Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals – Page 78

At Least They Didn’t Have Guns

Robbers armed with axes and bats rode motorbikes into an indoor shopping centre in north London and raided a jewellery store.

Where there’s a will there’s a way. Even though England suffers some of the most draconian gun control laws out there people continue to commit violent crimes. In this case thugs armed with axes rode motorcycles to a mall jewelry store and robbed it. Fortunately nobody was injured by that could have been far different if the axe armed thugs had decided to attack any of the mall goers. Gun control advocates would say, “At least they wouldn’t have guns,” but I’d prefer to be shot than hacked up with an axe. Furthermore the motorcycles these thugs were riding gave them greater speed than anybody else in the mall, meaning running away wouldn’t have been an effective strategy. What could one do in such a situation? Little, unless they had an effective means of self-defense such as a firearm.

Gun control suffers many fallacies, one is the idea that violent crime can somehow be reduced if guns are strictly controlled. Robbery, wielding axes as weapons, and riding motorcycles inside of malls are likely all illegal in England, yet six individuals armed themselves with axes, rode motorcycles into the mall, and robbed a jewelry story. Making something illegal only prevents the lawful from partaking, it does nothing to deter those unconcerned with the law. Disarming those with no criminal intentions in the hope of preventing violent crime is hopeless. It does lower the cost of committing violent acts.

Violent Pro-Government Extremists

Shall Not Be Questioned has a post that links to an article trying to unite the various gun control advocacy groups. The article is an interesting read because I believe the author is completely unaware of the irony of what he penned. Instead of coming up with something new or unique to say about gun control the article parrots the now common anti-government fear mongering that seems to compose a majority of anti-gun statements:

But the truly stunning growth came from anti-government “Patriot”/militia movement that views the government as their primary enemy. These groups formed in the mid-1990′s based on the perception of violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, ID in 1992 and near Waco, TX in 1993. The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 is attributable to this movement which peaked a year after the incident and then rapidly declined. But the movement was once again energized in 2008 with the economic recession and the appearance of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. The numbers of these groups rose from 149 in 2008 to 1,274 last year. Of these, 334 were militias. A state by state listing of these groups is provided here. A graph produced by SPLC showing the meteoric growth of such groups is displayed below.

What did the Oklahoma City bombing have to do with gun control? Who knows? Furthermore the article only managed to bring up the three commonly cited examples of violent anti-government actions. Everything else is pure fear mongering.

Let’s consider the other side of the coin. What about pro-government extremists? Democide, that is non-war murders by government, has killed six times more people than wars this century alone. Whether we discuss the gulags of the Soviet Union, the death camps of Nazi Germany, or China’s Great Leap Forward the number of deaths caused by governments is high. Gun control advocates will often stop me here and claim that such atrocities would never happen in the United States. I’m pretty sure asking Native Americans or residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6^th and August 9^th, 1945 whether or not the United States would commit democide would lead to a resounding yes.

Advocates of gun control want to strip non-state individuals of firearms. Their method of doing this is to implement laws against gun ownership and have state agents, armed with guns, kidnap or murder any non-state individual in possession of a gun. Who is the more violent extremist? Me, an anarchist who carries a gun but has never killed anybody, or somebody who wants armed agents of the state to initiation violence against people like me? I would say the latter show a much higher propensity for violence. They want to give more power to organizations that have, together, killed an estimated 262,000,000 people (and that’s not including the wars those organizations have waged). How does that make sense? How can somebody claim to oppose violence while advocating state-initiated violence? Just because a guy with a costume and a badge initiates violence doesn’t make it something other than violence.

Statists seems to have a hard time scrounging up examples of anti-government violence. They mention Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombings time and time again but in each case the number of people who died was relativel small. One other other hand I can point out many examples of pro-government violence that killed millions of people. It seems disarming the people would put them at an even greater disadvantage when faced with state aggression. Why do gun control advocates want to disarm generally peaceful individuals instead of disarming states? Why are they pro-government extremists? If gun control advocates truly opposed violence they would be demanding the governments around the world disarm.

The Economics of the Affordable Care Act

With Obama’s reelection and the Democratic Party’s control of the Senate it appears that The Affordable Care Act is here to stay (it would still be with us had Romney won, he’d have just repealed it and replaced it with the same thing but under a different name). Now that the law is starting to go into affect we’re seeing the unintended consequences. Since the legislation raises the costs for many business owners we’re seeing changes in employment methodology. Many companies are laying off employees to avoid the financial burdon of the legislation, other companies are cutting employee hours, and now some franchises are going to implement surcharges to offset the additional expenses of Obamacare:

While some business owners threaten to cut workers’ hours to avoid paying for their health care, a West Palm Beach, Fla., restaurant owner is going even further. John Metz said he will add a 5 percent surcharge to customers’ bills to offset what he said are the increased costs of Obamacare, along with reducing his employees’ hours.

“If I leave the prices the same, but say on the menu that there is a 5 percent surcharge for Obamacare, customers have two choices. They can either pay it and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is the primary beneficiary of Obamacare,” Metz told The Huffington Post. “Although it may sound terrible that I’m doing this, it’s the only alternative. I’ve got to pass the cost on to the consumer.”

Economically literate individuals expected this to happen. You can’t increase the costs faced by a business and not expect that business to compensate. Unfortunately man people are economically illiterate and are therefore throwing a fit about the layoffs, slashed hours, and additional surcharges. The economically illiterate are advocating businesses that adjust their employment methodology in response to Obamacare be boycotted or sued.

What’s ironic is the economically illiterate got exactly what they wanted, Obamacare. As with anything there were consequences and now advocates of Obamacare are trying to escape those consequences. The only lesson that should be learned here is to be careful what you wish for.

Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech

Yesterday Ron Paul gave his farewell speech to Congress. It will likely be the last speech opposing war to ever be given in Congress so I highly urge you to read the transcript . His speech can best be summed up as the following: Knock off the violence, it’s not doing anything positive. In his speech Paul condemns state violence against foreign countries and people living in the United States. Sadly he is the last true advocate of free market economics and voluntaryism left in the federal government so we will likely hear no more than lip service paid to peace and economic freedom. Before closing Paul had some valuable advice:

The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time. It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do.

[…]

The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government.

The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community.

The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change.

Steering this country around can only be achieved by changing the hearts and minds of the individuals living here. That means getting a population that consists heavily of violent individuals who support the use of coercive means to force others to comply with their desires to turn over a new leaf. As you can see it’s an insurmountable tasks and one that is unlikely to be accomplished anytime soon. Still the best way of achieving a non-aggressive society is to live a non-aggressive lifestyle. This doesn’t mean opposing self-defense but opposing the initiation of force.

I’m sad to see Paul leaving but am happy to know he escaped the political system with his immoral soul intact. Americans have spoken and they have indicated a desire to live in a violent redistributive society where rights are mere whims of government officials. People want the wars, they want money taken from others and given to themselves, and they want only the rights they approve to be protected. So long as public opinion continues to support the status quo there is no chance of liberty thriving in this country. Those of us that support liberty must do our best to lead by example in the hope that others will follow in our footsteps. Perhaps some day people will be ready for a society built on non-aggression but that day isn’t today.

I want to thank Ron Paul for promoting non-aggressive ideals in the United States. His contribution to liberty is incalculable as noted by the massive growth of the liberty movement since his presidential bid in 2008.

The State Reduces the Cost of Committing Violent Acts

After hurricane Katrina the number of thefts skyrocketed. Individuals scrambled to defend themselves and their property from roving bands of looters. Likewise after hurricane Sandy struck the Eastern seaboard looting in affected areas skyrocketed. Once again individuals found themselves scrambling to defend themselves and their property. What isn’t mentioned by most people is that the state lowered the cost of committing violent acts such as looting.

In the aftermath of Katrina the National Guard actually confiscated firearms from individuals. Likewise many of the states heavily affected by Sandy, including New York and New Jersey, have very stringent gun control laws on the books. In both cases looters could be reasonably sure that their victims were unable or poorly able to defend themselves.

Whenever the state moves to make self-defense more difficult, either through confiscating weapons or implementing laws that make legal self-defense difficult, it reduces the cost of performing violence. Robert Heinlein wrote, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” in his novel Beyond the Horizon. It’s true, an armed society is a polite society. Criminals, like everybody else, perform actions as a means to achieve ends. In the case of a thief their ends are to obtain property. They may want the property for personal use or to exchange it for something else. Either way they have determined that taking the desired property from another is a better method than exchanging voluntarily for it. This brings us back to cost-benefit analysis.

The cost of robbing an armed individual is higher than the cost of robbing an unarmed individual. An armed individual may resist the robbery attempt with a great deal of violence whereas an unarmed individual will only have access to the violence they can produce with their bare hands. Therefore a criminal faces far greater bodily harm, and even loss of life, when they rob an armed individual but likely face little risk of bodily harm or death, especially if they themselves are armed, when robbing an unarmed individual. The cost of robbing an armed individual is relatively high compared to the cost of robbing an unarmed individual.

By disarming individuals or severely restricting the ability of individuals to arm themselves the state reduces the cost of committing violent acts. Laughably they usually justify disarming individuals under the guise of protecting individuals. Gun control is usually justified to the public by claiming it will prevent violent individuals from obtaining firearms. Ironically gun control laws actually increase the likelihood of violent crimes by reducing the cost of initiating violence. I would argue that allowing everybody to remain armed, even individuals with a history of violence, would be far safer than preventing anybody from being armed. Why reduce the cost of performing violent acts? Perhaps a great number of violent criminals would have been dissuaded from committing their violent crimes had they faced the likely threat of bodily harm or death.

The state’s reduction of the cost of violence doesn’t stop at disarming individuals or passing laws that make self-defense more difficult. Through its monopoly on violence the state reduces the cost of violence for individuals in its employ. Consider the man who is facing the death penalty for defending himself against police officers. Why are officers so willing to perform no knock raids? Because the state has granted them special legal protection from consequences caused by unannounced raids. Individuals inside a targeted home face potential death if they defend themselves from police officers whereas police officers seldom face any consequences for harming a homeowner. If somebody wants to commit a violent act they simply need to join the state’s employ; receive an official costume, badge, and gun; and enforce the state’s decrees. So long as your perform violence in the name of the state the cost is relatively low.

People often ponder about the cause of high violent crime rates in the United States. One of the causes is that initiating violence is relatively cheap. Combining a generally disarmed populace with legal methods for psychopaths to perform violent acts nets you a lot of violence. The state protecting us from violent individuals is a farce. We’re subjected to more violence because of the state.

EDIT: 2012-11-14 14:40: General spelling and grammatical fixes. Thanks to Steven for pointing them out.

You Don’t Need Permission to Secede

After the election people have been petitioning the Obama administration to allow their respective individual state to secede from the union:

More than 100,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to allow their states to secede from the US, after President Barack Obama’s re-election.

The appeals were filed on the White House’s We the People website.

Most of the 20 states with petitions voted for Republican Mitt Romney.

I think the people filing petitions have little understanding of secession and statism. Secession is not something you need permission for, you can secede from anything at any time you desire. You may be violently punished for seceding but it is still your right as a free human being to decide you no longer wish to association with an organization. That brings is to our second issue, statism. States exist from expropriating wealth from others. Each individual state expropriates wealth from the people living within its borders and the federal government expropriates wealth both from individuals living within its borders and the individual states that makeup the Union. Because of this petitioning the federal government to allow your individual state and, by association, yourself to secede is pointless. The federal government isn’t going to allow such a thing to happen because you and your individual state are sources of revenue for itself.

Wars aren’t cheap and the federal government is waging plenty of them. The United States military is dropping bombs that costs thousands of dollars from drones that cost millions of dollars. Fighter jets and bombers that cost millions of dollars are launched from aircraft carriers that cost billions of dollars. There’s no way the federal government is going to voluntarily allow a source of its revenue to leave. In fact the last time states and individuals tried to leave the Union the federal government used a great deal of violence to prevent them.

Secession is the right of every individual. Individual states should be allowed to secede from the federal government, counties should be allowed to secede from individual states, towns should be allowed to secede from counties, and people should be allowed to seceded from towns. Unfortunately each of the mentioned state entities will use violence to prevent secession because it goes against their interests.

Creating Fear to Justify Law Enforcement

Consider law enforcement agents for a moment. What is their primary task? Most people would say protecting the public is the primary task of law enforcement but the truth lies in their name: law enforcement. The primary job of law enforcement officers is to enforce the state’s laws. Some of these laws revolve around activities that harm others such as rape, murder, and assault. Most of these laws revolve around activities that don’t harm others such as smoking marijuana, tax evasion, and producing distilled spirits. What the latter category of laws create is a revenue source for the state. Being caught smoking marijuana often involves fines. Evading taxes deprives the state from its stolen goods. Distilled liquors are heavily taxes so producing your own, even for personal consumption, stands to deprive the state of more stolen goods. Effectively law enforcement agents are gloried tax collectors.

Why do law enforcement agents ever protect anybody? It’s not because they’re required to. They offer minor protection because it’s the only way people will put up with them. Think about it. Would you put up with a gang of thugs roving your neighborhood and forcefully taking money from individuals that partook in activities that the gang didn’t approve of? Most people would not and without the support of public opinion the state would be unable to inflict its tax collectors on society. On the other hand people like to be safe so selling them protection is fairly easy. Instead of claiming law enforcement agents exist to expropriate wealth from the people the state sells them as protection officers.

What are they protecting people from? They are primarily protecting people from imaginary threats. The state is very good at making up threats or exaggerating threats. One example of these made up threats is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) numerous arrests of agency-created terrorists. Even though the threat of terrorism in this country is very low the state spends a great deal of time propagandizing the populace into believing terrorism is a common threat. Another interesting example of a state-create threat is hitchhiking:

Before the Second World War, it was a common practice for people in all walks of life. Hollywood films often had cute hitchhiking scenes like the one in “It Happened One Night,” where Claudette Colbert flashes a leg to get a ride. Magazines like Sports Illustrated declared it fun to thumb a ride and, during the war, picking up soldiers was nothing less than a patriotic duty. Even the etiquette doyenne Emily Post gave hitching a green light in the 1940s, offering tips on how to keep the conversation light and impersonal.

But it was the ’60s and ’70s counterculture that embraced hitching as an anti-consumerist, pro-environment celebration of human interdependence. Students were hitchhiking to antiwar demonstrations. Civil rights advocates thumbed rides to register voters in the South. The American automotive industry, by then, had gone into overdrive: there were more cars than ever on the road. Yet an entire generation of young people, it seemed, was on the move without buying them.

This, apparently, irked local police officials, as well as the F.B.I. First, in the late 1950s, the F.B.I. began warning American motorists that hitchhikers might be criminals. A typical F.B.I. poster showed a well-dressed yet menacing hitchhiker under the title “Death in Disguise?”

Demonizing hitchhikers was likely a precursor to stranger danger, another very minor risk exaggerated by the state. Most people naturally fear the unknown and therefore it’s easy for the state to exploit this fear in order to justify its own existence. Hitchhiking, ultimately, can be viewed as a form of mutual aid. Those unable to afford automobiles can cooperate with those who can afford automobiles. High school and college students are well aware of the fact some people can’t afford automobiles. To get around this lack of automobiles many students offer to exchange something; be it gas money, alcohol, or food; for transportation. Through the miracle of cooperation students with automobiles and students without automobiles can come together and benefit one another. Hitchhiking is similar but introduces the risk of unknown persons.

It’s the risk of the unknown that the state exaggerates in order to create fear in the populace. We’re told by law enforcement agents that hitchhikers are dangerous individuals who usually have murder in their hearts. According to the state hitchhikers aren’t looking for a ride, they’re looking for somebody to rape, murder, or torture. By exploiting this threat the state is able to create fear and offer a solution to alleviate that fear, law enforcement. While a majority of law enforcement activities revolve around issuing traffic tickets and enforcing other finable offenses, the people welcome the presences of officers because it alleviates their fear of the unknown.

Fear is one of the state’s most powerful weapons. Because of this they constantly create new fears and then claim they are the sole protection from that fear. We’re constantly told about the dangers of terrorism, strangers, poisonous products, diseased food, greedy capitalists, and other assorted boogeymen. The state then offers to protect us from these dangers, an offer most people gladly accept. Sadly most people can’t see through the propaganda and are doomed to submit to the state’s tyranny for their entire lives.

Consider this thought exercise. Have you ever been the victim of non-state terrorism, assault, or theft? For those of you who have how many times have you been the victims of such crimes? Now, how many of you have been the victims of a speeding ticket, parking ticker, or a tax audit? For those of you who have how many times have you been the victims of such crimes? In all likelihood more people of members of the latter group or, perhaps, both groups. What is more dangerous then? Threats exaggerated by the state or the state itself?

How Laws Against Price Gouging are Causing Gasoline Shortages

After hurricane Sandy caused immense damage to the Eastern United States government officials moved in to prosecute price gougers. Anybody caught charing higher prices for goods faced prosecution and punishment by the state. What did this prohibition against raising prices lead to? Shortages. Many desperately needed goods, including gasoline, have been in short order. These shortages could have been avoided though if sellers were allowed to adjust their prices to match supply and demand:

Had gas stations been allowed to raise their prices to reflect the increased demand for gasoline, only those most in need of gasoline would have purchased gas, while everyone would have economized on their existing supply. But because prices remained lower than they should have been, no one sought to conserve gas. Low prices signaled that gas was in abundant supply, while reality was exactly the opposite, and only those fortunate enough to be at the front of gas lines were able to purchase gas before it sold out. Not surprisingly, a thriving black market developed, with gas offered for up to $20 per gallon.

Thank the gods for the “black” market for without it there would be no gasoline anywhere. The need for a “black” markt wouldn’t exist if the state didn’t prevent sellers from raising their prices to match the increase in demand. Furthermore the price of gasoline would likely be lower than it is now because “black” market entrepreneurs increase their prices partially in response to the risk they face. Anybody selling goods on a “black” market must make enough profit to outweigh the risks of being caught and punished by the state. Additional risk tends to transform into additional costs for consumers.

When the state implements prohibitions against raising prices they cause shortages.

Even Ron Paul Says It’s Game Over

People keep talking about the encroaching fiscal cliff and what we must do to avoid it. I’ve given up on avoiding it and believe that the best option is to put a brick on the accelerator, jump out of the car, and let it go over the edge. There are too many statists in this country who want the government to do and provide everything for them. Ron Paul explained our problems succinctly:

“People do not want anything cut,” he said. “They want all the bailouts to come. They want the Fed to keep printing the money. And they don’t believe that we’ve gone off the cliff or are close to going off the cliff. They think we can patch it over, that we can somehow come up with some magic solution. But you can’t have a budgetary solution if you don’t change what the role of government should be. As long as you think we have to police the world and run this welfare state, all we are going to argue about is who will get the loot.”

People don’t want to stop the looting, they just want a piece of the loot. To once again quote George Carlin:

If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.’

A majority of people who participate in the political process are selfish and ignorant. Since the state has the capacity for violence necessary to take from the people en masse it’s not surprising that a majority of people who are attracted to it are those wanting to take from others. In fact that’s the root of the problem. The state lowers the cost faced by somebody wanting to rob another. Without the state an individual wanting to steal from another would have to face the entire cost of doing so, including the possibility of bodily harm or death, directly. With the state they can shove off a majority of the cost, especially the possibility of bodily harm or death, to everybody else. It’s a system designed for looters by looters, which is why reforming it will not work. Nobody wants to reform it because reforming it would cut off the gravy train.

Consider every person on welfare, every teacher working in a public school, ever police officer, every clerk at a government building, every soldier, etc. are dependent on the state. Now consider that the state is dependent on expropriation. Do you think we can turn this ship around? So many are dependent on the state and its expropriation that there’s no practical way to reform anything. The empire will collapse and there’s nothing anybody can do to stop it.

Cheer Up Republicans

I know there’s a lot of butt hurt going around the Republican Party after their nominee was handed his ass in Tuesday’s election but there’s good news, they actually won:

Yes, Obama began his presidency with bailouts, stimulus, and borrowing. You know who started the bailouts? George W. Bush.

[…]

Yes, Obama imposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance. You know who else did that? Romney. You know where the idea came from? The Heritage Foundation.

[…]

Remember how Democrats ridiculed George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq? Obama copied it in Afghanistan.

To any Republicans reading this I just want to tell you to cheer up. Even though your guy isn’t in the Oval Office there is a guy sitting there that has delivered everything you’ve been asking for. It’s time to stop crying and shout for joy because you just won the election.