I do not Have a Tag That Properly Describes My Disgust

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A fight breaks out in a bar and results in four individuals being shot. One of the suspects flees but the armed security guard at the bar manages to catch him and pin him down. He calls the police and when the police arrive they see that there is an armed black man. Can you guess what happens next? Exactly what you would expect… from the old slave patrols:

An armed security guard at a bar in suburban Chicago was killed by police as he detained a suspected gunman, according to officials and witnesses.

After gunfire erupted around 04:00 local time on Sunday, Jemel Roberson, 26, chased down an attacker and knelt on his back until police arrived.

Moments after police came on the scene, an officer opened fire on Roberson, who was black, killing him.

Law enforcers in this United States have a tendency to dislike unarmed black men so it should be no surprise that they also have no tolerance for armed black men, even when they do a law enforcer’s job for them by detaining a suspect.

Why I’m Wary of Particularly Virtuous Individuals

We all know somebody who comes off as acting far too virtuous. They take every opportunity to talk about their virtuous nature and berate anybody who doesn’t meet their high standards. Politicians are probably the best example of this. Anti-gay activist Republicans who end up being caught in an airport bathroom soliciting sex from other men or politicians who never stop talking about family values who are later caught having an affair are two good examples. But politicians don’t have a monopoly on such hypocrisy:

For a 22-year-old Columbia University student, Joel Davis had built an impressive reputation as an activist for ending sexual violence.

He was the founding executive director of the international organization Youth to End Sexual Violence. He served as a youth ambassador for the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict. He was on the steering committee of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, a group of more than 5,000 human rights organizations and experts worldwide.

Davis traveled around the world, worked alongside high-profile activists such as Angelina Jolie, delivered a TED talk and appeared on media panels. In 2015, at age 19, he claimed to have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

This is the type of resume that makes my eyes narrow and say, “doth protest too much, methinks.” What’s the catch? What personal secret is this guy trying to cover up? Well:

Yet behind this virtuous front, Davis was allegedly committing the same types of crimes he claimed to be fighting, federal prosecutors say. On Tuesday, authorities arrested Davis on charges of attempting to sexually exploit a child, enticing a child to engage in sexual activity and possessing child pornography. If convicted, he could face a long sentence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every person who acts extremely virtuous is trying to cover up something. But there is enough correlation for me to see red flags whenever somebody invests so much effort in publicly expressing their virtuousness.

Attack in Las Vegas

I’m sure most of you have heard that there was an attack in Las Vegas. It’s still too early to do much more than speculate. What is known is that as of this writing at least 50 people have been killed and at least another 200 have been injured. The attacker has been named as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old resident of Las Vegas.

Over the next few days I’m sure a great deal of speculation will take place. Keep in mind that with these kinds of events it usually takes weeks for forensic teams to put all of the pieces together.

Socialized Healthcare

Socialists believe that socialized healthcare is the most wondrous invention since concentration camps. Through the wonders of socialized healthcare everybody will receive all of the medical care they need. Unless, of course, the State deems an individual’s medical care to be detrimental to itself. Meet Charlie Gard, an infant who suffers from infantile onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Charlie, in addition to suffering from a very rare disease, was unfortunately born in the United Kingdom (UK). The UK has a socialized healthcare system, which means that the State gets to decide who gets what and it has not only decided that Charlie shouldn’t receive medical care but it has decided that he must die even though his parents have raised enough money to try an experimental procedure through a private medical practice:

For ten months, Charlie has been living in the intensive-care unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. In March, his doctors decided that there was nothing more they could do for him, and they recommended that his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, withdraw his ventilator. They refused, on the grounds that an untried experimental treatment was available in the United States. The hospital, in accordance with British law, applied to the courts to forestall further treatment. In April, the High Court found for the doctors and against the parents. In May, the Court of Appeal upheld the initial decision. In early June, the Supreme Court agreed. And this week, the European Court of Human Rights — the last court of jurisdiction — refused to intervene. Charlie’s parents have raised enough money from private donations to fund the experimental treatment, but the court decision prohibits his removal to the U.S. Whenever they see fit to do so, the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital can now remove Charlie’s life support.

Why would a government sentence a child to death even though the parents are able and willing to gund the medical expenses? Most likely because the government has done some longterm calculations and decided that even though the child may be cured of his immediate disease he could end up requiring more medical care throughout his life, which would hurt its bottom line.

The second biggest problem with socialized healthcare (the first being that the system is coercive in nature) is that it’s paid for through the money stolen by the State. Statists like to think that the State is above human greed but in reality it cares just as deeply about profits as any business. Members of the State want to line their pockets and their friends’ pockets with as much tax money as possible. Any money that goes towards healthcare can’t go into their pockets so they’re incentivized to reduce healthcare costs as much as possible. If that means sentencing people to death then people will be sentenced to death.

Dashcam Footage from Yanez Case Released

Now that the jury has acquitted Officer Yanez of wrongdoing the dashcam footage from his cruiser has been publicly released:

The video is pretty damning. Officer Yanez pulled Castle over for a broken taillight. After handing the officer his papers Castile calmly informed Yanez that he was currently carrying a firearm. At first Yanez appears to be calm and tells Castlie not to reach for it. Almost immediately afterwards Yanez is drawing his firearm and screaming at Castile not to reach for it while he and his girlfriend scream that he’s not reaching for it. Then Yanez shoots Castile without any apparent regard for the child and girlfriend who were also in the car.

After that Yanez just stands there aiming his gun at the surviving occupants of the vehicle while screaming a few profanities. After a few minutes pass another squad car arrives. Unlike Yanez, those officers were decent enough to attempt to provide medical aid to Castile. Meanwhile Yanez was panicking or continuing to panic. He wasn’t even able to get his gun back into his holster.

The absolute best case scenario here is that Yanez panicked and gunned Castile down without cause. It really makes me wonder if the nine pages of instructions the jury received concluded with, “As you can see the law is written in such a way that an office who panics is not legally responsible for their actions and that’s why you must acquit Officer Yanez.”

A Government Made Up of Governments

What’s worse than a government? A government that is made up exclusively of governments. A lot of criticisms have been made about the United Nations (UN) by both advocates of limited government (I realize the term is an oxymoron but bear with me) and anarchists. Statists have written off these criticisms as conspiracy theories but the crimes of the UN are becoming so grand in scale that they’re now impossible to sweep under the rug:

United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti sexually abused nine children over a period of three years, an Associated Press investigation has found. It’s the latest in a long series of sex abuse scandals to plague U.N. peacekeeping missions worldwide.

From 2004 to 2007, 134 peacekeepers from Sri Lanka operated a child sex ring, luring children on the poverty-stricken island with candy and bits of cash, according to the AP. After a U.N. report incriminated them, most were sent home, but none faced jail time.

One victim told U.N. investigators, “I did not even have breasts,” according to the AP. Over a period of three years, beginning when she was 12 years old, she was forced to have sex with over 50 peacekeepers, the AP said.

And people wonder why I fucking hate the UN.

Mind you, this type of behavior isn’t unusual for invading military forces. In fact, the UN is supposed to act as a check against national militaries performing crimes like this. But when you’re an unaccountable organization you tend to attract the most wretched people and eventually, no matter how good the people who started the organization were (in the case of the UN, not that good), your organization turns into a criminal gang.

Since the establishment of the Westphalian sovereignty, national governments have existed basically unchallenged by everything except other national government. The UN is made up primarily of some of the most powerful government, meaning it is also almost entirely unchallenged. So long as this state continues the crimes of national governments, at least the ones strong enough not to be preyed on by other national governments, and the UN will go almost entirely unchallenged. Fortunately, the Westphalian sovereignty is starting to wane. Nongovernmental organizations, private military companies, freedom fighters, terrorist organizations, multinational companies, and other groups are gaining power while national governments are losing it. There may come a time once again where national governments can be held accountable by other organizations and shit like this UN child sex rings can finally be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

Screw Your Politics

As I’m sure most of you have heard by now there was a shooting yesterday. This one was different because it happened on live television and the shooter tweeted about it. There isn’t much to say about the event itself. Two people, Alison Parker and Adam Ward, were gunned down by a piece of shit who shall go unnamed here. But the event itself lead way to disgusting politicking.

Before the blood had a chance to dry I saw anti-gunners swooping in to exploit everybody’s emotions to demand gun control. I saw pro-gun people bitch about the two victim’s lack of situational awareness. Some neoliberals first blamed the event on racism and some neocons responded by posting #WhiteRightsMatter (I’m not even fucking shitting you).

Nobody could wait even one goddamn day before exploiting this tragedy for personal gain. If you were one of these people I have only one thing to say: fuck you.

There’s no need to insert your political bullshit into this and there’s no reason you need to rebut your opponent’s political bullshit with your own.

Murdered Over a Broken Taillight

The murder of Walter Scott is receiving a lot of much needed media coverage. Thanks to the fact the murdered, Officer Michael Slager, was filmed this case didn’t get swept underneath the rug like so many others. It should serve as a reminder that people should always film any police encounter they’re involved in or are witnessing. But there’s one fact about this case that’s not receiving enough media attention, the event that lead to Scott’s murder:

The confrontation occurred around 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday after Slager pulled over Scott’s car because of a broken taillight.

A man is dead because our rulers have deemed it acceptable to send armed thugs after people with broken equipment. Broken taillights are a simple matter to solve without pulling people over. Each vehicle has a unique license plate number that identifies it. If an officer sees a car with a broken taillight they could just look up who the vehicle is registered to, something they routinely do when they pull somebody over, and send them a letter informing them that their taillight is broken. Instead officers are allowed to turn on their loud sirens and flashy attention whore lights, force drivers to pull over to the side of the road, and waddle their heavily armed and often aggressive asses over to the driver to terrify them for a bit before issuing them a citation.

Walter Scott would almost certainly still be alive today if broken taillights weren’t grounds for officers to initiate force against motorists. In addition to being a remind of police brutality this story is also a reminder than any police encounter, regardless of how minor the offense that preceded the encounter was, can escalate to deadly force.

She Should Have Been a Security Expert

As you can expect from a man who has a blog just so he can bitch about whatever he feels like, there are a lot of things that really piss me off. One of the things at the top of the list of things that piss me off is blaming victims of rape fore being raped. Oftentimes such blame comes in the form of people claiming a woman shouldn’t have worn revealing clothing or gotten drunk at a party. But the Arizona Attorney General’s Office may have just taken the cake. A woman is suing the state because she was raped by a prisoner while working at the prison. The Attorney General’s Office is claiming she was at fault because the prison failed at provider her effective security:

“Plaintiff is an ADOC (Arizona Department of Corrections) employee who routinely worked at the prison complex,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Weisbard wrote in his motion to dismiss. “By being placed in a classroom at the complex, the officers were not placing Plaintiff in any type of situation that she would not normally face. The risk of harm, including assault, always existed at a prison like Eyman.”

[…]

Normally, such tests are given in the visitation room, which is monitored by security cameras and corrections officers. But on that day, because of a special event, she was sent to an unmonitored classroom, handed a radio and told to use it if there was any trouble, her lawsuit says.

The test lasted 90 minutes during which not a single corrections officer checked on her or radioed to ask if everything was OK. As they finished, six inmates left, returning unescorted to their dorm. One, Jacob Harvey, lingered.

According to the lawsuit, the 20-year-old inmate grabbed her from behind and took her to the ground as she struggled. He then stabbed her repeatedly in the head with a pen, choked her, slammed her head into the floor, tore away her clothes and raped her, the lawsuit says.

The teacher told investigators she screamed for help, but no one came. After the attack, Harvey tried to use her radio to call for help but it was tuned to a channel the guards didn’t even use. Eventually, Harvey allowed her to phone for help.

In other words the Attorney General’s Office is saying she should have known the room was unmonitored and therefore demanded a different room and to verify the radio given to her was set to the proper channel. Its defense is literally claiming she was at fault for being raped because she wasn’t a trained security expert. I don’t even have words for how disgusting that claim is.

Prisons are supposed to be completely controlled facilities. That’s why there are walls, fences, bars, and guards literally everywhere. But even in these tightly controlled environments the state can’t protect people. It really makes you wonder why anybody expects the state to protect them. This also shows that the state will sink to some really goddamn awful levels to dodge responsibilities for its failures.

On Brad Spangler

Those of you knee deep into liberty advocacy may have heard of Brad Spangler. If you haven’t heard of him then this post probably won’t be of much interest to you. But those of you who have heard of him probably now know that on Thursday he made a post on Facebook admitting that he molested his daughter. Just in case the post goes away I will include a screenshot of his confession.

I don’t have much to say about Brad Spangler himself. His admission to molesting his daughter is enough for me to deem him a terribly human being, a disgusting piece of shit, and a man the world would have been better without. However I do want to talk about some of the discussion that cropped up in the aftermath of his admission. Namely the fuckwits who have deemed it necessary to use this to host the mother of all philosophical dick measuring contests. As of this writing there are about 2,200 comments on his Facebook post. If your faith in humanity is shaky I wouldn’t advise venturing through the comments because it will only show you that there are a lot of shitty people amongst anarchists and statists.

Pretty quickly after the post went up there were anarchist urging Spangler not to turn himself in to the state’s police and statist using Spangler’s confession as proof that anarchism can’t work. One guy even decided to use the confession as a platform to bitch about male circumcision. That’s right, a child was molested and the only thing these people can think about are arguments against each others’ philosophies.

Perhaps I’m not a zealous enough anarchist but I don’t think a child molester’s confession is the place to have a philosophical argument. I mean, come the fuck on. A man admitted to molesting his child and said he is going to turn himself into the police and your reaction is to urge him not to because the state doesn’t dispense justice. Then some statist arrive and say, “An anarchist molested his daughter therefore all anarchists are child molesters or sympathize with child molesters har har har LOLOLOLOL!” There are also right-libertarians laughing about this because Spangler is a left-libertarian and that somehow reflects on all left-libertarians because individualism is only a thing when you’re not trying to lump everybody you hate into a fucking box.

How about everybody take a few steps back and find somewhere else to debate philosophy? Is that too much decency to ask for? If so, could somebody stop this planet for a second so I can get off?