Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals – Page 45

Laugh as Daily Kos Recognizes How Powerless Its Precious State Really Is

A milling machine specifically designed to complete 80% AR lowers was released and sold out? Quick, call in the gun control loons! Daily Kos, one of the more prevalent publications serving the market of hysterical pants shitters has caught news of Cody Wilson’s Ghost Gunner and its phenomenal sales, which means it had to release an article explaining why the sky is falling and we’re all going to die:

I suggest you read the articles linked. It is both interesting and frightening. It really illuminates the sophomoric pseudo-intellectual flaws of the libertarian movement. It also shows that the practicality of their anti-government rhetoric is non-existent. On the one hand, they are democratizing gun ownership, and on the other, they are creating a world that is willfully deaf to all of the damage guns have done and continue to do.

Actually the linked articles, which describe the release of the Ghost Gunner and the fact that it sold out within 36 hours, illuminates the effectiveness of the ideas proposed by market anarchists within the libertarian movement. It certainly illuminates the practicality of our anti-government rhetoric.

Case in point, the release of this invention, which was developed by a handful of individuals, rendered gun control meaningless. Anybody can buy an 80% lower and anybody can buy a Ghost Gunner. That renders every gun control law on the books irrelevant. And if the laws are changed and the sale of 80% lowers is prohibited then an improved Ghost Gunner can be released that turns out completed lowers from solid blocks of aluminum. If laws are passed that prohibit the sale of milling machines then we will build them ourselves from commonly available parts.

Market anarchism often focuses on technical solutions for solving the problem of statism. The Ghost Gunner has solved the problem of the state deciding who can and cannot own an effective means of self-defense. Tor hidden services have solved the problem of the state deciding what can be posted on the Internet. Bitcoin has solved the problem of the state deciding what kinds of products can be traded amongst individuals. Cryptography continues the solve the problem of the state snooping through communications in an attempt to silence the disobedient. It has been becoming apparent for some time that market anarchism works. As a corollary to that market anarchism also demonstrates that statism can’t last.

Sorry (OK, I’m not actually sorry) statists but your precious state is powerless. Liberty is winning now that many of its proponents are no longer playing your stupid political games.

Dividing the Country Into Equally Populated States

Slate, surprising as it is, actually has an interesting article about various shapes the individual states within the United States would look if they were divided up in such a way that each one was equally populated. The article is mostly a bunch of neat looking graphics showing how the states would look if the population of this country was divided out in different ways.

But what I really liked is the idea of dividing states in a way that ensues each one has the same population. In fact it’s an idea I’m entirely behind. I believe this country should be divided up in such a way that there are approximately 316.1 million different states. As the population increases so will the number of states. This will ensure that each individual is their own state so we can do away with all of this stupid concepts of subservience to rulers.

Behold the Ghost Gunner

Many gun rights advocates complain that anarchist don’t do anything to advance gun rights. While they’re pander to politicians, attend meetings, and advocating for or against legislation they see us not doing so and assume we’re just sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. But we work smarter, not harder. With the realization that any political gain can be reversed down the road we look for ways to bypass the political machinery altogether.

One of the anarchists on the forefront of the gun rights battle is Cody Wilson. He brought us the first notable 3D printed handgun. Now he’s bringing us a milling machine designed specifically to produce AR lowers:

When Cody Wilson revealed the world’s first fully 3-D printed gun last year, he showed that the “maker” movement has enabled anyone to create a working, lethal firearm with a click in the privacy of his or her garage. Now he’s moved on to a new form of digital DIY gunsmithing. And this time the results aren’t made of plastic.

Wilson’s latest radically libertarian project is a PC-connected milling machine he calls the Ghost Gunner. Like any computer-numerically-controlled (or CNC) mill, the one-foot-cubed black box uses a drill bit mounted on a head that moves in three dimensions to automatically carve digitally-modeled shapes into polymer, wood or aluminum. But this CNC mill, sold by Wilson’s organization known as Defense Distributed for $1,200, is designed to create one object in particular: the component of an AR-15 rifle known as its lower receiver.

Gun control is irrelevant in a world where anybody can manufacture a firearm. And that’s the goal, make politics irrelevant by utilizing technology:

Wilson’s goal of enabling anyone to privately fabricate an untraceable gun is part of a larger anarchist mission: To show how technology can render the entire notion of government obsolete. He’s spent the last two years developing firearms designed to be printed as easily as ink on a page, neutering attempts at gun control. “This is a way to jab at the bleeding hearts of these total statists,” Wilson says. “It’s about humiliating the power that wants to humiliate you,” he says.

Why beg masters for scraps from the liberty table when you can build your own liberty table and eat as much as you want? A popular agorist saying is “Agora! Anarchy! Action!” In it’s even on a poster

The keyword is action. Anarchists, I would argue, have a tendency to directly take action over the statists’s tendency to ask others, specifically politicians, to take action. We prefer to get our hands dirty, which is necessary when you’re working for radical change. I do wish politically active gun rights activists well but if the political atmosphere starts looking bad again us anarchists will ensure that any guns banned by the state are readily available to as many people as possible.

Self-Proclaimed Progressives are So Anti-War They Want to Help the State Buy More Bombs

Remember the old days when George W. Bush was in office and the anti-war “left” was demonstrating against his war mongering ass? Remember how concerned they were about ending the wars during the 2008 presidential elections? What the fuck happened? After Obama assumed office and proved his war mongering credentials the anti-war “left” didn’t say a peep. In fact many of the people who were demonstrating against Bush’s wars are now supporting Obama’s wars. Salon has turned into one of the biggest war apologist rags out there. For example, it has an article discussion how the neocons have it all wrong about the war against the Islamic State (IS) and that a different approach to murdering Middle Easterners is needed. And, of course, it has an article talking about who profits from the new war. You would think the anti-war “left” would be looking for ways to starve those who profit from the war of resources. But instead of advocating tax protests against the war it annoyed electrons to complain about companies not paying taxes.

These self-proclaimed progressives are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. When the neocons are in power they’re anti-war through and through. But once thier guy is ordering the bombings they become a bunch of apologists. And then when their ideology gets caught between two of their pet issues, opposing war and demanding everybody pay taxes, they always side with whatever will benefit the state even if it means more people dying.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, the anti-war “left” and self-proclaimed progressives aren’t leftists. In the traditional left-right political paradigm the people on the left opposed the king while the people on the right supported him. Well if you’re demanding people pay taxes knowing damn well that that money will be used to fund a major surveillance apparatus, a police state, and war efforts then you’re supporting the king and can’t very well call yourself a leftist. If a future election results in a Republican president I don’t want to hear any of these hypocritical fuckwits suddenly protesting the country’s wars. They had their chance when Bush was in office and blew it when they started supporting the wars under Obama. Now we know their true faces, which are dyed in the wool supporters of the king.

The Internet Thanks Police Officers

Apparently police apologists forgot about the fiasco that was #MyNYPD. Despite the backlash received for that attempted publicity stunt the 17^th annual “Thanks a Police Office Day” went on. And not surprisingly the Internet responded:

Public ire spilled over once again yesterday, with the 17th annual “Thank a Police Officer Day” going about as well as the #MyNYPD hashtag campaign did back in April. The observance, conceived and promoted under the banner of lawyer Andrew M. Hale’s Whole Truth Project, is meant to further that group’s aim of combating negative assumptions about cops.

Instead, social media users took the opportunity to reinforce those unflattering stereotypes.

The article provides a lot of Twitter comments from people who are unhappy about the police state we live in. It’s no surprise that the backlash was pretty severe this year after the fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri. As modern policing becomes more and more adversarial it’s likely that publicity stunts like “Thanks a Police Officer Day” will garner more and more angry responses.

Amazon to Start Extorting Tax Money from Minnesotans

Bad new fellow Minnesotans. Starting on October 1^st Amazon is going to begin extorting tax money from us:

Minnesotans don’t have much longer to get orders from Amazon.com tax-free.

Starting Oct. 1, the online retailer says it will start collecting sales taxes from Minnesota residents. Online-only retailers don’t have to collect state sales taxes if they do not have a physical location in a state.

I’m a big fan of Amazon. Hell, I’m a Prime subscriber. The free shipping I received from Prime from the amount of merchandise I purchase from Amazon more than covers the subscription cost. Part of the reason I prefer Amazon is because it doesn’t collect taxes that are used to fund militarized police, drug prohibitions, and stadiums for whiny rich bitch sports teams. Now that that’s changing I’m going to start doing less business with Amazon and more business with retailers that don’t extort money from me to fund my oppression.

Thankfully there are a massive number of online retailers who haven’t caved to the pressure of state governments. I recently ordered an item from Newegg and didn’t pay a dime of taxes on it. Many online firearm parts and accessories retailers only collect taxes from people living in the state they have a physical presence in. This announcement from Amazon is good news for them because it means they will get more of my money and since I do most of my shopping online that’s not an insignificant chunk of change.

The True Beauty of Agorism

I’m an anarchist and I oppose initiating force. That closes to commonly use strategies for enacting political change to me: violent revolution and politics. In my quest to destroy the state I have opted instead to utilize counter-economics, which is a strategy that attempts to starve the state of resources and replace it by creating alternatives to the services is currently claims dominion over. But there is something I like about agorism even more than its rejection of initiating force. Agorism allows me to do what I want without having to give any fucks about what statists say.

This realization dawned on me during a discussion I had with a statist on Facebook. He, as is common amongst statists, was busy misrepresenting anarchy by claiming it is synonymous with chaos. During his continuous stream of ignorance he kept claiming that collective political action was the only way to achieve change (because it has worked so well over the last century) and that anarchists have undermined the liberty movement by stealing people from effective political activities and having them waste their time with strategies that will never work. It was then that I realized something: I don’t actually have to care what he says, thinks, or does.

Politics, which is a form of collective action, requires you to obtain the approval of your peers. If you are unable to gain favor with your peers your chances of achieving victory are nil. Imagine being a politician who wanted to really change things. Your strategy relies on taking away every ounce of power possible from the state and its cronies. You can’t promise anybody free shit because your strategy relies on taking away everybody’s free shit. What would you accomplish? The answer, as Ron Paul knows all too well, is nothing. Politics necessary requires you to give people free shit in exchange for their support. Therefore it requires you to use the power of the state to benefit your cronies in order to obtain the power necessary to accomplish your political goals. If you want to end the Federal Reserve, for example, you must promise to bomb a few foreign countries in return.

This is why politics is ineffective at creating real change. Politics has to be a circlejerk, which means you have to care what others think of you. Agorism, on the other hand, requires individual action but not permission. I don’t have to fill out permits, seek political favor, or compromise any of my principles. The only thing agorism requires me to do is provide a good or service outside of the state’s control and hope others find it appealing enough to pay me for it instead of relying on the “legitimate” market. If my product or service is desirable I will be able to deprive the state of some resources. If my product or service isn’t desirable then I return to the drawing board.

I’ve never been one to seek permission. When I want to do something I do it. If the violent gang we call the state provides an easy way to pay it off so I don’t have to spend time in a cage I will sometimes do it but not always (and I’m becoming less and less inclined to do so). Agorism appeals to independently minded people like me who aren’t fans of begging masters for privileges. More and more I notice that politics primarily caters to thee kinds of people: those interested in maintaining the status quo (perhaps with some minor changes), those with little or no creativity, and those whose political circle and social circle are one in the same. I’m much more apt to tell somebody to fuck off than I am to beg them for permission or do whatever I can to appease them in the hopes they will reward me with some scraps from the table of liberty. The fact that I’m usually sickened by extremely politically active individuals probably colors my point of view as well (seriously, if you try to get me to do call banking for a political cause or politicians you’re automatically on my shit list).

Hoarded Cash May Be Circulating In the More Awesome Economy

The Federal Reserve bank has expressed displeasure at the fact that all of the funny money it printed hasn’t been circulating in the economy. As always the Fed is blaming people who save, err, hoard (I really need to get a newer version of the Newspeak dictionary) money for all of our country’s economic woes. But one economist has put forth an interesting theory. Edward Feige hypothesizes that a lot of the “hoarded” money is making it’s way around the more awesome economy, which is usually referred to derogatorily as the black or underground market:

Maybe. But another explanation was put forward by the economist Edward Feige, who argued recently that a lot more cash than traditionally assumed is circulating domestically. Where others estimated that half or more of all U.S. currency flows overseas, he said 75 percent or so is actually at home.

Again, is it just sitting there because of low interest rates
and economic doldrums?

Nope. Feige estimates that, in 2009, “18-23% of total reportable income may not properly be reported to the IRS.” That missing $2 trillion or so makes for a rather lower income tax compliance rate than the official 83.1 percent estimated by the IRS.

Which is to say, according to Feige, the money isn’t being hoarded (although some is certainly stashed for a rainy day), but
it’s being channeled into the shadow economy of otherwise legal goods and services to escape taxes and regulations. Much of it probably flows to outright illegal black market activities, too. But the huge increase in cash in private hands suggests less in the way of massively increased demand for hookers and blow than it does a growing parallel economy.

If so this is good news as it indicates that people are still producing and consuming but they’re also not paying the violent gang known as the state its demanded protection money. As we know every dollar of tax revenue obtained by the state allows it to build more bombs, hire more armed thugs, and improve its surveillance apparatus. Every dollar kept from the state is therefore helping protect innocent lives and thus the larger the more awesome economy becomes the safer most of us will be.

Collectivist Thinking and Bigotry are a Dangerous Combination

The the collectivist viewpoint, where individuals are seen as nothing more than a cog in the great collective machinery, and bigotry, and unwarranted hatred of a group of individuals, often go hand in hand. When one fails to see individuals and instead focuses on collectives it becomes much easier to despise entire groups with little or not reasoning. This leads people who think collectively to get very upset about individual action that doesn’t affect anybody else.

A recent story of a transgender teen not being allowed to attend school as a woman generated some outrage. Many neoliberals, social activists, and libertarians were outraged by the fact that her actions affect nobody else and therefore no ground exists for the prohibition. On the other side of the isle are the neocons and social conservatives who, well, basically echo this dude I came across on Facebook:

The opening of his final paragraph really takes the cake. According to his collectivist viewpoint the entire female population of the school will suffer if this transgender teen is accommodated. Earlier he stated “…think about a man dressed as a girl who wants to use the same bathroom your daughter is using…”, which demonstrates that he fears transgender individuals since he doesn’t want one of them in the same bathroom as another person’s daughter (it also demonstrates that he enjoys appealing to emotion when attempting to drum up support for his bigotry). It also demonstrates another common problem with collectivist thinking: failing to understand the target of one’s bigotry. A transgender individual isn’t somebody who simply wears the clothing of the opposite gender. The term for that is cross dresser. Transgender individuals have software running on the wrong hardware.

Not understanding the target of one’s bigotry is almost as common as collectivist bigotry itself. Think of the neocons who hate Muslims. Most of them have a very warped understanding of Islam that is almost entirely shaped by cherry picking facts that fit their bias. Sexists and racists have the same issue. These misunderstanding usually lead to fear and hatred.

In the case of the dude whose comment I screen captured appears to view transgender individuals as sexual predators (after all, the transgender teen obviously only wants to use the women’s restroom so she can peep on other women even though she offered to isolate herself by using the restroom in the nurse’s office). This view leads him to believe that every girl in the school will suffer if this transgender teen is allowed to live her life in accordance to her gender. And that is ridiculous but inevitable when somebody develops a hatred of an entire group of people. When all you see are groups then any individual in a “bad” group necessary harms every individual in a “good” group.

I don’t subscribe to collectivism. While it is useful to refer to groups when discussing philosophy, religion, political beliefs, and other ideas commonly held by multiple individuals, we cannot make judgements about every individual in a group based solely on their membership in that group. Each and every one of us is a unique entity and can only be validly judged as such. Just because somebody is a communist, for example, doesn’t mean that they favor executing anybody who owns means of production. I believe the world would be a far better place if people started backing away from collectivist bigotry.

Children Recite Pledge of Undying Allegiance in a Foreign Language; Neocons Freak Out

We’ve all heard the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a pledge written by a socialist (which should make it poison to neocons) many of us were required to recite in school before we had the ability to understand what it meant. In it the reciter promises to lay down his life for a piece of colored cloth that represents his or her rulers. Neocons, being an incredibly patriotic bunch, often jerk themselves off to the Pledge of Allegiance. But neocons also hate all things Middle East. So it’s no surprise that they’re flipping their shit over a school that allowed children recite the Pledge in Arabic:

A Colorado high school principal is defending his decision to allow students from a cultural club to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic — and denied that it was attempt to push an Islamic agenda.

Tom Lopez, the principal at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, told Fox News he has received a number of telephone calls and emails from outraged parents – but he stands by his decision.

“These students love this country,” he said. “They were not being un-American in trying to do this. They believed they were accentuating the meaning of the words as spoken regularly in English.”

The school recites the Pledge of Allegiance once a week and on Monday a member of the Cultural Arms Club led the student body in the Arabic version of the pledge.

What really gets me about this is that the United States doesn’t have an official language. Neocons love to say “If you can’t speak English then get the fuck out!” but they have no legal grounds, thankfully, for expelling people who can’t speak English. In fact neocons should be overjoyed that somebody has translated this oath of mindless obedience into other languages so children of foreign lands can pledge to die for this forsaken government.

Now let’s discuss the real problem here: children being told to recite a oath of undying loyalty by school officials. Having the pledge in school, in my opinion, is an attempt to get them while they’re young. Tell them that America is the freest country on Earth enough times that they begin to believe and also get them to mindlessly recite a pledge to fall over dead for some suit-clad assholes in a far away marble building enough times that they may actually do it. If there’s anything to be angry about it’s this attempted brainwashing of America’s children.