Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

It’s a Big Club

Most people still seem to believe that there is an ideological war between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Every political issue seems to be starkly divided between the Republicans and Democrats. We’re told that Republican support gun rights whereas the Democrats oppose them, Republicans oppose same-sex marriage whereas the Democrats support them, Republicans hate the poor whereas the Democrats love them, and Republicans are fiscal conservatives whereas the Democrats are big spenders. None of this is true, there is no ideological divide between the two parties, both parties are in total agreement that they want to take your shit and that doing so is easier if the populace is divided. This fact becomes more prevalent when things become difficult, as with the current budget debate:

Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.

The five- page document, which has the tacit support of Senate GOP leaders, represents a remarkable shift for the party. Having railed against Senate Democrats for not passing a budget, Republicans are now proposing that Congress surrender an important piece of its Constitutional “power of the purse” for the last seven months of this fiscal year.

The Republicans are making a dictator out of the Democratic President (who is already a dictator is everything but name). If there really was an ideological divide you would think both parties would be working hard to ensure the other party doesn’t gain more power but the opposite is happening, both parties are working hard to ensure the other party gains more power.

This is why working in the political system will never change anything of importance. All of the major players, the actual decision makers, are best friends. They pretend to hate each other to create the illusion of choice but almost come to an agreement, and that agreement always ends with the state and its cronies getting more while the general populace gets less.

Magpul Planning to Flood Colorado with Standard Capacity Magazines

I love Magpul. They offer several great products including affordable and reliable magazines for my LR-308. I’m happy to see that they’re planning on fighting the currently progressing ban on standard capacity magazines in Colorado by flooding the state with standard capacity magazines:

We are proud to announce that within a matter of days we will be going live with a new program. Due to a bill currently moving through the Colorado legislature, there is the possibility that Colorado residents’ ability to purchase standard capacity magazines will soon be infringed. Before that happens, and Magpul is forced to leave the state in order to keep to our principles, we will be doing our best to get standard capacity PMAGs into the hands of any Colorado resident that wants them.

Verified Colorado residents will be able to purchase up to ten (10) standard capacity AR/M4 magazines directly from Magpul, and will be given immediate flat-rate $5 shipping, bypassing our current order queue.

Our customers outside of Colorado, please know that our PMAG production will continue at an ever-increasing rate until we do relocate, shipments to our distributors in other states will continue, and that we do not expect relocation to significantly impact PMAG production. We are also aware that Colorado is not the only state with existing or pending magazine capacity restrictions; we are working on programs for other affected states as well.

Full details and instructions will be announced when we are able to go live; please watch here for the coming announcement.

While I understand this program may delay the availability of PMAGs for those of us living outside of Colorado I’m more than happy to deal with that inconvenience. Magpul is fighting Colorado’s gun control bills the right way by planning to leave the state if the laws pass and ensuring as many standard capacity magazines are in the Colorado market as possible. Even if the prohibition against standard capacity magazines can’t be stopped from passing it can be ensured that the market is flooded with standard capacity magazines, making the ban mostly irrelevant.

Bitcoin ATMs

The Free State Project held its annual Liberty Forum this weekend, which means that all sorts of subversive ideas were unveiled and shared. One of the ideas that I found very interesting was an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) that turns cash into Bitcoins:

Zach Harvey has an ambitious plan to accelerate adoption of the Internet’s favorite alternative currency: installing in thousands of bars, restaurants, and grocery stores ATMs that will let you buy Bitcoins anonymously.

It’s the opposite of a traditional automated teller that dispenses currency. Instead, these Bitcoin ATMs will accept dollar bills — using the same validation mechanism as vending machines — and instantly convert the amount to Bitcoins and deposit the result in your account.

I mentioned Bitcoin as a tool to fight the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) since it allows individuals to make anonymous transactions and thus leave no trail for state agents to trace back to physical individuals. Avoiding having your financial information fall into government hands is very useful. If the state is unable to access your financial information they don’t know what to charge you for taxes and can’t bring criminal charges against you for buying goods it has labeled verboten. The one missing key in the Bitcoin puzzle is turning Federal Reserve notes into Bitcoins anonymously, which is what this ATM could make easier. At Bitcoin continues to gain traction it will be interesting to see what else develops around it.

Anarchism, the Opposition of Invasion

I’ve been reading some works by Benjamin Tucker, one of the last individualist anarchists from the 19th century. One of his quotes does a better job of explaining anarchism than any other definition I’ve come across. According to Tucker:

This distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defence, is vital. Without it there can be no valid philosophy of politics. Upon this distinction and the other considerations just outlined, the Anarchists frame the desired definitions. This, then, is the Anarchistic definition of government: the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will. And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.

The state really is the embodiment of invasion for it is a gang of individuals who call themselves masters inflicting their will at the point of a gun onto those who live in its claimed territory. Anarchism, being a philosophy of anti-statism, is the opposition of invasion. Those of us who oppose statism don’t do so because we desire to see the person with the most guns ruling, we oppose statism because we desire the opposite. When you boil it down the state is the embodiment of the person with the most guns ruling. Without a doubt the state has the most guns and it uses those guns to inflict its will onto the general population. It is an invasive force that works to trample individual liberty.

Oh Krugman, You’re Always Good for Laughs

Paul Krugman has to be one of my favorite people in economics. Every time he speaks about economics, which is claims is his field of expertise, he says something so incredibly dumb that it makes one laugh our loud. In his latest opinion piece in the New York Times he claimed that Austrian economists are akin to cultists:

Substance aside — not that substance isn’t important — Austrian economics very much has the psychology of a cult. Its devotees believe that they have access to a truth that generations of mainstream economists have somehow failed to discern; they go wild at any suggestion that maybe they’re the ones who have an intellectual blind spot. And as with all cults, the failure of prophecy — in this case, the prophecy of soaring inflation from deficits and monetary expansion — only strengthens the determination of the faithful to uphold the faith.

What makes this statement so funny is that every one of those accusations can be aimed at Keynesian economists. Keynesian believe they have access to a truth that generations of classical liberal theorists have somehow failed to discern. Even in modern times the followers of Keynes believe that war is good for the economy. What they fail to see, as Frédéric Bastiat pointed out in 1850, is that which is unseen. When a Keynesian sees a destroyed building they see economic stimulus waiting to happen. In their eyes rebuilding the structure will employ people and require materials, which will result in economic growth. They fail to see that the people and materials used to rebuild a destroyed structure could have instead been used to build a new structure. Instead of merely replacing that which was destroyed real economic growth, that is the creation of new wealth, could have occurred.

Keynesian also go wild at any suggestion that maybe they’re the ones who have an intellectual blind spot. Whenever the programs they advocate fail they don’t admit they were incorrect, they merely claim that the program wasn’t done hard enough. When printing money (often referred to as quantitative easing) failed to stimulate the economy the Keynesians claimed that the Federal Reserve simply failed to print enough money. The Federal Reserve is now printing $40 billion a month because their last two bouts of printing new money failed to get the economy on track. Even with so much money being printed the economy continues to falter and the Keynesians aren’t admitting their theory is incorrect, they’re blaming the Federal Reserve for not printing more money.

Failing prophecies also strengthens the beliefs of Keynesian economists. Keynesians claimed that printing money was the solution to the economic depression and now that they’ve been proven wrong they hunker down and demand that more money must be printed. They never stop to consider that their predictions may be wrong. When it comes to economics Keynesians are the masters of demanding the same failing programs be tried again, only harder.

The best part of Krugman’s column is the final sentence:

It would be sort of funny if it weren’t for the fact that this cult has large influence within the GOP.

Honestly, that sentence would be sort of funny if it weren’t for the fact that it has absolutely no bearing on reality. Show me a single member of the Republican Party that has studied and advocates Austrian economics (and now that Ron Paul is retired he no longer counts).

Mainstream economics has failed, in part, because its practitioners try to shape economics facts to fit their hypothesis. Consider unemployment. Keynesians are quick to claim that the creation of government programs is the solution to increasing unemployment numbers. When the government created programs to employ people the unemployment rate failed to drop so the Keynesians in the state redefined unemployment. Entire sections of the unemployed population were removed from the statistic and that allowed the state to report improved numbers. The state now reports, what it calls, the U3 statistic, which doesn’t include individuals who have been unemployed for more than one year (removing those individuals from the statistic is justified by claiming those individuals are no longer looking for work and are therefore unemployed by choice). By massaging the numbers the Keynesians were able to make the economic fact of employment fit their hypothesis and therefore claim to be knowledgeable in economic matters.

A Sign of the Times

I think the creation of practice targets depicting small children and pregnant women and marketing them at police departments is a sign of the times:

What if I told you police in your town could desensitize themselves to the idea of shooting a (armed) child, pregnant woman, or young mother, for just a couple of bucks? The “No More Hesitation” series from Law Enforcement Targets Inc. offers exactly that. For less than 99 cents per target, police can shoot at real-life images “designed to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training.”

What practice targets somebody uses is none of my business. If shooting at pictures of armed pregnant women is your thing I don’t really care (although I would find it kind of creepy). With that said I think it speaks volumes that a company sees a demand from police departments for such targets. Read the company’s justification for the targets:

The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training. I found while speaking with officers and trainers in the law enforcement community that there is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition (one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty). This hesitation time may be only seconds but that is not acceptable when officers are losing their lives in these same situations. The goal of NMH is to break that stereotype on the range, regardless of how slim the chances are of encountering a real life scenario that involves a child, pregnant woman, etc. If that initial hesitation time can be cut down due to range experience, the officer and community are better served.

The company hopes that these targets will increase the reaction time of officers facing armed children or pregnant women. How often do officers face such situations? It seems that such situations would be relatively rare and, therefore, would warrant some hesitation. Our society appears to have come to a point where officer safety is put above and beyond any other consideration.

In closing I will leave you with the following thought. If police officers were really meant to be protectors it would be understood that the job is necessarily dangerous. When your primary job is to protect you must take more time to analyze situations in order to determine if force is necessary. This requirement to analyze situations puts a protector at an unavoidable disadvantage. On the other hand if police officers are really meant to be expropriators (thieves) for the state then it would be understood that the job is necessarily dangerous but for other reasons. People don’t like being stolen from and will often defend themselves when somebody attempts to take their stuff. Because of this thieves must be willing to employ force quickly upon any sign of resistance. A thief that is unwilling to use force against any resistance will soon find themselves with nothing. If police officers are being trained to employ force upon any sign of resistance are they truly protectors or thieves?

Smashing the Surveillance State

Here in Minnesota the goons commonly referred to as politicians are looking to increase their rate of expropriation by reintroducing red light cameras:

A group of lawmakers is proposing a bill that would allow cities to use cameras to catch drivers who run red lights. The bill, which was introduced yesterday in the House and Senate, would also allow law enforcement personnel to use cameras to catch people who are speeding.

In 2007 the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that red light cameras are unconstitutional because the tickets were linked to a driver’s license, not to the motorist who committed the violation. Minneapolis city officials were forced to refund millions of dollars after the court ruled the law unconstitutional.

Supporters of the new bill say they think technology will address those concerns because the cameras will capture pictures of both the license plate and the motorist.

Were this to pass the constitutionality of the law would likely come into question again. Unfortunately challenging the constitutionality of a law takes a great deal of time and money and there are no guarantees that the results will be favorable. On the other hand there are extralegal options available. With the rampant use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras in the United Kingdom (UK) a new movement has sprung up called Camover:

It started in Berlin: Anarchists, donning black bloc attire, hit the streets at night in pairs, small groups or alone to smash and dismantle the CCTV surveillance cameras adorning the city streets.

Since the use of surveillance technology is becoming widespread throughout the world it’s not surprising that the movement has spread beyond the UK:

The anti-surveillance project quickly spread throughout Germany, to Finland, Greece and hit the U.S. West Coast this month. A group identifying itself as “the Barefoot Bandit Brigade” released a statement claiming to have “removed and destroyed 17 security cameras throughout the Puget Sound region,” with ostensible photo evidence published alongside. “This act is concrete sabotage against the system of surveillance and control,” wrote the group’s statement, adding that the Camover contribution was also intended in solidarity with anarchists in the Pacific Northwest currently in federal custody without charges for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury.

While I shun the destruction of property I also don’t believe the state can legitimately acquire property. The state acquires property through taxation and taxation is nothing more than theft. If you don’t pay your taxes you’ll likely be kidnapped and put into a cage or have a portion of your paycheck stolen each pay period. Because of this I believe it’s the right of the state’s victims (tax payers) to do as they please with the state’s property. My feelings regarding this are even stronger when the state’s property is used to further expropriate wealth from the populace, which is what red light cameras do. Were this law to pass I suspect, and hope, Camover would become prevalent in Minnesota. Minnesota, and the United States in general, needs more actively civil disobedience. We’re living with the results of using the political process to preserve liberties and, as you can see, no meaningful increase of liberties has occurred since the founding of this country.

Strong Leaders

One phrase that is beginning to piss me of is, “We need to elect strong leaders.” Why is everybody looking for something to lead them? Whey is everybody obsessed with finding the best master to serve? Why are children taught that the best thing they can do is go to college and work for somebody else? Why do people run to politicians to solve their problems? Why do people believe politicians have a right to rule over the people? From our earliest years in school we’re taught to obey those who claim authority and to follow those who lead. Litte, if any, time is spent encouraging children to become entrepreneurs. Teachers never tell their students to disobey those who claim authority. In fact they’re told that those who claim authority have a legitimate claim and that that claim should be recognized.

Truth be told we don’t need leaders, we are leaders. We don’t need to elect strong leaders, we can lead ourselves. If I could only give one piece of advice it would be this: stop seeking masters to serve, become your own and refuse to comply with anybody who tries to make themselves your master.

Fighting Against the State’s War on the Homeless

The state is at war with the homeless. City governments, especially in large cities, have been working hard to make the lives of homeless individuals miserable in the hopes that they’ll leave and, effectively, become another city’s problem. Fortunately there are people who are trying to fight the state. One of the ways people in London are fighting back is through a tactic called guerrilla benching. If you live in a large city you’ve likely noticed an increasing number of divided or otherwise oddly shaped benches. Although it seems like these odd benches are so shaped for artistic reasons the truth is that they are designed that way to prevent homeless people from sleeping on the benches. Guerrilla benching is the act of clandestinely installing benches that individual can sleep on in public spaces.

It’s a rather clever tactic that is difficult to fight. Who is going to pay any attention to a newly installed bench? Who is going to call the police to report a bench that homeless individuals can sleep on? Who is even aware that oddly shaped benches are so shaped to prevent homeless people form sleeping on them? The tactic is brilliant because it exploits the ignorance of the average person. Even city officials are likely to pay little attention to the newly installed bench since they aren’t aware of the day-to-day operations of the city they purport to run.

I would like to see this kind of thing grow. There is little reason to actively prevent homeless individuals from sleeping on public benches. In fact I think it speaks quite ill of our society that resources are being actively invested in making the lives of individuals who have nothing even more miserable. Why not invest those resources in helping those in need instead of hindering them?

The Best Summary of the RonPaul.com Fiasco

What started as a seemingly innocent argument over the control of the domain name ronpaul.com is turning out to be one of the best dramas the liberty movement has seen since Jesse Benton screwed over his grandfather-in-law last year. Lew Rockwell, a personal friend of Ron Paul and a champion of anarcho-capitalism, came to the Paul’s defense by claiming that Paul is legitimately using the mechanism put forth by the private Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and therefore is in the right. What is yet to be seen is Rockwell’s justification for considering ICANN, a government create corporation, legitimate while he considers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two other government created organizations, illegitimate, and fascist, creations. Either way Lew Rockwell’s post has lead the owners of RonPaul.com to believe Lew Rockwell is actually behind the attempted seizure of their domain. I expect the plot to thicken over the next week or so.

Through all of this drama I’ve found one summary that explains the entire situation succinctly:

So, we must ask what it means to “own” your name. Can “the” Ron Paul use his name to identify himself? Certainly. No one has interfered with that.

Can “the” Ron Paul control the use of his name so that others may not use it? Certainly not! Ron Paul has no right to tell other parents surnamed Paul that they may not name their child “Ron.” And he has no right to sue the other 100+ Ron Pauls in the United States, telling them that they may not use that name.

Here in a nutshell is the distinction between “use” and “control,” a distinction which many “intellectual property” advocates tend to blur. Ron Paul owns his name in the sense that he may use it as he sees fit — for his medical practice, for his political campaigns, or even to market the Ron Paul Supercharged Dildo if that is his fancy. And no other Ron Paul has the right to stop him, as embarassing as it might be for them.

McElroy’s use of the term Ron Paul Supercharged Dildo ended this argument and, quite successfully, destroyed any argument that Ron Paul has a legitimate monopoly claim to his name.