Comments Regarding Obama’s Visit to Minneapolis

Mr. Obama visited Minneapolis on Monday to promote his scheme to disarm us serfs. The event was predictable as the video shows Obama standing at the podium giving his speech while members of Minnesota’s largest gang stand behind him in solidarity. Several highlights form the story merit some mention:

“You’ve shown that progress is possible,” Obama told an invited, sympathetic crowd at the Minneapolis Police Department’s Special Operations Center in north Minneapolis, where he highlighted the city’s success in reducing youth gun violence. In his first visit outside Washington, D.C., to promote his own anti-violence and gun-control agenda, Obama said the nation can make similar progress — if the public demands it.

By progress Obama means disarming the serfs. I would say that a majority of non-state gun control advocates truly believe they are working to prevent violence but the state supports gun control for an entirely different reason. The state, which can be considered the nobility, wants the serfs disarmed because disarmed individuals are easier to expropriate from. You can only take so much from the serfs until they have to make a decision between dying of starvation or disobeying the law. Once the serfs get to that point they inevitably decide to disobey the law and that usually leads to the nobility being booted out of power (sadly they are usually replaced with a new nobility). If the serfs are disarmed the time it takes them to reach the point of disobeying the law is increased as the cost of booting the current nobility out of power is greatly increased. This delay allows the nobility to kick the can down the street and, they hope, enrich themselves by expropriating fromt he serfs while making their successors deal with the consequences.

Obama was correct, Minneapolis has made progress. Unfortunately for us serfs that progress his detrimental to our health.

“The only way we can reduce gun violence in this country is if the American people decide it’s important,” Obama said. “We’re not going to wait until the next Newtown, or the next Aurora,” he added, referring to the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut and the gunman who shot up a theater full of moviegoers in Colorado.

Actually there is another, far more effective, way to reduce gun violence in the United States; end the war on drugs. The state’s war on drugs that haven’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration has caused a major increase in violent crime (just as Prohibition did in the 1920s). Organized crime syndicates such as the Mexican drug cartels and the United States federal government have been using violence to eliminate their competition since the war on drugs was first declared. Ending the war on drugs would reduce gun violence, likely more than any other action. Once again we return to the fact that the state doesn’t care about violence, it only wants a disarmed populace to expropriate wealth from.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak expressed outrage at politicians who already were talking down the proposal’s chances. “Well, guess what?” Rybak said. “People are dying out there. I am not satisfied with the main sort of front from the people in Washington, that this is sort of a game. Where are the other people on this issue? Get a spine, get a backbone. People are losing their lives.”

Rybak was correct, people are dying out there, and his thugs in the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) are killing them. We return again to the increase in violence crime caused by the war on drugs. The MPD has a rather colorful history of using its capacity for violence to steal from the serfs. In neighboring St. Paul the city’s police went so far as to kill a family’s dog, handcuff the present children and throw them down next to the dead dog, and interrogate the parents in the hopes of finding some justification for raiding the wrong address. Obviously Rybak isn’t serious about reducing gun violence in Minneapolis, he just wants the MPD to have a monopoly on it.

Since Obama was present a pro-Obama shill was brought in to argue in his favor:

John Souter, the sole survivor of Minneapolis’ Accent Signage shootings last September, said of Obama: “If we don’t have the moral courage to support the president of the United States, shame on us.” Souter, an Accent employee, was in the private session with Obama.

If we don’t have the moral courage to oppose a man who orders the execute of children, shame on us.

One of the most interesting aspects of Obama’s visit is that he supposedly came to Minneapolis because of the MPD’s progress in reducing gun violence. Yet the reduction in gun violence wasn’t credited to passing draconian gun control laws, it was credited to police directly interacting with youth:

Obama’s speech, before risers filled with Twin Cities police officers and sheriff’s deputies, focused on a city effort sparked by a spike in juvenile crime a decade ago. Known as the Blueprint for Action, it involved connecting young people with mentors, intervening in kids’ lives when necessary and getting students to “unlearn the culture of violence.” A progress report showed firearms-related assault injuries among youth had fallen from 159 in 2005 to 94 in 2011.

In other words Obama wants you to support gun control because the MPD’s programs of directly intervening with Minneapolis youth has correlated with a reduction in youth gun violence. How supporting gun control and the MPD’s program of directly intervening with Minneapolis youth are connection is beyond me.

In conclusion Obama’s visit went exactly as expected. The visit served no real purpose other than demonstrating that gun control isn’t about violence, it’s about control.

R.T. Rybak’s Proposal to Advance Gun Control

When Minneapolis’s mayor, R.T. Rybak, isn’t trying to control everybody’s lives… scratch that, he’s always trying to control everybody’s lives. In his crusade against gun rights Rybak has come up with a new strategy, he’s going to make gun manufacturers commit business suicide in order to get contracts with the Minneapolis Police Department:

Mayor R.T. Rybak has introduced a way for cities to gain leverage in their efforts to pass stricter gun control laws across the country.

Rybak told members of the City Council’s Public Safety and Civil Rights Committee that he and mayors from approximately 60 cities are taking a closer look at the companies that manufacture the guns and ammunition that cities buy for police officers.

He said over the past eight years the city has spent nearly $800,000 on guns and ammunition. Rybak, who supports stricter gun control laws, wants to work with firearms manufacturers to reduce gun-related crime and violence. He wants to know if those companies also are lobbying against tighter gun laws.

“If we find out they’re not partners, and if we find out they’re working against us, then we all ought to have a conversation as taxpayers about whether our dollars should be used for people who are not working to reduce gun violence,” Rybak said.

In other words gun manufacturers who refuse to support gun control may find themselves disqualified from Minneapolis Police Department contracts. This has to be one of the more pathetic attempts to promote gun control. Rybak has effectively demanded that gun manufacturers destroy their business by alienating their non-state customers in order to get or keep their state customers. I think we all remember what happened when Smith and Wesson signed on with Clinton’s gun control push:

Consumers began refusing to buy S&W products and the market became flooded with used S&W goods that people wanted no part of. Gun enthusiasts saw the company as breaking solidarity with them, as a traitor and perpetrator of gun control. Consumers severely punished the firm for its disloyalty.

Needless to say, S&W was taken completely off guard by the response.

The firm experienced an immediate sales decline of nearly 40 percent in the year after its compromise.

I can’t see many gun manufacturers making the same mistake (or in Smith and Wesson’s case, making the same mistake twice).

Emperor Obama Coming to Minneapolis to Push Gun Control

It appears that the Emperor will be in Minneapolis today to push for gun control:

The fate of his gun proposals on Capitol Hill uncertain, President Barack Obama is seeking to rally support from the public and law enforcement community for his calls to ban assault weapons and install universal background checks for gun buyers.

Obama will pitch his proposals to stem gun violence Monday in Minnesota, a Democratic-leaning state where officials have been studying ways to reduce gun-related attacks and accidents for several years. His visit to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Special Operations Center will mark the first time Obama has campaigned on his controversial proposals outside of Washington.

This seems like a complete waste of everybody’s time. The Minneapolis Police Department have a long history of authoritarianism. Obama doesn’t need to convince that department to advocate gun control, that department would love nothing more than knowing that the entire population of Minneapolis was entirely at their mercy. Likewise most of the metropolitan population is already convinced that they are better off unarmed. Thankfully we have a large enough rural population that we’ve been able to maintain some gun rights in this state. Still, Obama’s time coming to Minneapolis to advocate gun control is nothing more than an expensive act of preaching to the choir.

Gun Control Hearings at the Minnesota State Capitol

Just a heads up, according to the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (MNGOCRA) Facebook page there will be hearings on gun control happening at the Capitol in St. Paul on February 5th, 6th, and 7th. If you’re interested in sitting in on those hearing you should clear your schedule for those days.

If You’re Making Money the State Wants a Piece of the Action

It goes without saying, if you run a successful business the state will eventually show up at your door and demand a piece of the action. Operators of the popular pedal pubs in Minneapolis are learning this lesson. In regards to the pedal pubs:

“They aren’t regulated at all now,” said Grant Wilson, manager of Licenses and Consumer Services in Minneapolis. Representatives from the pedal-pub industry (two companies are currently operating in Minneapolis) and city staff started meeting several months ago after City Hall began hearing complaints.

They’re not regulated at all?! Somebody call a bureaucracy, there’s a business that has managed to escape any state regulation! Wilson’s claim is false as pedal pubs have several regulations affect them, including a regulation that the person steering the pub must be sober. What Wilson really meant to say is that the city of Minneapolis isn’t collecting any regular fees from the operators of pedal pubs. In laymen’s terms the city mafia isn’t getting a piece of the action. It’s pretty easy to see that this case is entirely about expropriation as Wilson had to dig pretty deep to find some justification for the city to implement additional regulations:

“The main complaint is that people, after a tour, became loud,” Wilson said.

There were also complaints about pedal pub riders parking in residential neighborhoods and piddling on the bushes.

Being loud, parking in residential neighborhoods, and pissing on bushes are the biggest complaints regarding pedal pubs? It sounds like they’re less obtrusive than traditional bars that usually generate all of those complains as well as complains about fighting. Looking at the proposed regulations and comparing them to the listed complains further reinforced the fact that this entire exercise is about expropriation:

The new regulations will require licenses for the company and the drivers, inspections of the vehicles and $2 million worth of insurance. The license fees are the same as those now charged for a pedicab, which carries two or three passengers but does not serve alcohol.

Drivers will pay $59 for an annual license. The company will pay $98 for a license and another $135 for an annual inspection of each vehicle.

There is also a provision for a $500 administrative fine, which can be assessed if the pedal pub company does not comply with the new ordinance. That fine would double for the second violation and tops out at $2,000.

You have to admire how the state can take complains of noise, parking in residential neighborhoods, and pissing on bushes and turn them into yearly vehicle inspections. I’m not sure how any of those complains apply to the upkeep of the actual pedal pubs but, as I said, these new requirements have nothing to do with complains and everything to do with expropriation. If you want to do business on the mafia’s turf you have to buy “protection.”

Poor Risk Assessment

Every year hundreds of thousands of people flock to the Minnesota State Fair. One of the biggest attractions of the Fair is the ocean of heart attack inducing deep fried food on sticks. Even though the food at the Fair is likely to take a few years off of your life the primary health concern of fair goers appears to be second hand smoke:

The fair’s board of managers voted to ban smoking in virtually all open-air space on the 320-acre grounds starting with the 2013 Great Minnesota Get-Together. Smoking, already prohibited in fair buildings or in entertainment seating areas such as the bandshell and grandstand, will be restricted to designated outdoor smoking areas.

Risk assessment is hard.

Governor Dayton Looking to Increase Taxes in Minnesota

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. A state spent more money than it expropriated from the people living within its claimed borders. Eventually the state realized it was deeply in debt and had no way to sustain its expenditures at its current rate of expropriation. Faced with a decision, to reduce spending or increase expropriation, the state decided to increase expropriation. Yeah, it’s a story as old as states themselves but like many great stories it continues to be relevant today. Governor Dayton has decided that the best way to get Minnesota out of debt is to increase the state’s rate of expropriation:

He would also increase the cigarette tax by 94 cents a pack, primarily as a way to discourage smoking.

Smokers have been a victim of constantly increasing state expropriation. Through its propaganda machine the state has made smokers into pariahs who receive little or no support from non-smokers. Due to their pariah status smokers make excellent tax victims since nobody is going to come to their defense when the state says the cost of their cigarettes will be increasing.

Dayton, who campaigned in 2010 calling for the state to “tax the rich,” would create a new tax rate of 9.85 percent, to be paid on taxable income above $250,000 for joint filers and above $150,000 for single filers. That would net about $1 billion from 53,000 returns and give the state one of the top five top rates in the country.

Are you a successful entrepreneur? If Dayton gets what he wants, and he most likely will, you will be punished for providing your community with the goods and services they desire. The “rich” (which is an arbitrary term), like smokers, have been a victim of constantly increasing state expropriation. Like it did with smokers, the state has used its propaganda machine to create a rift between the “rich” and everybody else. Few people are willing to stand against increased income taxes so long as it only applies to the “rich” (which is defined by most people as anybody who makes $1 more than they do).

For the first time, Minnesotans would pay sales tax on clothing — items above $100 — and on services like haircuts, auto repairs and legal fees.

Minnesota is an inhospitable wasteland for several months out of the year. During our winters an individual needs to dress in layers. One of those layers, the winter coat, usually costs more than $100. Boots, another article of clothing necessary for withstanding winter temperatures for any length of time, also generally cost more than $100. A sales tax on clothing costing more than $100 is really a tax on survival in this state. I guess it serves us Minnesotans right, living in this climate is rather idiotic and should be punished harshly.

Now that you know what the game is let me tell you how to avoid the game. Start doing all your shopping online. Amazon offers everything you need to survive Minnesota winters and doesn’t collect sales tax. Smokers can buy cigarettes online (I’m not a smoker so I don’t know if that’s a good site, it’s merely an option I came across) and avoid paying individual state sales taxes. These sales tax increases don’t concern them since I do most of my shopping online anyways.

The apparently obvious weakness in shopping online is the threat of a national sales tax. Fortunately that’s a minor problem. Sites like Alibaba allow individuals in other parts of the world to sell to other individuals in other parts of the world. If the United States enacted a national sales tax that would merely mean you would have to buy products from other countries. At one time buying from overseas sources would have been difficult due to shipping but international shipping has becomes so streamlined that it involves, at most, a slight increase in delivery time. My laptop, a MacBook Pro, was shipped directly from Shanghai, China free of charge in four or five (I don’t remember exactly) days.

The Internet is the greatest tool for those wanting to avoid state tyranny. It connects every part of the world with every other part of the world. International borders and, by extension, states have been rendered less and less relevant.

Gun Across America in St. Paul

As I mentioned last week there was a gun rights rally planned for Saturday at the Capitol in St. Paul. I attended, although I arrived approximately 15 minutes later, and there was a good turnout, especially when you consider it was 34 degrees (Fahrenheit) and the wind was really blowing. The Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance Facebook page has some photographs of the event. I didn’t see any gun control advocates protesting the event, which was unfortunate because it would have been great to see all four of them standing there being entirely ignored.

Overall it was a typical political rally. Speeches were given, signs were held, flags were waved, and everybody returned home when the festivities concluded.

Guns Across America Event in St. Paul

Just a heads up, there will be a protest against any and all potential new gun control legislation happening at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Saturday, January 19 at 12:00 (Why is the protest on the weekend when none of the politicians are there? I have no idea). I’m not sure what this event will amount to since I don’t see any mentioned speakers and it doesn’t appear much was dont to promote it but it could be interesting nonetheless. If I end up attending look for a six foot male wearing glasses and a large blue/grey Swiss greatcoat and introduce yourself. On the other hand I’ve had less than optimal experiences at these kinds of events because a majority of attendees are generally constitutionalists and they often don’t take kindly to anarchists.

EDIT: 2012-01-17: 19:19: I accidentally stated that the event was on the 16the when it’s actually on the 19th. Thanks to Paul for catching that one.

Who Watches the Watchmen

Gun control advocates claim that the general populace must be disarmed because they are too irresponsible to own firearms. Meanwhile those very same advocates want to let people like this maintain access to firearms:

A semi-automatic pistol found near the scene of a gun battle in Mexico where five people died, including a Mexican beauty queen, has been traced to a former federal gun agent in Minnesota who was part of the government’s controversial Fast and Furious border gun-tracking operation.

The Justice Department’s inspector general has confirmed that it is investigating allegations that an FN Herstal Five-seven handgun tracked from the area of a Nov. 23 shootout in Sinaloa was linked to George Gillett Jr., who oversaw Operation Fast and Furious from October 2009 to April 2010.

Gillett played a central role in a similar Twin Cities gun sting a decade ago that was shut down after several government-tracked guns were connected to violent gang crimes.

For the record I want it known that my firearms have never harmed anybody nor have I given or sold firearms to violent individuals. Meanwhile the United States government, the same government gun control advocates want to leave armed, has been traffic firearms to violent Mexican drug cartels for ages now. Gillett, the person who provided one of the firearms recovered from the above mentioned shootout, had previously helped arm gangs here in the Twin Cities.

Any claim of opposing violence made by gun control advocates should be summarily dismissed. Such claims are obviously lies since the people making them want to disarm nonviolent individuals while allowing violent individuals to remain armed.