Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals – Page 57

Government Shutdown Part VI

Getting to the meadow wasn’t easy. As it turns out I grossly underestimated the scale of the threat. Shortly have heading up the north trail my way was blocked by a derailed train. Without the government the train system, along with everything else, went straight to Hell. I’m not sure what events specifically lead to the derailment but it was likely due to either improperly maintained track or an improperly maintained train. We would need government inspectors to look it over to know for sure. Were my troubles limited solely to a derailed train I wouldn’t have worried to much. Regulations vanished when the government shutdown and the train companies must have no longer seen any reason to avoid hauling dangerous cargo. Combine the lack of rail regulations with the lack of oversight on weapon research and you have a truly terrifying problem: antonymous killbots.

Everybody knows that the defense contractors have been researching fully antonymous killbots for some time now. The only thing preventing them from unleashing their robotic horrors was the federal government, which put strict laws in place to prevent such a catastrophe. With the government shutdown the defense contractors decided to make a power grab and loaded their killbots onto trains and sent them into major metropolitan areas. The killbots must have been activated and released when the train derailed. Judging by the number of bodies that littered the ground the killbots had either been active for some time or were horribly efficient at dispatching human targets.

I encountered the first killbot as I was working my way around the derailed train. It was a bipedal model approximately five feet in height and had two machine guns in place of arms. Upon seeing me it opened fire. Luck shined down on me because I was able to tip my bike over behind a train car. Bullets riddled the car but the killbot seemed unable to see me. Thank God it didn’t have X-Ray vision or some other such science fiction nonsense. Hearing the killbot approach I popped out of my hiding spot just long enough to learn a valuable lesson: .308s don’t do shit against killbots. Even the legendary stopping power of my rifle glanced off of the titanium exoskeleton of the walking death machine. I reclaimed my spot behind the train car as the killbot opened fire again. There wasn’t much I could do other than run. As I lurched to the other side of the tipped car I heard another killbot approaching. Who would have known that walking killing machines would also be able to communicate with one another? Those corporate bastards have no morals other than those imposed on them by the state!

That’s when I made, what I thought was, the dumbest move possible: I heaved myself on top of the tipped car and ran. As I ran both killbots took aim and opened fire. Hitting the ground (or car in this case) saved my life because the killbots ended up hitting each other instead of me. It was something right out of Hollywood, something that the staff at Elite Operators Inc. said was possible but I never believed. Both killbots toppled over and burst into flames. Thinking quick I retrieved my mountain bike and booked west. I planned to take Cedar Lake Parkway around Cedar Lake. Going to the meadow seemed unwise with the threat of killbots roaming the area but I didn’t know what else to do. At least the killbots would kill me quickly. The gangs would probably torture me now that the government shutdown has allowed them to dispense entirely with any form of morality.

I also faced the grim reality that night was catching up to me and there was no way I was going to beat it to Minneapolis. Thinking that I would have to either camp out the night without the government operating or travel the lawless area in the dark terrified me more than either the gangs or killbots.

Government Shutdown Part V

Even I wasn’t prepared for the horrors that existed around Lake Calhoun. The towering infernos that used to be apartment complexes understated the severity of the situation. As I approached the Lake Calhoun area I was attacked by approximately 50 gang members. The only thing that saved me was a tree that had fallen onto the trail. Although I’m left assuming the gangs fell the tree to make it easier to jump anybody riding the trial the plan backfired as the tree absorbed the bullets that were meant for me.

Taking cover behind the tree I unslung my .308 and prepared myself for was was likely to be the bloodiest engagement of my life. I recalled everything I read on the Internet gun boards and the training I had taken from the elite operators at Elite Operators Inc. The first thing I had to do was get off of the X. For those of you who haven’t attended Elite Operators Inc. or watched their DVDs, the X is wherever you are standing at any point in time. If you’re not moving you’re dying, period. But I had a problem. There was no way I was going to make it to the Hennepin Hilton before nightfall without my bike and there was no way for me to drag my bike without taking a bullet. Raiding the police headquarters ended up being the smartest move I have made since the government shutdown. Pulling the pin from one of the grenades I tossed it towards the trigger happy gang members. After a few seconds it exploded and just like in the movies the blast was so powerful it killed or incapacitated most of the gang members. In the confusion I swung up, shouldered my rifle, and quickly dispatched the few gang members that were still standing. I was able to freely navigate myself away from the X. But in which direction would I flee from the X?

I was certain that continuing east down the trail was a bad idea. Ambushes were like to be encountered every 10 feet or so. Instead I had to make my way around the trail. Heading north would take me between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles while heading south would take me to Lake Calhoun. Neither option sounded very good as both lakes were surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods and therefore raiding gangs. Of the two bad options North sounded better. There was a bike trail that followed a railroad track and eventually exited into a wide open meadow. While I would have little cover in the meadow I knew that most of the gangs were armed with handguns and lacked any formal training. Their range would likely limited whereas my .308 easily gave me an effective range of 1,000 yards. If I fell back to my training I could probably get a mile or so out of the gun so long as I angled it up high enough (Elite Operators Inc. taught me how to lob bullets almost like mortars). One downside of heading north is that it would put me closer to the gangland of North Minneapolis. Seeing as how all over Minneapolis had instantly turned into North Minneapolis as soon as the government shutdown I wasn’t too concerned.

I pedaled north, praying that I could get into Minneapolis before nightfall.

Government Shutdown Part IV

Even on the Cedar Lake Regional Trail things are bad. As I continued towards Minneapolis I was attacked by wild dogs. Without the government to control predator populations their numbers have exploded. Prey populations have already been exhausted. Now predatory animals are hunting humans in a last ditch effort to save themselves from starving. I was lucky, the pack that attacked me wasn’t very organized. They all jumped out from the same side so I was able to swerve my bike, draw my Glock, and put rounds into several of the lead dogs. Seeing an opportunity for an easy meal the trailing dogs began to dead their own dead. This put much needed distance between myself and those vicious beasts.

After that encounter I came across another person biking the trail. Internet gun boards always said that USPSA would get me killed and it almost did. Hoping I could join forced with this biker I greeted him. The fucker drew a gun on me and started firing. Fortunately his aim was on par with a New York City police officer, which afforded me time to draw my Glock and put two rounds in the bastards head. I learned a valuable lesson during this encounter: unlike USPSA, there are no no-shoots in this world absent of government. After searching his corpse for any valuable items, of which there were none, I continued on hoping another dead body would keep any nearby predators off of my ass.

Seeing the multimillion dollar apartment complexes and homes burning in the distances I known that I’m quickly approaching Lake Calhoun, which serves as the unofficial border between the suburbs and Minneapolis. Things are likely to get worse since the gangs have likely converged on this area to pillage from the wealthy lakeside dwellings.

Government Shutdown Part III

I made it to the police station. As I feared none of the cops showed up to work and there’s absolutely no government here. The gangs haven’t raided this place yet so I’m able to find some reprieve from the collapse of civilization. Originally I planned to take the police’s Bearcat if no officers were present but seeing the roads in such disarray I doubt I could navigate that monster. Instead I opted to take some body armor, grenades, .308, and .45. Once again I left the poodle killing 9mm and 5.56x45mm weapons. Every Internet gun board aficionado knows that such weaponry is reserved for show and tell, not combat, which is also why the police keep a stockpile of actual combat calibers on hand. I did take the liberty of disabling the guns through. Why give the gangs any ideas of arming themselves?

I also raided the kitchen. Power has been spotty since the government shutdown but the inside of the fridge still felt cold so I took my chances. The stove was gas powered and still operated so I cooked up a quick meal. There was no reason to eat the emergency food in my bug-out bag if I didn’t need to. Food that was portable and nonperishable was added to my bug-out bag.

Looking around the station I happened upon a radio. Flicking it on and keeping the volume low to avoid attracting more gang members I slowly cycled through the available channels. Most of the channels were filled with static but one had a person broadcasting, what seemed to be, a new report. From what I gathered he was in Minneapolis where things were bag but he alluded to some possible government near the Hennepin Hilton (the Hennepin County Jail for those of you not from around here). I knew I couldn’t stay in my current location for long so I had to make a quick decision. Keep heading out of the metropolitan area and take my chances with rural Minnesota or head into Minneapolis and possibly find some government.

I decided to head into Minneapolis. In all likelihood, without government, the people living in the rural areas had already turned to cannibalism.

Government Shutdown Part II

Things are even worse than I imagined. The gangs have already turned to highway banditry. Any vehicles that are found capable of traversing the deteriorated roads are attacked. Anything of value is seized and the occupations are either killed or kept as slaves. By keeping to back roads and cutting through lawns I’ve been able to avoid much of the danger. But even on these back routes violence is a constant threat.

The first firefight happened as I was cutting through the backyard of a burning home. Seeing the house ablaze I assumed the gangs had already killed the inhabitants, taken anything of value, and moved on. I was wrong. A shot rang out from the direction of the house. Ditching my bike I raise my LR-308 and ran behind a shed for cover. All the time I spent reading gun boards on the Internet paid off. Using what I learned from those message boards I was able to identify three threats and their approximate locations. As they unloaded on the shed I was hiding behind I sneaked into the woodland that bordered the property. From here I was able to move, albeit slowly to maintain stealth, into a better firing position.

One of the gang members crept out of his hiding spot and made a beeline for my bike. He obviously believed it to be of value and wanted to grab it before one of his fellow gang members did. I almost felt sorry for the stupid bastard as I put a .308 into his skull. Before he even hit the ground I was already moving to a different position. I learned from the movie Red Dawn (the original, not the new one) that you never fire from the same location twice otherwise the enemy will be able to zero in on your location. By the time I found my second firing position the two remaining gang members were already blindly firing into the woods.

My second firing position gave me a perfect shot at the other two gang members. The first one I drilled in the head with my .308 again but the second one I shot in the knee. If I was going to learn about the gang’s current activities I needed to interrogate one of its members. Walking over to the screaming gang member I quickly took the pistol from his hand and dropped my knee onto his chest. Using one hand I hit his blasted knee with the grip of his own pistol. He howled in pain. Then I put the pistol to his head and demanded he tell me the location of his friends. Just as he was about to spill the beans I heard more gangs heading in my direction. The sounds of gunfire had probably piqued their curiosity. Knowing that my odds of surviving another firefight were slip I collapsed my prisoner’s throat with his own pistol. Seeing that the gang members were carrying 9mms, and remembering what I read on the Internet about 9mms being too weak for effective combat, I tossed their weapons into the burning home. Then I grabbed my bike and pedaled off in the opposite direction of the approaching gang.

I’m now making my way towards the police station. If I make it there and I’m lucky I’ll find some government. Even if I don’t I’ll be able to acquire better equipment.

Government Shutdown Part I

I’m writing this to let you know that I was wrong. I believed that humanity could get along without government but now that the government has shutdown I see that I’ve been wrong. It happened almost instantly. As soon as it was announced the government was shutting down the gangs began to gather. My sleep was interrupted by the scream of dying men and raped women. The gangs had begun to lay siege to my sleepy suburb. Fortunately I had prepared for this scenario. Grabbing my bug-out bag, Glock 21SF, and DPMS LR-308 I headed out the door. What I found when I stepped outside was beyond my ability to describe, but I will try. All of the nearby houses were in flames and the roads had already deteriorated past the point where anything besides the most well equipped off-road truck could traverse. Seeing this I ran back inside and grabbed my mountain bike. There was no way I would be able to drive my car on these roads and, honestly, I don’t think I want to be on the roads with the gangs patrolling the area.

At Least the ATF is Consistent

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) have a track record of losing things. For several years the ATF has been “losing” firearm across the Mexico border and now the agency has lost 420 million cigarettes:

The US agency tasked with stopping illegal tobacco trafficking lost track of 420 million cigarettes purchased in undercover operations, justice department auditors have found.

In addition, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) made $162m (£100m) selling tobacco undercover, it found.

To those who want to grant the ATF more power so it can further control firearms I ask you this: How is an agency that can’t even keep track of cigarettes supposed to effectively control firearms? Furthermore, I must point out that it is unlikely that anybody within the ATF will be punished for this loss. Once again we must acknowledge that the state fails to punish wrongdoers within its ranks and that make government jobs attractive to the irresponsible. Putting irresponsible people in positions of power is always a recipe for disaster.

Trying to Salvage a Sinking Ship

It’s a miracle! The housing market is bouncing back! Three cheers for our central planners:

US house prices rose 12.4% over the 12 months to the end of July, the biggest annual increase since February 2006, according to a closely-watched measure.

Are you ready for another bust? I hope so because that’s what we’re going to experience in the near future. Let’s discuss economics for a moment. Our glorious central planners have been busy shoveling money into the economy in the hopes of propping it up again. But it seems the more they shovel the harder the crash is. This fits with the Law of Erisian Escalation, which states that the imposition of order equals the escalation of chaos. Trying to instill more order in the economy only results in more chaos.

I’m going to put forward a theory. Do note that I’m not saying this theory is correct nor am I claiming that I have thought this through fully. But I’ve been considering it for a while now and I feel as though it’s worth putting out for others to consider.

History is noted by various paradigm shifts. These shifts can be caused by many things including technological advancements and the need to escape coercive control. The Industrial Revolution is an example of the former, the move away from serfdom is an example of the latter. Could it be that our societies are in the midst of an economic paradigm shift? Rick Falkvinge has an interesting theory he calls the Swarm Economy:

The industrial model with lifetime single-employer careers is dying, and it is not coming back. The first sign was a change from lifetime-marriage employments into its serial-monogamy equivalent, where people change jobs every three years at the most. The next change, one which is already happening, is that most people have more than one employment — or employment-equivalent — at one time: this is an enormous change to society, where people are going to be juggling five to ten projects at a time, some for fun, some for breadwinning, some for both. I have called this the coming swarm economy.

Although I disagree with his idea of a universal basic income, I believe his statements regarding the increasingly decentralized nature of our economy has merit. Technology has allows us, as a species, to become less tied to physical locations and specific employers. Independent contractors are great examples of this shift to more decentralized workplaces. Contractors often lack a specific employer. Instead they go from job to job and sometimes work on multiple contracts simultaneously. Advances in travel and communication technology allow for this.

If the economy is in for another paradigm shift what good will central planners do? Preventing change is what the state does but the more it tries to force us into the current economic paradigm the messier it makes the transition to the new paradigm. Instead of a gradual shift enabled by new technology we suffer under a series of very painful busts as the old paradigm continues to fail again and again.

Being an anarchist I’m obviously against any form of central planning. But even advocates of central planning may want to stop and consider the possibility of a complete paradigm shift. For all we know the entire world is in for a change and that change could bring economic prosperity of the likes we’ve never seen. I think we should step aside and let the economy move in the way it wants instead of trying to prop up the current shambling mess so many seem to worship.

Glitch or Design

The debate over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been heating since the House voted to defund the law. Of all the revelations that have come to light regarding the law I believe this one may be the most telling:

WASHINGTON — Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what’s being called a glitch in President Barack Obama’s overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president’s plan had hoped.

[…]

The affordability glitch is one of a series of problems coming into sharper focus as the law moves to full implementation.

Starting Oct. 1, many middle-class uninsured will be able to sign up for government-subsidized private coverage through new health care marketplaces known as exchanges. Coverage will be effective Jan. 1. Low-income people will be steered to expanded safety-net programs. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government program, or by buying their own plan.

Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an advocacy group for children, cited estimates that close to 500,000 children could remain uninsured because of the glitch. “The children’s community is disappointed by the administration’s decision to deny access to coverage for children based on a bogus definition of affordability,” Lesley said in a statement.

I’m left wondering if this is a glitch or by design. A number of my posts have been dedicated to the states are on the homeless and the fact that the state has no interest in helping those with nothing to steal. I would find it surprising if the (ACA) wasn’t specifically designed to prevent very poor individuals from obtaining healthcare. If they are allowed to obtain healthcare that means the state would have to spend resources on them, which is not something it has a history of doing.

Washington DC runs on corporate dollars. The ACA was the result of large health insurance companies buying legislation that mandated every American become customers. It was never about helping those in need, that was just the line of bullshit fed to us to drum up public support. From the beginning the ACA was about enriching the wealthy bastards that have been shoveling money into the pockets of “representatives” for almost a century.

Rastafarian Wins Right to Possess Pipe in Minnesota

Freedom of religion is an interesting topic in the United States. So long as you’re a member of a mainstream religion you generally enjoy a decent amount of religious freedom. Those who participate in lesser known religions are seldom as lucky. Take the Rastafarian movement whose members partake in the spiritual use of cannabis. Many Rastas have been arrested for possessing cannabis or drug paraphernalia. These arrests are an affront to religious freedom, which is a statement the Minnesota Court of Appeals agrees with:

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has sided with a 15-year-old Rastafarian, ruling that his right to religious expression trumps his being found guilty in Ramsey County of a drug paraphernalia offense for carrying a glass pipe.

In Monday’s reversal of the District Court on the petty misdemeanor case from September 2012, Court of Appeals Judge Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks wrote that the teenager has a “genuinely held belief in possessing a cannabis pipe” as part of observing his faith.

Therefore, Halbrooks continued, the prosecution had “failed to meet its burden” of showing that it had a “compelling state interest” in enforcing the statute in this case.

“The state improperly … argues that because the pipe may be used for an illegal purpose,” the teen is guilty, Halbrooks wrote.

What makes this case more interesting is that the teen was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia. He didn’t have actual cannabis on him, just a pipe. But even if he were in possession of cannabis he should be free from persecution if one is truly free to exercise their religious beliefs. This is an idea that often rubs people the wrong way because they believe religions like the Rastafari movement will enjoy a sudden glut of converts. To that I say this: may the best religion win. If a desire to smoke cannabis is strong enough that people are willing to convert to the Rastafari movement then, perhaps, other religions may want to look into the spiritual use of cannabis.