrutiny from not only the tax collection agency but your neighbors and competitors makes it tougher to fudge your reported income.

Making tax returns publicly available makes it easier for the State to steal wealth to fund its law enforcers, war machine, economic protectionism, and other atrocities. This is ultimately what every statist’s opposition to privacy boils down to. As believers in the One True State, they want to make it as difficult as possible for anybody who opposes their political god. Are private tax returns making it harder for their political god to steal? Make the records public! Is end-to-end cryptography making it harder for their political god to keep the citizenry in line? Restrict effective cryptography! Are anonymizing services allowing people to peacefully cell illicit goods? Ban anonymizing services!

This is why privacy is so important. The State and its worshippers want to know as much about you as possible. That way they can better know what you have so they can steal it and identify dissidents so they can crush them. Know that when somebody advocates that privacy must be curtailed they’re necessarily arguing that the State must be further empowered. Also know that the empowerment of the State always comes at the expense of individual freedom.

Why Does The TSA Suck? It’s Your Fault You Stupid Slave!

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been receiving a lot of well deserved flak in recent months. Security theater lines have been growing and now the TSA recommends air travelers show up two hours early to ensure they get through. It reminds me of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). When wait times increase the agency doesn’t hire more staff or make its processes more efficient, it demands people take more time out of their day. This shouldn’t surprise anybody though. Nobody has the option of using a competitor to the TSA, DMV, or any other government agency so the agencies have no motivation to improve their service.

But the public is pissed, which means boring congressional hearings could be in the TSA’s future. Probably hoping to avoid going to yet another meeting where they have to pretend to pay attention while congress members pretend to provide oversight, the heads of the TSA are trying to find some reason for its failure that will satiate the public. I doubt the reason it’s giving will work though since it’s resorted to blaming everybody besides itself:

The comments reflect a statement released earlier this week after long lines were reported at Newark, JFK and LaGuardia airport security checkpoints. When asked about those long lines, the TSA essentially blamed you in a press release, specifically passengers who bring too many carry-on items:

There are several factors that have caused checkpoint lines to take longer to screen passengers… including more people traveling with carry-on bags, in many cases bringing more than the airline industry standard of one carry-on bag and one personal item per traveler;

Passenger preparedness can have a significant impact on wait times at security checkpoints nationwide…Individuals who come to the TSA checkpoint unprepared for a trip can have a negative impact on the time it takes to complete the screening process.”

Not surprisingly, it’s also blaming air passengers for not paying the agency its desired extortion fee:

In the past three years, the TSA and Congress cut the number of front-line screeners by 4,622 — or about 10 percent — on expectations that an expedited screening program called PreCheck would speed up the lines. However, not enough people enrolled for TSA to realize the anticipated efficiencies.

Perhaps the TSA should look inward. One of the biggest contributing factors to the length of security theater lines is likely the agency’s inconsistency. If you know what you have to do when you reach the checkpoint you can prepare ahead of time. For example, you might untie or entirely remove your shoes and take off your belt. You might also remove your liquids and laptop from your bags. When you arrive at the actual checkpoint you can efficiently put everything through the x-ray machine, opt out of the slave scanner, and be through as quickly as possible. But you can’t prepare yourself ahead of the checkpoint because you have no idea what you’ll be expected to do until some idiot with a badge is barking order at you.

If PreCheck is supposed to help reduce wait times and the TSA is actually committed to reducing wait times the agency should make the program free. That would encourage more people to sign up for it. You can tell that the program is more about extorting the public than making wait times shorter but the simple fact that PreCheck isn’t free (and since the TSA is a government agency it doesn’t have to concern itself with making a profit so making the program free isn’t a big deal).

Businesses know that the customer is usually right. A private security provider knows that absurdly long wait times in line will reflect negatively on the venue that hired them, which may hinder their chances of getting another contract in the future. Because of that they are more motivated to make the screening process as efficient as possible. They don’t tell an angry venue owner that the wait times are due to the incompetence of the customers because that excuse isn’t going to fly. But the government doesn’t have customers, it citizens (which is a fancy term for people being preyed on by the State). That being the case, it has no problem blaming its own failures on its citizens.

I Guess Oracle Will Sue MariaDB Next

Oracle is still butthurt over the fact that it snapped up Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems and still hasn’t figured out how to make it profitable. Google on the other hand, managed to take the Java application programming interface (API) and use it for Android, which is turning the company a tidy profit. After getting its ass handed to it in court only to have a dimwitted judge reverse the decision, Oracle is pushing forward with its desperate attempt to get its hands on some of the wealth Google created. Oracle is now claiming that Google owes damages. Why? Apparently because it’s offering Android for free:

Catz also testified that Oracle’s Java licensing business was hurt by Android. Customers that used to buy licenses for Java, including Samsung, ZTE, Motorola, and others, don’t buy licenses from Oracle anymore. “They don’t take a license from us anymore, because they use Android, which is free,” she said.

Licensing contracts that used to be $40 million deals are now $1 million deals, Catz said. She gave the example of Amazon, which was formerly a customer but chose to go with Android for the Kindle Fire. When Amazon came out with its popular mid-range Kindle, the Paperwhite, the e-reader company chose to license Java only after Oracle offered a massive discount.

“In order to compete, we ended up giving a 97.5 percent discount for the Paperwhite,” she said, “because our competition was free.”

As for the mobile licensing business, since the launch of Android, it has performed “very, very poorly,” Catz said.

What’s next? Will Oracle sue the people behind MariaDB? For those who don’t know, MariaDB is a fork of MySQL, which is another product that Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems. MariaDB, like the Android API, is a free product based on software Oracle acquired through its purchase of Sun Microsofts that could be taking market share from its expensive software!

Should manufacturers and developers of a product that’s sold directly for money be able to sue competitors who offer a free alternative? If you ask some antitrust supporters the answer is yes. But if you ask anybody with a brain the answer is no.

Consider Oracle’s situation. Android basically ate its lunch because nobody is buying its mobile Java software. Does that indicate that Google is somehow at fault because it made Android free? No. Such an assumption would imply that free products always win in the market when that isn’t the case. Sometimes a free product is so shitty that an expensive alternative still wins out. Consider Microsoft Windows. It’s still the most popular desktop operating system out there even though Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and a number of other free alternatives exist. Why? Because Windows offers features that consumers want and alternative don’t offer. Software compatibility, driver support, etc. are desirable features to many people. So desirable in fact that they’re willing to pay for them even though a free alternative exists. Without those features consumers see the free alternatives as so shitty that the savings associated with using them aren’t worth it. In spite of what the famous saying says, you actually can compete with free.

Android isn’t winning over mobile Java simply because it’s free. It’s winning because it offers features that consumers want. There is a massive software library available for Android that isn’t available for mobile Java. Google includes many desirable applications including clients for its popular Maps and Gmail services. Hardware developers want consumers to buy their phones so they tend to favor software that consumers want, which is part of the reason so many Android mobile devices exist while so few Windows ones do.

Google isn’t responsible for Oracle’s dwindling mobile Java profits, Oracle is for not making it a compelling product.

The Ignorant Stupidity That Is America

They say ignorance makes people fearful. If that’s the case the United States must be one of the most ignorant countries on Earth. People here in the United States like to talk a big game but it seems like most of them are scared of their own shadows. This is made most obvious when people fight against any attempt to defang the State. If you mention cutting military or law enforcement budgets you’ll suddenly find yourself surrounded by people saying, “But then the child molesting hacker terrorists will get us!”

This fear has becoming especially ridiculous amongst airline passengers. 15 years after 9/11 and airline passengers are still seeing terrorists in every seat. Does the person next to you speak a language that sounds Middle Easter? They’re a terrorist! Is the person next to you writing Arabic numerals? They’re also a terrorist:

Menzio said he was flying from Philadelphia to Syracuse on Thursday night and was solving a differential equation related to a speech he was set to give at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He said the woman sitting next to him passed a note to a flight attendant and the plane headed back to the gate. Menzio, who is Italian and has curly, dark hair, said the pilot then asked for a word and he was questioned by an official.

“I thought they were trying to get clues about her illness,” he told The Associated Press in an email. “Instead, they tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strage things on a pad of paper.”

I guess the should have used Roman numerals. In all seriousness though, the fact that the woman sitting next to him saw a terrorist when she couldn’t make sense of what he was writing shows just how fearful this society has become. It’s even more absurd that the flight attendant who she passed the note to didn’t ignore the concern outright. Without any evidence the flight attendant called the badged men with guns to the plane to harass a passenger. Further adding to the absurdity was the security guards not dismissing the call for lack of evidence. But they were likely afraid of losing their jobs if the reporting passenger or flight attendant told the press that they reported a suspected terrorist and the security team failed to respond. And the media would certainly take the angle of lazy security guards putting passengers at risk of a terrorist attack over the angle of the security team acting in a reasonable manner when no evidence of wrongdoing is presented.

The Problem With Statutory Laws

Statutory law, like democracy, is often erroneously held up as a feature of truly great societies. The problem with statutory law is that it’s based on the belief that the decrees of legislators and the rulings of judges are justice. But justice is about righting a wrong as much as possible and statutory law often fails miserably at this. Consider the recent rape case in Oklahoma:

The case involved allegations that a 17-year-old boy assaulted a girl, 16, after volunteering to give her a ride home. The two had been drinking in a Tulsa park with a group of friends when it became clear that the girl was badly intoxicated. Witnesses recalled that she had to be carried into the defendant’s car. Another boy, who briefly rode in the car, recalled her coming in and out of consciousness.

The boy later brought the girl to her grandmother’s house. Still unconscious, the girl was taken to a hospital, where a test put her blood alcohol content above .34. She awoke as staff were conducting a sexual assault examination.

Tests would later confirm that the young man’s DNA was found on the back of her leg and around her mouth. The boy claimed to investigators that the girl had consented to performing oral sex. The girl said she didn’t have any memories after leaving the park. Tulsa County prosecutors charged the young man with forcible oral sodomy.

[…]

But the trial judge dismissed the case. And the appeals court ruling, on 24 March, affirmed that prosecutors could not apply the law to a victim who was incapacitated by alcohol.

“Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the decision read. Its reasoning, the court said, was that the statute listed several circumstances that constitute force, and yet was silent on incapacitation due to the victim drinking alcohol. “We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language.”

According to the judge’s interpretation of the law a woman who is so intoxicated that she has been render unconscious cannot be forcibly sodomized. And Oklahoma’s law very well might be written in that way, which is the problem.

This case should be focusing on the wrong that was performed and the best way to correct that wrong as far as possible. In any sane justice system that would be the focus. The question of whether a person can consent if they’re not in a sound state of mind, for example, would probably be explored if the focus was on the wrong. Most people would likely agree that a person who is so drunk that they’ve passed out cannot consent to a legal control, let alone sex.

But under statutory law the focus isn’t the wrong but on what was written by legislators and ruled by other judges.