Tag: Politics

The Ultimate Shut Up Slave Legislation

Listen up slaves, you’re government has now decreed that you are to shut up while traveling overseas. HR313, the Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011, will make it illegal for American citizens to discuss acts that are verboten under the Controlled Substances Act:

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) — even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they’re carried out. H.R. 313, the “Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011,” is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

Nice huh? What’s even better is the fact this has already passed a House vote. This is a wonderfully verbose and yet horrible piece of legislations:

‘(b) Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title, other than a violation of section 404(a), if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.’.

The government’s fingers spread far and wide in an attempt to control the actions of the people it claims to rule over. Even fleeing to another country is no longer a safe harbor.

Public Domain is Effectively Dead

We’re all aware of the fact that copyrighted works eventually go into public domain. Well that’s how it used to work, now the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can re-copyright public domain works:

Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

In a 6-2 ruling, the court ruled that just because material enters the public domain, it is not “territory that works may never exit.” (PDF)

The top court was ruling on a petition by a group of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, publishers and film archivists who urged the justices to reverse an appellate court that ruled against the group, which has relied on artistic works in the public domain for their livelihoods.

This ruling has farther implications that some may realize. There is a huge amount of public domain works out there, many of which are made freely available by sites like Project Gutenberg. Unfortunately if Congress were to renew the copyright on some of these public domain works these sites would find themselves in violation of copyright law and therefore be subject to arrest.

Another possible problem with this ruling is the fact Congress may have the ability to copyright works that were never copyrighted previously. Many authors put out material as public domain from the start, allowing people to download these works and use them in any way they see fit.

When you combine this ruling with legislation like SOPA or PROTECT-IP things get very frightening indeed. For example we will take a hypothetical piece of dissenting literature made freely available under public domain. For the sake of this discussion let’s say somebody within Congress finds this piece of literature extremely unsavory and wants it removed. In order to get it removed he works with other members of Congress to re-copyright the work. Shortly after the work is re-copyrighted the domains of every provider are seized in an effort to enact censorship of the work.

While some will claim such thing couldn’t happen in the United States the truth is it can. We live in a police state where our government is working around the clock to eliminate the rights of free speech, trial by jury, and to be secure in our belongings. Legislation like the PATRIOT Act and the new section in the National Defense Authorization Act have ensured the latter two are entirely gone but the government still has work to do on eliminating the freedom of speech. This ruling combined with legislation like SOPA and PROTECT-IP are the endgame.

SOPA and PROTECT-IP Were Irrelevant

The Internet blackout did a good job of raising awareness of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT-IP, PIPA, or entirely absurd acronym). In fact so much awareness was raised and so many calls were made to “representatives” that both bills lost a great number of co-sponsors. People are cheering this as proof that democracy works and that we only need to bring attention of erroneous legislation to our “representatives” to stop the advance of the police state.

Unfortunately I have some bad news to report. You know all of those calls and e-mails made to “representatives” in Washington DC? They accomplished nothing. How can I say that? Simple, since passing either SOPA or PROTECT-IP became too difficult the government simply gave the middle finger to us serfs and decided to proceed as though either bill was passed. The popular file-sharing website MegaUpload was shutdown by the federal government*:

One of the world’s most popular file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company officials were accused of facilitating millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content.

A federal indictment accused Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.

Here’s a copy of the indictment [PDF] for those who are curious. When those assholes in Washington can’t get what they want in the form of legislation they just go ahead and do what they want anyways. In their eyes passing legislation is just a formality.

Many people were chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!” as “representatives” repealed their sponsorship of SOPA and PROTECT-IP. What they should have been saying is, “This is what a police state looks like.” The United States isn’t a republic or a democracy, it’s a fascist empire.

* As of this writing MegaUpload can be accessed using the IP address 109.236.83.66.

Ron Paul Introduces Legislation to Repeal Section 1021 of the Recently Passed National Defense Authorization Act

Now that I’m back in Minnesota I’ve been scrambling to catch up on any news I may have missed these last two days. I was very glad to see the following released by Ron Paul:

Mr. Speaker: I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, quietly signed into law by the president on New Year’s Day.

Section 1021 essentially codifies into law the very dubious claim of presidential authority under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force to indefinitely detain American citizens without access to legal representation or due process of law. Section 1021 provides for the possibility of the US military acting as a kind of police force on US soil, apprehending terror suspects – including Americans — and whisking them off to an undisclosed location indefinitely. No right to attorney, no right to trial, no day in court.

Dr. Paul once again demonstrates that he’s the only presidential candidate, hell perhaps one of the only politicians, who actually gives a shit about the people. While Nobel Peace Prize winner and war monger Obama signed legislation that gave himself the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without so much as due process Paul is working to reinstate some of our most fundamental freedoms.

The Fifth Box

In regards to the insane number of tyrannical pieces of legislation that have been making their way through the United States legislature as of late Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Pirate Party, wrote and article titled Do We Really Have To Prepare For The Fourth Box. The article refers to the common four boxes of liberty meme as explained in the article:

Soap box: A box you stand on in the street trying to explain your views to the public. Figuratively, building public opinion for your case.

Ballot box: Public, free, democratic elections. If the laws don’t work, and the elected representatives don’t get it, replace them.

Jury box: If no public representatives get it, neither the elected nor those available to elect, the second to last line of defense is the judicial system, which can overturn laws that go against the most fundamental rights.

Ammo box: If the system has been so thoroughly corrupted that the entire establishment is acting as one, and it is not possible to change the laws to safeguard fundamental liberties, then only one option remains.

As you can guess by the title of Falkvinge’s post he is questioning whether or not it’s time to ready the ammo box. Truth be told I was never really a fan of the four boxes of liberty meme because it left out the fifth option, agorism. Agorism, for those who don’t wish to read the entire Wikipedia article, can basically be summed up as a system of counter-economics where the government is entirely cut out of the transactions. The idea is simple, you starve the best by cutting off its life

  • blood

    • of tax money.

    In a sense agorism deals with government displeasure in the same way people deal with business displeasure. When you are unsatisfied with a product or service you receive from a business you stop giving them money (unless the government is compelling you to give them money of course). One can take agorism to absolute extremes or only practice is in a few key areas of their life. Those who work only for cash that goes unreported, own no property, and buy everything via the free market (often incorrectly called the black market by racist economists) you will pay no income tax, no property tax, and no sales tax. Of course such drastic measures are not within the reach of many such as myself but we can still practice agorism in little bits and pieces. Every time you work for cash that goes unreported or buy something from a friend and refuse to pay the accompanying sales tax to the state you’re participating in the philosophy of agorism.

    Practices in large enough amounts agorism can theoretically destroy a state. Without money to feed the police and military governments find themselves without enforcers making all their laws benign. Even if the government controls a country’s money it matters not if all goods and services are paid for using an alternative currency agreed upon by those performing transactions.

    For argument let’s pretend a large majority of the United States populace started practicing agorism. Instead of trading for United States dollars the people started trading with each other using gold, silver, copper, and .22 LR ammunition (since everybody has a stockpile of the last item). Most people are listed as unemployed and therefore have no income to pay taxes on. Without income people have no source of dollars and therefore buy their goods and services on the free market and report nothing to pay sales tax on. Those who did own property abandoned it to avoid paying property taxes. Basically dollars would become useless as people stopped accepting them for trade (this is how the free market chooses money by the way). Police and military personell would start abandoning the state as their dollars become worthless for buying food and the government would find itself unable to buy new military gear since weapons manufacturers would stop accepting dollars as well.

    Obviously the above scenario is far fetched but I presented it simply to explain how agorism can theoretically bring down a state.

    I’m not a fan of the ammo box. It requires the violent overthrow of the government, an act that is likely to only breed more violence down the road. Even if the government is successfully overthrown you will be left with mountains of dead bodies and likely warlords fighting one another for control over various territories. Once in a great while an event like the American Revolution does happen and a more free society is established but such an event requires the right people and I doubt we have those kinds of people today. I won’t go so far as to say violent revolution is never necessary, there are many instances where it is necessary, but I also believe there are other alternatives that should be examined before such a move is made.

    To win a war one must be creative. Even Sun Tzu, the man (or men depending on who you talk to) who wrote The Art of War, said, “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The most desirable of victories are those obtained without bloodshed.

    Romney OK With Federal Agents Murdering Medical Marijuana Users

    I know the title of this post won’t come as a surprise to you guys but Romney really does take the cake for being a total dick (OK Santorum is still worse but not by much). A dying medical marijuana patient flat out asked Romney if he would arrest medical marijuana users and their doctors. Romney’s response? He doesn’t answer the question and then ignores the poor dying bastard:

    Romney did say he doesn’t support any form of marijuana but what he really should have said is, “If you think you’re in pain now just wait until I have you thrown in the slammer with Bubba. Hell I may just have some federal agents burst into your home and kill you right on the spot you stupid peasant.”

    Asked the same question but the same man got an entirely different answer from Ron Paul:

    Unlike Romney,Paul won’t use violence to enforce the erroneous drug war. What you put into your body is your own damned business whether you need the substance for medical reasons or are a recreational user.

    Remember the prohibition of marijuana is done by law and like all laws it must be enforced with the use of violence. By supporting the war on drugs you are literally agreeing that federal agents should be allowed to murder those who grow, sell, or use marijuana. Romney obviously has no quarrel with the idea of using federal agents to murder this sick guy and his doctor. It’s one reason in a million why I won’t vote for Romney no matter what.

    Vermin Supreme Still Makes the Most Sense

    It’s kind of sad when you think about it. The Democrats are going to field Obama again while looking at the Republican Party candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, makes one absolutely depressed. Remember those guys that have been appearing on our television screens for months now are the best the Republican Party could dig up (again I’m not counting Paul since the Republicans are doing everything they can to ensure he doesn’t win the nomination). More and more it looks like the race will be between Romney and Obama, something that makes me downright depressed. Consider that, a man who walks around wearing a boot on his head makes the most sense:

    At least he’s upfront and honest about being a fascist and a tyrant. He will also go back in time and kill baby Hitler with his bear hands and that’s pretty hard to ignore.

    Voting for The Lesser of Two Evils

    The election season is ramping up and results from state primaries are already rolling in. Obama, er, I mean Romney has won straw polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which has ramped up the “Ron Paul can’t win” bandwagon. Many people, especially in the gun community, are now talking about voting for the lesser of two evils to ensure Obama gets tossed out of office.

    I’ll start by stating up front that I’m not big on the whole voting for a ruler thing. In fact this picture sums up my belief on voting:

    As a sovereign individual I see no need for rulers and have no desire to choose one. If I’m going to get fucked with a switchblade why do I care who is holding it? It’s going to hurt just as much if Romney is holding the switchblade as it will if Obama is holding it. With that said I also realize that we’re currently stuck with manor lords so I may have to play the game to help ensure I get the “less” shitty ruler. Realizing this who do you think I’ll vote for if Romney gets the nomination?

    Simply put, I won’t.

    OK if Ron Paul decides to run as a third-party candidate I’ll toss him a vote and if he doesn’t I may still go to put in a vote for Gary Johnson. Either way I won’t be voting for Romney or Obama because I refuse to support either of them. No matter which of those tyrants wins we’re all going to lose. Many people are saying they will vote for whoever gets the Republican nomination because we need to get rid of Obama. What’s the point if voting for either major party gets us Obama though? Romney isn’t Obama light, he’s white Obama. The only thing that really separates the two is the fact Romney is white, a mormon, and has political experience (something I don’t believe to be a good thing by the way).

    When you vote you’re making a suggestion. Your ballot should read, “The names I’ve checked below are the individuals I suggest be granted the power to run my life and initiate violence against me should I violate one of their decrees.” The reason I’m willing to suggest Ron Paul is because he has no desire to run my life or initiate violence against me. Romney on the other hand not only wishes to run my life but he also desires to initiated violence against me and people in other countries. Fuck that guy, I’m not suggesting he be put in charge of anything, especially a military.

    Many people will claim I’m part of the problem because by not suggesting Romney I’m automatically suggesting Obama. It doesn’t work that way. That logic assumes my vote is cast whether or not I actually check a box next to somebody’s name. According to these people were the vote count 100 for Romney and 100 for Obama my lack of a vote would mean 101 of Obama. See how that math doesn’t work? By not voting for Obama his count still remains at a solid 100. Hell in the grand scheme of things my vote doesn’t matter anyways so feel free not to blame me if Obama wins.

    When you vote for the “lesser” of two evils you’re still stuck with evil. If you want to suggest Romney to run your life by all means go to your polling place and vote for him. While I refuse to suggest him I won’t demand you do the same but I do ask that you not scream at me for “voting for Obama” or “being part of the problem.” If you do that I’m going to scream back at you for “voting for white Obama” and “being part of the problem.”

    In the end if either Romney or Obama becomes president I’ll just kick back, relax, and say, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him.”

    Felony Whale Feeding

    Whenever somebody tells me all felons should be prohibited from owning firearms I show them shit like this:

    For this, Ms Black might now face up to 20 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines, after a federal grand jury indicted her this month. Little about the charges makes common sense. The federal law in question is the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which was intended to save dolphins, seals and whales from being killed and harassed. The law also banned feeding these animals, on the theory that doing so might compromise their ability to forage naturally in future. Feeding is what Ms Black is now accused of. She says she was using the protocols she had learned from the federal agencies that are now investigating her to observe a natural feeding that was already in progress.

    That’s right a marine biologist is facing felony charges for observing Orcas as they feed. The last time I checked observing marine mammals feeding is in the marine biologist job description. This poor woman could lose her right to own a firearm and vote because she was literally doing he fucking job. On top of that she is also being nailed with a double-standard:

    Just as ridiculous, says Mr Biegel, is the accusation, increasingly common in federal cases, that Ms Black lied to the authorities, which carries its own prison terms. Ms Black always edits the commercial videos of her whale outings to make them more interesting. When investigators demanded footage, she gave them one of these edited videos. Prosecutors now claim that she had tampered with evidence.

    Remember the police can lie to you but if you lie to them you’re in deep shit. Or, in this case, if you give them edited footage instead of raw footage they can claim you lied to them and pile on more charges to ensure you get more than mere felony whale feeding. Felony. Whale. Feeding. Just typing that sounds like a bad joke I would use as a hypothetical example of a stupid overreaching law. The problem here is this law isn’t hypothetical, it’s actually on the damned books and being enforced.

    It bears repeating that the prohibition against feeding whales, like all prohibitions, actually requires the use of violence to enforce. If you toss a whale some dead meat you can actually be murdered by the state. Think about that.

    This is What Cronyism Looks Like

    Welcome to the Crony States of America, if you’re politically well connected you to can receive mountains of government money. Did you donate to the Obama campaign? If so I may have some good news for you, you could already be qualified for billions of dollars of tax payer money:

    With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

    As the list reveals, 80 percent of all $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors. Furthermore, some of those dwarf in size those given to Obama bundler George Kaiser, owner of the now defunct Solyndra.

    I’m sure the Obamabots will claim this is just a coincidence and that this outcome was obvious since the people donating to Obama’s campaign are obviously the smartest and most qualified companies in the alternative energy market. Of course those people are also mindless sheep who will jump whenever Dear Leader commands (not that mindless Republican shills are any better mind you).

    A tip of the hat goes to Alan for this gem of government corruption.