Wall of Fame Assholes – Page 47

This Must be Part of the Government’s Plan to Create Jobs

As Obama travels the nation on his Keynesian Tour of Destruction trying to spread the word about his plan to save the United States economy and create jobs, the rest of the federal government is busy telling companies to use foreign labor:

Tonight, in an interview on KMJ’s “The Chris Daniel Show,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz confirmed that the US government wanted Gibson guitars to use foreign labor over American labor:
CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?
HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a [inaudible].
CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes

The United States government, the entity that claims to be watching out for the wellbeing of American citizens, actually told Gibson that they should use foreign labor instead of domestic labor to build their guitars. Had Gibson used foreign labor they wouldn’t have had agents with guns storming their factory and confiscating their property. This must be part of the government’s plan to save and/or create jobs.

A tip of the old hat goes go Uncle for this story.

The Government Working Hard to Keep Our Streets Safe

I’m glad we have the government watching over us and ensuring our safety. For example they’re suing a trucking company for allowing admitted alcoholics to drive trucks. Sorry I made a mistake, I meant to say the government is suing a trucking company because that company fired a known alcoholic:

The federal government has sued a major trucking company for its firing of driver with an admitted alcohol abuse problem.

Alcoholism is classified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the suit maintains, and therefore employees cannot be prohibited even from driving 18 wheelers due to their histories of abuse.

The state’s justification for the lawsuit can be found here. Basically the government is pissed because the trucking company would dare permanently suspend somebody from driving one of the company’s trucks after it became known that the driver had an alcohol problem:

According to the EEOC’s suit (Civil Action No. 2:11-CV-02153-PKH in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas), the driver at the Fort Smith location had worked for the company for five years without incident. In late June 2009, the employee reported to the company that he believed he had an alcohol problem. Under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, the employer suspended the employee from his driving position and referred him for substance abuse counseling. However, the employer also informed the driver that the employer would never return him to a driving position, even upon the successful completion of a counseling program. During the investigation, the EEOC discovered drivers at other service centers whom the employer had allegedly subjected to similar treatment.

As an employer Old Dominion should have the right to determine who can and can’t represent the company and in what capacity. If Old Dominion doesn’t want to allow people with a history of alcohol abuse to operate one of their semis then they shouldn’t be required to. Personally I’d prohibit anybody with a history of alcohol abuse from driving one of my vehicles. It seems like an unnecessary liability to allow otherwise.

Let’s also look at this case from a different angle. The state has the capability to revoke drivers’ licenses at will and they often do for people who have been caught driving with an arbitrarily set percentage of alcohol in their system an arbitrary number of times. So even though the state is more than happen to prevent people with a history of alcoholism from driving private companies aren’t allowed to do something similar. I’m not surprised the government would make a move like this because the move makes no sense and making no sense is what government does best.

I Know the Mainstream Media Hates Ron Paul, Still This is a Bit Much

OK mainstream media I get it, you absolutely hate Ron Paul. You hate him so much that you’re willing to simply ignore his existence and pretend that he’s not in the presidential race. But even with your hatred taken into consideration giving Rick Perry credit for bringing the Federal Reserve into political conversation is a bit much:

Perry has proven himself to very quotable early into his entrance into the campaign. His most notable quote was a not-so-guised criticism of the Federal Reserve and Chairman Ben Bernanke. Actually, forget guised critique, the cowboy from Paint Creek, Texas took a double barreled shotgun to the Fed with the following statement at a campaign event in Iowa:

“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in history is almost treasonous in my opinion.”

Perry could have chosen his words more carefully, but the interesting takeaway is that he is currently the front runner in the Republican field, could realistically become President, and has in one of his earliest campaign appearances taken a direct shot at the Federal Reserve. Historically, a critique of the Federal Reserve has been left to the devices of more fringe candidates (enter Ron Paul), as the Fed has become an accepted institution in America. Not so anymore.

Whether the nature and organization of the Federal Reserve truly becomes a central campaign issue over the next 18+ months is yet to be seen, but if it does Americans should welcome it. With the proliferation of Keynesian economists in America over the last eighty years, the majority of Americans have largely accepted the role of the Federal Reserve in their economy despite the contra voices of economists such as Milton Friedman.

Apparently crazy uncle Ron doesn’t count because he’s a fringe candidate that nobody’s ever heard of. I bet that belief would go away if Paul did well in a major straw poll somewhere… man that would shut them all up.

Honestly I don’t know what else I can possibly say about this that the mere existence of this article hasn’t. The media is literally conspiring to completely ignore Ron Paul in every way, shape, and form. They’re even giving credit to other candidates for work that Ron Paul’s been doing for decades. The Federal Reserve has been Ron Paul’s major issue, that’s what he does. This article is like giving credit for the theory of relativity to Steven Hawkings simply because the author didn’t want to acknowledge the existence of Albert Einstein (this analogy does fail a bit since Steven Hawkings is fucking awesome and Rick Perry isn’t).

A Trend of Connecting Right-Wingers to Nazism

I’ve been noticing a trend with many of the stories my more liberal (using the modern definition of the word) friends have been posting, which is an apparent attempt by some media sources to connect the idea of right-wing extremism with neo-Nazism. Two examples of this are this story and this story. Both stories are from Spiegel and use the terms right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi interchangeably.

I’m not at all surprised by this as right-wing extremism has been tied to everything from terrorism to racism over the years. I wouldn’t care at all if right-wing extremism actually meant violent extremism but to the media right-wing extremism usually refers to libertarians or those who simply lean more towards libertarian ideals then liberal (again, using the modern definition of the word) ideals. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to me if stories started popping up in the near future that imply links between libertarians and neo-Nazis.

And By Misconception You Mean Anybody Who Disagrees With You

The Red Star recently asked it’s readers (all five of them) what they believed should be changed about the Letters to the Editor section. Needless to say the submissions were interesting to say the least:

What makes the most sense to me would be to put the letters based on misconception in a special section, or not to publish them at all.

I often cringe when the Star Tribune publishes such letters, because I think it inevitably implies a stamp of approval to some extent of that underlying misconception. But I do think it is useful to know what people are thinking, thus my idea for a special section, despite the obvious difficulty for the Star Tribune to relegating such letters/readers to a “dunce section.”

If the Strib doesn’t have the heart/spine to do that, I feel not publishing would be best, and let those other opinions come out in readers’ commentary online.

Long live the Star Tribune! Thanks for all the good work.

JIM DUSTRUDE, MOUND

What Jim is really saying is, “Anybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and thus should be relegated to a special section or simply not published at all. Also I like to sodomize myself with retractable batons.” OK maybe he didn’t say that last part but he did say the first part.

Guess what asshole? Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean their opinion is based on misconceptions.

I think that the foremost consideration needs to be realization that publishing a letter lends credibility to the ideas expressed therein, simply because most people will assume that the Star Tribune would not publish nonsense. An immediate follow-up to that is that the Star Tribune only tarnishes its reputation by publishing nonsense, because a significant number of readers will recognize nonsense when they see it.

Publishing letters at random or even selecting representatives of all points of view just leads to a meaningless cacophony. I understand that the newspaper cannot referee every letter that comes in, but I think best effort should be made to filter out blatant nonsense.

I also understand that the purveyors of nonsense will accuse the Star Tribune of editorial bias. To those, I recommend that the Star respond that freedom of the press only applies to people who have presses.

DAVID PERLMAN, NEW HOPE

David is also suggesting that opinions that don’t agree with his beliefs shouldn’t be published. Hell he flat out says publishing a representation of all sides is a bad idea. Can you tell that the Red Star is read mostly by statist pricks who view themselves as being beyond the possibility of error? Thankfully not all is lost:

Isn’t it interesting that some people don’t think anything is worth printing if it doesn’t agree with their own views? I personally enjoy reading some of the more ridiculous (my perception) letters, as it gives me some sense of who else is out there — pretty scary sometimes, but necessary for one’s own survival strategies.

I do notice, however, that several contributors’ names pop up rather frequently. If there are so many submissions on a daily basis, surely these favored few could be put on the back burner for awhile in favor of others.

JEANNE TORMA, MINNEAPOLIS

Although Jeanne is basically saying, “I like to read letters from people who are wrong because it further cements my belief in being right.” at least she’s not for simply censoring everything she disagrees with.

Obviously the Red Star is free to do whatever it pleases, just as I’m free to do whatever I please on this site. But it’s comical to read letters from people who flat out state that they want letters that disagree with their believes to be thrown in the trash instead of published. Maybe the Red Star could hire these people and start a council to determine what letters should and shouldn’t be published. The paper could even give this council a catchy name like the Paper Soviet. They could even start witch hunts to weed out council members who aren’t “true” soviets.

Government Harassment Never Ends

Remember the lady who is being harassed by her city government because she is growing a garden on her own property? Well it appears as though the governing body of Oak Park isn’t done harassing her yet and are now filing new charges against the woman for having unlicensed dogs:

Oak Park has dropped its case against a woman growing vegetables in her front yard, but she’s not out of the weeds yet, the city’s prosecutor said.

Julie Bass may still have to go to court this month — over her dogs.

[…]

That citation included violations for owning two unlicensed dogs. They are not licensed, but Bass said she took the vaccine information to court in June, where an impasse was reached over language in the ordinance and Bass asked for a jury trial. Her pretrial date for the garden issue had been set for July 26.

It seems the Oak Park authority weren’t too pleased with the responses they received from people pissed off that they were trying to nail a woman for utilizing her property in a manner she saw fit. Since they couldn’t win that war they dropped the charges and decided to go after her for something different.

I’m convinced that the only reason there are so many laws on the books is so the government can nail you for something when you irritate them. In this case they couldn’t get the lady on growing a garden so they moved on different charges. They’re putting all this effort into making this woman’s life miserable simply because she refused to submit and be an obedient little slave.

Being Punished for Good Intentions

There are times when good intentions go awry and somebody is harmed or their property is damaged. In such cases I understand that the person doing the harm should have to pay reparations to the person they harmed but I see no reason why a person with good intentions that harmed nobody should be punished. Sadly the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) doesn’t see it that way and are looking to nail a man who was basically being nice:

Christian Lopez, 23, caught the ball and promptly handed it over to the Yankees without demanding any kind of payment, the Daily News reported. The Yankees rewarded him with suite seats for the rest of the season, plus a heap of autographed team memorabilia.

Mr. Lopez seems like a nice guy. He caught a baseball that is likely worth a lot of money to collectors and returned it to the team while asking for no payment in return. The team, being good hearted people whose livelihood is based on having happy fans, decided to reward Mr. Lopez for his nice act by giving him a lot of free stuff. Well the IRS sees all that free stuff as taxable income and are chomping at the bit to rend money from Mr. Lopez in the form of income tax:

That’s what could cost Lopez. According to The New York Times, the total value of the seats and loot could exceed $120,000. The IRS would consider that to be taxable income, several accountants told both newspapers.

Assholes. I also dislike how the author of this article refers to the stuff given to Mr. Lopez as loot. Loot implies that the goods were ill gotten. What the IRS are trying to get is loot as they’re trying to use force to steal money from Mr. Lopez. What Mr. Lopez received were goods given voluntarily by the team for an act that he did charitably.

This could end up in a court battle as items rules as gifts are non-taxable and what the team gave Mr. Lopez could be considered nothing but a gift (as he demanded no payment for returning the ball I don’t see how the team giving Mr. Lopez something could be anything else but a gift). Of course it will cost Mr. Lopez money to pay or fight the taxes so his only available option may to be refuse the gifts given to him. Isn’t it great when the government swoops in to punish those who do an act of charity? As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Don’t Fly If You’ve Recently Had Surgery

Bad news for those of you who’ve recently had surgery and are planning on flying soon, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has gained a renewed interest in implanted explosive devices:

Terrorists intent on striking commercial aircraft have shown renewed interest in surgically implanting explosives or explosive components in humans to conduct attacks, a U.S. security official tells CNN.

The idea of implanting bombs has been discussed in the past, but the United States has obtained fresh intelligence about the desire of terrorists, and there is new intelligence about a possible technique that could be used, according to the official, who declined to elaborate.

The officials declined to elaborate because there full of shit by the way. What’s really ironic here is the fact that those fancy expensive naked body scanners can’t pick up implanted devices. To me that indicates once again that any security device you implement can be bypassed because humans are ingenuity creatures and will find ways around any system designed by other humans. So what will the new method of screening for implanted devices be? Who knows, the TSA certainly isn’t giving any details:

“As a precaution, passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same activity at every international airport,” Kimball said.

Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies, he said.

At least they’re making up excuses for their inconsistencies now. Either way they apparently are going to start doing exactly the same thing they’ve been doing, violating your civil rights to put on their security theater.

The TSA isn’t happy until you’ve been humiliated and beaten down into complete and docile obedience. Agents working for the TSA are generally people with a desire to have power over others but lack the motivation, education, or skills required to become a police officer. Instead of putting work into becoming an actual police officer TSA agents take the easy road to fulfill their authoritarian desires. They offer not security as evident by the numerous incidents of people getting onto planes with firearms, explosives, and other verboten goods.

Establishing the TSA was yet another classic example of the government doing something easy instead of fixing the problem. It’s easier to dump a shit ton of money into hiring actors and obtaining stage props for security theater than it is to secure airplanes against attack. I’m just waiting for the day when the TSA decides they’re going to randomly perform cavity searches on airline customers, or maybe some on the spot invasive surgery to check for implanted explosives.

Southern Poverty Law Center at it Again

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a very special organization that likes to blame all of society’s ills on “right-wing” groups. This time they’re claiming that hate groups are sprouting up everywhere and it’s all because “right-wing extremists” hate Obama:

Hate groups and other groups on the far right – so-called Patriot groups which vow to resist the encroachments of the Federal government, and anti-immigrant nativist groups – are tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC).

“In the fall (autumn) of 2008,” says the director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, Mark Potok, “we started to see an explosion in hate groups, but more generally in right-wing groups of general types.”

I removed the link embedded in the BBC story because I have a firm policy against linking to complete fuckwads like the SPLC. Anyways the SPLC has been claiming that “right-wing extremists” are terrorist organizations but make no mention of left-wing groups such as Greenpeace of the Animal Liberation Front. Apparently it’s only bad if you murder people for “right-wing” causes although I personally believe it’s wrong to murder anybody for their beliefs. Alas considering some of their other “reports” I’m not surprised that they’re claiming a rise in these groups is due to the election of Obama. After all if there is a rise it’s completely implausible that it’s due to economic instability causing people negatively affected to look for somebody to blame. Nope that idea is just silly.

But Mark Potok is concerned.

“I think we are in a very similar period as we were in the run-up to the Oklahoma City bombing,” he says, “as far as a bombing or an attack like that, whether that will come, we don’t know.

“We are very close in numbers to the numbers we had at the very peak of the militia movement.”

First of all the statement made by Potok is dubious at best because we have no idea what the peak numbers in the “militia movement” were. What the fuck was the “militia movement” anyways? I remember no news articles talking about a massive uptick in militias besides those put out by the SPLC.

If there was a sudden and noticeable uprising in hate crimes (using the government’s definition of the words) I’d have expected it mentioned by various law enforcement agencies (that seems like something the Federal Bureau of Investigations would be all over).

Second of all calling groups of violent individuals right-wing is a misnomer. Crazy people are crazy regardless of their beliefs. What right-wing ultimately means is that you’re conservative. Being racist is entire separate from being politically conservative. Just because you believe the size of government should be reduced doesn’t mean you hate Jewish people, it means you want the size of government reduces.

The SPLC ties everything ill they mention to “right-wing extremists.” Yet most people who I know that identify themselves as right-wing have a strong devotion to law and fixing the currently established system by voting for “representatives” who advocate small government. I would think, being an active member in the gun community, that I know a large number of people who identify themselves as right-wing. It seems to me if a majority of people who are right-wing wanted to violently overthrow the government I’d know at least one person in favor of that solution.

In fact most of the people I know who advocate violence against the government are anarchist of the socialist persuasion (once again not all anarchists of the socialist persuasion advocate violence, I just know a few who do). These individuals are strongly left-wing as they believe in establishing a socialist society. Yet these people are never mentioned by any SPLC reports which indicates a bit of bias on their behalf.

What I’m really curious about is what recommendation will the SPLC to six this “problem” (in quotes because I see no evidence that this problem actually exists). I’m betting they’re going to urge the government to further crack down on “right-wing extremist” groups. Once again nobody is likely to listen to them besides those who believe the conflict in American is truly between left and right and thus feel the need to demonize the other side. Still if this report is being mentioned on the BBC is likely that it’ll be appearing in American news sources soon.

Just When I Thought the State Couldn’t Get Anymore Depraved

I’ve ran across enough stories demonstrating the depravity of the state that I could probably write a several volume set on the subject. Sadly as I continue to get older I keep getting reminded that giving power over others to an entity with a “legitimate” monopoly on the initiation of force is the worst idea humans have ever come up with. Very recently I was introduced to North Carolina’s eugenics program:

The Eugenics Board of North Carolina (EBNC) was an agency of the U.S. state of North Carolina created in 1933 after the state legislature authorized the practice of eugenics by state officials four years earlier.

In 1971, an act of the legislature transferred the EBNC to the newly created Department of Human Resources (DHR), and the secretary of that department was given managerial and executive authority over the board. Under a 1973 law, the Eugenics Board was transformed into the Eugenics Commission. Members of the commission were appointed by the governor and included the director of the Division of Social and Rehabilitative Services of the DHR, the director of Health Services, the chief medical officer of a state institution for the feeble-minded or insane, the chief medical officer of the DHR in the area of mental health services, and the state attorney general. In 1974 the legislature transferred to the judicial system the responsibility for any sterilization proceedings against persons suffering from mental illness or mental retardation.

The Eugenics Commission was formally abolished by the legislature in 1977.

The board sterilized about 7,600 people, many of them against their will, between 1929 and 1974, in an attempt to remove mental illness and “social misbehaviour” from the gene pool. Among the victims were 2000 young people, some as young as ten years old.

North Carolina wasn’t the only state to practice eugenics but they were one of the few to continue the practice late after World War II and they had some of the loosest criteria for determining who would be sterilized and who wouldn’t. The justifications for sterilization ranged from mental retardation to simply not getting along with classmates:

People as young as 10 in North Carolina were sterilized for not getting along with schoolmates, being promiscuous or running afoul of local social workers or doctors. The state’s law, which allowed such professionals to refer people to the state Eugenics Board for sterilization, was more open-ended than similar statutes in other states, where people had to be jailed or institutionalized before they could be sterilized.

Just stop and think about this for a minute. Several states enacted laws that allowed them to sterilize people they deemed unfit to breed. Such laws gave some government bureaucrat the authority to make a permanent change to the life of another human being against their consent.

I honestly can’t fathom how such a system was ever considered acceptable by anybody. But programs like this and others that were even worse were implemented not just by some tyrannical dictator in fascist countries but also by states right here.

Many victims of North Carolina’s eugenics programs are currently fighting to get compensation from the state. Compensation from the state is really a slap in the face because the state is just returning money that they first stole from you in the form of taxes. Basically you get to pay yourself for wrongs enacted upon your person by the government. Likewise monetary compensation will never allow the victims of sterilization to have children so ultimately no justice will prevail.