Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

Still No Due Process

People often argue when I point out that the Republican and Democratic parties are the same. After the San Bernardino shooting the Democrats rekindled calls to ban people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing firearms. The Republican Party, hoping to prove it’s the opposite of the Democratic Party, proposed the same thing with a minor, and entirely irrelevant, difference:

What’s been lost in the debate is the fact that Republicans have an alternative to the Democratic proposal. Under Republican legislation sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, the federal government may delay the sale of a firearm to someone on the watch list for up to 72 hours. During that time, if the government can show a judge there’s “probable cause”–the same legal standard used to obtain a search warrant–that the individual is plotting terrorism, then the gun sale is denied outright. The measure received 55 votes in the Senate. It it secured the backing of staunch conservatives like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio as well as moderate Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly. The only Republican to oppose it was Mark Kirk.

Since there appears to be some confusion of what due process entails I will give an outline. Due process, on a very high conceptual level, first requires an accusation to be made based on credible evidence. After the accusation has been made an impartial body must be assembled. In front of this body the accuser must present their justification for the accusation and the accused must be given an opportunity to defend themselves against the accusations. Finally the impartial body, based on the arguments of the accuser and accused, must make a decision on whether the accusation is true. Unless that entire process is met due process is nonexistent.

Probable cause as you can see is not due process. Under the Republican Party’s scheme the accused isn’t given an opportunity to defend themselves nor is the final decision made by an impartial body that has heard both the accuser’s and accused’s arguments. Instead a secret government list is used to initially delay the purchase so another government employee, a judge, can order the purchase permanently barred. And make no mistake, any judge who has such a decision brought before them will almost certainly approve the ban because they don’t want to risk being the judge who approved the purchase of a firearm by a terrorist (this is called covering your ass).

The fact neither party has made a proposal that involves actual due process just demonstrates there isn’t a lick of difference between them. Both of parties are fascist parties.

Petty Little Tyrants

Do you know who amuses me? People who complain about government control only when it’s not working for their interests. In other words, almost everybody. Case in point, one of my socialist friends (believe it or not, I have those) posted this article that complains about the San Francisco Planning Commission’s plot to bulldoze a bunch of existing property in order to replace it with more expensive property:

For the good of the City, your old apartment building could be torn down! You’ll be figuring out the next few years living elsewhere, while some developer builds a new “affordable” unit for you. You will have to wait a few years to move back, if the new building even gets built.

Don’t worry, though. This isn’t just about you. It’s your neighbor’s place too. And your whole neighborhood. In fact, the San Francisco Planning Department has placed a developer “incentive” bullseye on nearly 31,000 parcels in every corner of the City. Colored blue on their maps, these vast areas also include your neighborhood corner store, produce market, pub, and restaurant. These homes and businesses are standing selfishly in the way of progress according to the proposed Affordable Housing Density Bonus Program.

I agree that this is pretty shitty. And the article correctly points out that a bait and switch similar to this proposal has been done in the city before:

Remember that Redevelopment of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s promised “one for one” replacement. People who were displaced from their Victorian style homes in the Fillmore were told they could return after the Redevelopment Agency built new co-op and other BMR housing. The new housing was promised to be modern and price controlled– an upgrade from the aging Victorians considered by the Agency to be blight. However, in reality, this was the demise of the thriving African-American communities in San Francisco.

This is exactly the same rationale being applied in 2015. At the latest presentation to the Planning Commission on December 3, Planning staff told them that displaced tenants would be given priority to return, and that the new housing would be more affordable than the rent controlled units they currently live in.

Obviously the Planning Commission can’t be trusted and should be disbanded, right? Not so much. Although the author correctly points out that this proposal is little more than a land grab he concludes that the problem isn’t the existence of the Planning Committee, but that they aren’t using their powers the way he wants them to:

What can we do instead? […] There are surface parking lots, large and small, that could be developed as affordable housing. The parking would not be lost because it could be incorporated into the new building.

The City should be using its Housing Bond and Housing Trust Fund dollars to buy as many of these sites as it possibly can– or purchase the air rights like what Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and Bridge Housing did to create affordable senior housing over existing retail with parking. The only way to achieve the Housing Balance is to stop the loss of rent controlled units and to build 100% new affordable housing. This is true development without displacement which is what San Francisco desperately needs!

He’s such a petty little tyrant that somehow knows what everybody in San Francisco needs. This guy is a prime example of somebody just smart enough to identify a symptom of a problem but too stupid to identify the problem itself. The problem isn’t the proposal itself, it’s the existence of a body that can make and enforce such a proposal. Theft shouldn’t be legal just because some government body approves it.

What needs to be done? Abolish the San Francisco government, including the Planning Committee. People need to get over their petty desires for power and work together. If you don’t like how your neighbor is utilizing their property then try to work out a deal with them. Propose another idea and see if they’ll take you up on it. If all else fails make them an offer for their property. I know, that’s not as easy as siccing a government agency on them to force them to do what you want. But government agencies are funny things. One moment they’re doing what you want and the next moment they’re doing what you don’t want. Unless you want guns pointed at your head in the future you should abandon your petty tyrannical ways and try to work with your neighbors instead of against them.

Government: Where Customer Service Is Nonexistent

Here in Minnesota we’re required to renew our driver’s license every four years. What should, at most, involve submitting a simple online form requires one to physically go to a licensing center, wait in line, fill out a form, and receive an absurdly large piece of paper that you have to carry around for the next month until your new license arrives by snail mail. What makes this process even more miserable is that the only criteria that seems to be on a licensing center’s application is “Are you a miserable fuck who will take out your misery on our customers?”

I had to visit two licensing centers. The first one I visited is a licensing center I had visiting a few years ago to get a passport. While its website claimed it did passports when I finally got to talk to an employee, after waiting for half an hour in line, I was told that the center no longer does passports. This time I decided I would ask the information desk before waiting in line. Instead of answering my simple question the lady working the information desk simply kept repeating, “Sir, you’ll have to take a number.” It would have taken no time to say either “Yes” or “No”. But she’s a government employee and has no motivation to provide customer service since I am legally required to do business with her employer. Needless to say I wasn’t going to wait for half an hour to ask a question just so I could wait for another half an hour to get my stupid license so I went elsewhere.

The second licensing center wasn’t a whole lot better. Fortunately the lady working at the information desk wasn’t a total dipshit and handed me a driver’s license renewal form to fill out. Why I have to fill out a physical form when they could simply pull up my information and ask if there are any changes that need to be made is beyond me. But I filled it out and was given a number. From there I proceeded to wait… and wait… and wait. When my number was finally called I had the fun of forking over the renewal fee (licenses only exist to extract wealth from people so there’s always a fee attached), waiting for five minutes while the clerk entered the information I wrote on the form into the computer, doing an absurd vision test, and getting my picture taken all so I could receive my new license in two to four weeks.

Licensing centers are perfect examples of government idiocy. Customer service is nonexistent and their technology is never updated to improve the process. Any sane place would have simply brought up the data that’s already in the database, asked if anything has changed, made any needed changes, and printed out a new license on the spot. Instead you’re subjected to the same process that has been used since driver’s licenses became a thing, which doesn’t scale with population growth. Physical forms have to be filled out, even though your data is already in their database, only so a clerk can reenter that data into their database. Instead of receiving your new license on the spot you have to carry around a giant carbon copy of the form you filled out, complete with your social security number printed on it, for a few weeks while somebody somewhere prints your license and mail it to you. But the worst part is the rude employees who seem to enjoy their tiny bit of power far too much. If you’re lucky you might find a licensing center that employs a decent human being or two. However, since you’re required to do business with them, there’s no motivation by the State to reprimand or fire rude employees so they become the norm.

Licensing centers truly are some of the vilest places on Earth.

Bigotry By Any Other Name

To the cheers of neocon everywhere Donald Trump said he wanted to prohibit all Muslims from entering the United States. Those of us who would rather not see a future where we have to hide Muslims under our floorboards to prevent the Gestapo from finding them Trump’s announcement was much reviled. Hoping to capitalize on those of us who found Trump’s announcement disgusting, the Rand Rapid Response Rangers quickly moved in to promote their messiah. There’s just one problem though. Rand Paul also wants to use his collectivist beliefs to discriminate against an entire group:

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Tuesday that rival Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the country was a “mistake,” even though it was similar to a plan Paul already proposed to halt immigration from the Middle East.

Trump had said Monday that he wanted to implement a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S. Paul was asked to respond to Trump’s statement during an interview with New Hampshire radio station WGIR.

“I think it’s a mistake to base immigration or moratoriums based on religion,” Paul said. “But you know, I’ve called for something similar, which is a moratorium based on high risk.”

When somebody proposes to discriminate against people based on religion everybody loses their head. But when somebody proposes to discriminate against people based on imaginary lines on a map everybody seems totally fine with it. Imaginary lines, like religion, tell us nothing about specific individuals. Prohibiting people from a specific country is no different than prohibiting people of a specific religion. Flags are no better indicators of a individual’s character than holy books.

Why Centralization Fails

While the politicians discuss ways to further centralize security here let’s take a moment to review why centralization, specifically as it relates to security, fails. Imagine a society where private firearm ownership is illegal. In this society the only people who have access to firearms are the military, the police, and the attackers. It’s not hard to imagine since I’ve just described a good percentage of countries.

Under such circumstances society consists mostly of soft targets with a few hard targets scattered about. The hard targets consist of military bases, police stations, and any place where a soldier or police officer may be at a particular point in time. Everywhere else is a soft target. There are two major and very apparent weaknesses with this setup. First, the soft targets are all known. Second, the response time of somebody capable of thwarting your attack can be reasonably determined.

Attackers can cause a great deal of damage by finding a high value target far away from either a military base or a police station (and in societies, such as the United States, where the military is legally prohibited from operating in civilian spaces without approval you can focus primarily on police stations). For example, a school, museum, or sports stadium 10 to 15 minutes away from a police station will give attackers a lot of time in a target-rich environment, which will allow them to cause a great deal of damage.

Centralization fails precisely because the central points of failure can be identified and worked around. Decentralized systems tend to be more difficult to exploit because central points of failure either don’t exist or additional layers exist to support the centralized ones.

We can illustrate this by making a single alteration to our above model. In addition to soldiers and police we will allow licensed armed security agents to own firearms. Assuming any place can hire a security agent the difficulty of identifying soft targets becomes more difficult. Selecting a target now requires determining how far it is from a military base or police station and whether the it employs armed security agents. Another layer of security has been added and the complexity of pulling off an attack has increased.

Let’s take things a step further. In addition to soldiers, police officers, and licensed security agents we are now going to allow any adult who wants to own and carry a gun to do so. How do you identify the soft targets now? While a school, museum, or sports stadium may be 10 or 15 minutes away from a police station and doesn’t employ armed security agents anybody within the facility could be armed. While there is no guarantee that an armed individual will be at any specific target the possibility of one or more armed individuals being there always exists. Another layer of security has been added and the complexity of pulling off an attack has greatly increased.

What I’ve just described is a concept known as defense in depth. The idea is to have multiple layers of overlapping security so any single layer failing doesn’t result in total failure. As the politicians continue to argue that security must be further centralized under the State remember that the more centralized security becomes the more fragile it becomes.

The Unpayable Debt To Society

The United States has reached the logical conclusion of the tough on crime mentality. This country has become so tough on crime that even a wrongful conviction and ruin somebody’s life:

Simmons, at the time a contract systems analyst making $90 an hour, was arrested in Seattle’s University District in 2006 and charged with selling crack as well as resisting arrest. He was convicted of the drug-dealing charge and sentenced to a year in prison.

Three months after his conviction, though, the King County deputy whose testimony led to Simmons’ conviction, James Schrimpsher, was fired for dishonesty in a different drug case. That the deputy was being investigated for lying at the same time as Simmons’ trial had not been disclosed to Simmons’ attorneys.

Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled. Save for a marijuana possession charge from the 1990s in Tennessee, he has no criminal convictions before or since. Regardless, he served the full prison term at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, plus a year of probation when he got out.

[…]

What’s alarming about Simmons’ story is that his drug-dealing conviction was eventually stricken from the record. He was retroactively exonerated in 2010 because the testimony that convicted him was no longer considered credible. Yet he struggles to get a job because the story stalks him on the Internet.

Based on the job offers Simmons has received he’s a very capable individual. What he was original charged with, selling crack, wasn’t even a crime (because crimes require victims). But now, even after he has been exonerated, he cannot get a job.

Sadly this is exactly what the tough on crime crowd wanted. In their pursuit of an impossible goal, a society free of crime, they demanded harsh punishments be issued. The politicians, always happy to take up the cause of fear mongering, acted on these pleas and passed harsher laws. When the new harsher punishments failed to bring about Nirvana the the cycle continued. Now we’re at a point when anybody who has been incarcerated, regardless of the offense, is nearly unemployable.

Unproductive Is Better Than Undoing Productivity

Since the news has hit national headlines I’m assuming most of you reading this blog are aware of the Black Lives Matters protest at the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Fourth Precinct. If not here is your thumbnail storyline.

Two members of the MPD were involved in the shooting of Jamar Clark. A lot of questions surround the shooting, including the conflict of interest of having law enforcers investigate law enforcers. The protesters are demanding any video footage of the shooting be released for public scrutiny and the investigators are refusing claiming it could hinder the investigation. Although the protest has remained mostly civil five people were shot one night last week.

As with any protest there are both advocates and opponents. Of the two I find the opponents most interesting. Not because the protesters shutdown Highway 94 during rush hour one night but because they keep saying the protesters need to get jobs and be productive members of society. It’s the same argument the tough on crime crowd tends to fall back on whenever people are protesting police.

For me this brings up an interesting question. Is it better to be productive or to undo productivity? Even though many of the people at the protest are employed let’s consider their productivity. Although the protesters have not completely shutdown the precinct they are interfering with its day to day operations to some extent. A lot of officers are on duty guarding the precinct instead of driving around hoping to issue some petty traffic citations. And therein lies my issue. Even if the protesters are being productive the police are actually undoing previous productivity.

Consider what happens when an officer witnesses somebody driving above the arbitrarily posted speed limit. First the officer will turn on his bright flashy lights that divert everybody’s attention to them and cause epileptic people to have a seizure. Then the officers race down the highway and demand the offending motorist pull over to the side of the highway. Because of the way Minnesota’s traffic laws are written other people driving down the highway need to either merge over a lane or slow way down when passing the cop car. While motorists are creating legally mandated conditions that are more likely to cause an accident the officer is walking over to the pulled over car to write him a citation. Most people view the citation as a dollar amount but it really should be viewed as hours of a life. That citation effectively undoes a number of hours of productivity of the motorist. Instead of being able to, for example, buy a new television the motorist now has to give that money to the State.

Traffic citations are just one of many ways police actively undo productivity. Raiding cannabis growers results in a lot of already grown cannabis being destroyed. Civil forfeiture laws result in a lot of productivity being stolen in the form of property an office claims is related to a drug crime.

To me the protest is, at worst, a debate between unproductive people (although I don’t actually see the protesters as unproductive) and people who undo productivity. I’d much rather have a group of unproductive people than a group of people who are working to set back my productivity any day of the week.

One Sword Keeps Another In The Sheath

George Herbert once wrote, “One sword keeps another in the sheath.” Later Robert Heinlein expressed a similar idea in Beyond This Horizon when he wrote, “An armed society is a polite society.” Today many people would argue the idea shared by Herbert and Heinlein is destructive. They argue that peace can only exist when the general population is unarmed but acknowledge the need for weapons to enforce such a prohibition so generally approve of the military and police keeping their weapons. But Herbert and Heinlein were correct, peace tends to prevail when no disparity of force exists.

Force is an appealing option when one enjoys a greater capacity for it than their target. We see this every day with violent criminals. Amongst violent criminals there is a great tendency for targeting easier prey. The criteria that determine how easy a target is varies. If the criminal is physically strong they may see physically weak individuals as easy prey. If the criminal has a gun they may see anybody who is unarmed as easy prey. If the criminal is with friends they may see any group they that is numerically inferior as easy prey. Most criminals see people who are entirely unaware of their surroundings as easy prey. In general criminals target those they believe to have a lesser capacity for force than themselves. Economically this makes sense because the risks of employing violence decrease when your force advantage over your target increases.

But force becomes unattractive when your target enjoys an equal capacity. The reason for this is obvious. Force carries with it the possibility of severe injury or death. That’s what makes force appealing to those who enjoy a sizable advantage. But it also means a target that is on equal footing with you stands a good chance of injuring or killing you. If two renowned swordsmen are both carrying their swords the likelihood of a disagreement between them turning violent is going to remain fairly low. Both of them know drawing their sword will cause an equal reaction from the other and the outcome of the fight may very well include the loss of limbs or life.

This principle remains even on larger scales. A nation only tends to declare war against another if it believes it’s in an advantaged position. When a nation doesn’t believe it enjoys a force advantage it tends to use diplomacy. The United States and the Soviet Union avoided a direct war because both had enough nuclear weaponry to wipe the other out. Napoleon invaded Russia because he believed his military was superior and that would ensure his victory.

One of the reasons I believe stateless societies tend to be more peaceful than ones under statism is because the disparity of force between the people and the State is nonexistent. Iceland’s stateless period, medieval Ireland, the Old American West, and Neutral Moresnet are all examples of stateless societies that tended to be very peaceful when compared to their statist neighbors. Since there was no organization with a great force advantage over everybody else the tendency was for people to choose diplomacy over violence.

The desire to eliminate disparity of force, and therefore reduce the appeal of using violence, is one of the primary reasons libertarians tend to be supporters of allowing individuals to be armed. They recognize that one gun keeps another in the holster. It is also why even libertarian statists tend to support individuals enjoying arms parity with the police and military.

The United States Isn’t A Wealthy Nation

Several of the Bernie bots were sharing more economic ignorance spouted by their preferred presidential candidate. This time it was Bernie saying that the United States is the only wealthy country that doesn’t guarantee health insurance. How can he claim a nation that is tens of trillions of dollars in debt is wealthy? It’s the kind of lunacy only made possible through political doublespeak. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and debt is wealth!

The United States is at that point where it has stretched itself so thin for so long that it can no longer even keep up the appearance of wealth. Like the man who used an extensive line of credit to buy his mansion that was just foreclosed and Ferrari that was just repossessed, the United States is no longer able to even maintain what it already purchased. A good illustration of this is the transportation infrastructure:

Imagine you’re driving. Maybe on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, or down Interstate 95 through New Haven, or I-94 in Milwaukee. Chances are you’ll encounter a truck-swallowing pothole, or lanes strewn with orange cones, or traffic at a standstill. After all, Illinois, Connecticut, and Wisconsin have the worst roads in the nation. And the Highway Trust Fund — the source for most federal spending on roads, bridges, highways, tunnels, and public transit — is almost out of money. Again.

[…]

The fund’s primary source of revenue is the federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. That tax hasn’t gone up since 1993, and isn’t pegged to inflation. A dollar in 1993 is worth only 60 cents today. If the gas tax had kept up with inflation, it would be 30 cents a gallon today and pull in nearly twice the amount of revenue. The tax brings in around $34 billion each year, but while that seems like a lot of money, it barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to maintain the nation’s highways in a state of good repair.

The federal government spends roughly $50 billion annually on infrastructure, leaving a $16 billion hole in the Highway Trust Fund. Over the last decade, Congress has signed off on a series of short-term extensions to prevent the fund from completely drying up. The one just approved by the Senate would mark the 36th such funding extension for the fund since 2009.

The article argues that the gas tax needs to be increased to pay for infrastructure maintenance. If this was a new problem that arose in a wealthy nation a simple gas tax increase might be enough of a bandage. But the infrastructure has been in decay for decades so the costs of fixing everything is so astronomically high that it’s not even a feasible project anymore:

So what needs fixing? Almost everything. Today, more than 60,000 bridges in the United States are considered structurally deficient, according to the Department of Transportation, and 32 percent of US major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. In its most recent report, the ASCE gave the nation’s overall infrastructure — everything from airports to wastewater — a D+. The US would need to spend an estimated $3.6 trillion by 2020 to bring its infrastructure into decent shape. That’s more than one-third the nation’s entire gross domestic product.

Emphasis mine. The infrastructure is in such a dilapidated state that the federal government would need to steal one-third of the entire nation’s gross domestic product just to bring it up to date in four years. That, ladies and gentlemen, is point where your income can’t even pay off the interest on your debt. And it’s only one of a practically uncountable number of government programs. No amount of additional plunder will allow the United States to get back on its feet.

People saying the United States is a wealthy nation should be laughed at. When they use that claim to justify creating yet another government program that will add more debt they should be publicly shamed. Their names should become common insults. Instead of saying “You’re an idiot,” the new insult should be, “OK, Bernie Sanders.”

The empire is collapsing. No amount of voting will save it, thankfully.

Cultures Cannot Own Ideas Either

Several of my friends have been passing around the story of the University of Ottawa cancelling a free yoga class because of concerns of cultural appropriation. I ignored it just as I ignore most culture war stories. Especially when the remedy to the cancellation is as simple as continuing the classes without official recognition from the university. But some valuable discussion did manage to rise from the ashes. Namely that ideas aren’t property and therefore cannot belong to anybody:

Yoga, whether you’re a fan of it or not, doesn’t exclusively belong to some group of people who share the same skin color or language or culture or religion — just as classical music or Western medicine or modern physics doesn’t belong to the Europeans. It, like all such ideas, is the common heritage of all mankind. That means of each and every one of us, even those of us who have a genetic background or culture that some people feel aggrieved at.

We (Indian, American, African, Oceanian, anyone else) are entitled to use it, to adapt it, to merge it with other ideas. There’s no improper “appropriation” here because there’s no “property” here in the first place.

After this the author does some backtracking and tries to justify patents and copyrights. His inconsistency towards the end of the article don’t invalidate the beginning of the article though. Ideas are not a finite resource that can be exclusively held by a single individual. You can copy an idea but that doesn’t deprive the originator of it so the act cannot be called theft.

Most instances where I’ve seen accusations of cultural appropriation made were when somebody was making use of an idea that originated in another culture. Sometimes the usage is malicious and meant to mock the culture but more often than not the usage is innocent. In the former case I think an accusation of the user being a jackass suffices and in the latter I think the usage should be encouraged. Adopting ideas from other cultures tends to have the effect of forwarding the adopter’s view of the culture they’re drawing from.

For example, I participate in Japanese martial arts and part of that involves adopting Japanese cultural ideas not directly related to the combat styles themselves. Several of those ideas are themselves adopted from Buddhism. Buddhism in Japan came from China, which adopted Buddhism from India where the religion originated. So I’ve adopted cultural ideas that were adopted from cultural ideas that were adopted from cultural ideas. If I am guilty of cultural appropriation, and I have been accused of it by one person, then I am merely continuing a trend of cultural appropriation that spans back into prehistory. With all of that said I feel as though I’m a better person because of it. My overall understanding of the world expanded because I adopted ideas from another culture.

I use myself as an example because I am the person I know best. But most people I know who had adopted ideas from other cultures have become better people because of it. A lot of people I know practice yoga and feel they are better because of it. Seeing their enjoyment of life increase leads me to believe they are correct. Many of my friends also practice various forms of meditation, which clearly do not have roots in European culture. Again they feel it has made them better people and I agree. In addition to becoming better people these friends of mine tend to have a more expansive worldview. That fuller worldview tends to make them less xenophobic and if there’s anything the world needs it’s less xenophobia.

The idea that one’s ability to adopt ideas from other cultures is dependent on what culture they were born into is another attempt at monopolizing ideas. Cultural appropriation belongs on the same shelf as copyrights and patents: fiction. While there are certainly valid grounds for criticizing people who adopt a cultural idea for the sole purpose of denigrating the culture they should be based on the person being an asshole. On the other hand people who adopt ideas from other cultures should be encouraged because it will only help expand their worldview and very well may help to different cultures come together. Above all though we should recognize that cultural ideas aren’t a special exception to the illegitimacy of intellectual property.