Tag: Politics

On Immigrants and Freedom

Neoconservatives, the alt-right, and even a lot of libertarians are unable to contain their enthusiasm for Trump’s order to build a wall between Mexico and the United States. Why would these supposedly fiscally conservative individuals cheer on the construction of a multi-billion dollar wall that won’t accomplish anything? Because they are under the mistaken belief that a mass migration of immigrants into the United States will cause a loss of individual liberty. Like the boogeyman, this is an entirely imaginary fear as Dr. Robert Higgs so eloquently explained on Facebook:

Armed Revolution

Remember the good old days when neocons were whispering about armed revolution and neoliberals criticized them for it? Remember the standoff at the Bundy Ranch and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation where neocons traveled to help with the armed standoff? Remember the neoliberals calling those neocons traitors and wanted the feds to send in the troops to take them all out?

Now the neoliberals are whispering about armed revolution and neocons are criticizing them for it. Last year Time was already trying to start a tax protests. Within the last week we’ve had a Nazi get punched, Madonna talk about blowing up the White House, and a Dallas school teacher shooting an image of Trump with a squirt gun while yelling “Die!” In each one of these cases neoliberals justified these acts and even called for more while neocons labeled the perpetrators traitors and want the feds to throw the book at them.

Those two groups were made for each other. I just wish that they would hurry up and fuck and get it over with.

Better a Flawed Democracy Than a Full Democracy

What’s worse than mob rule? Not a whole lot, which is why I’m pleased to see that the United States has been downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed one:

While U.S. citizens could once claim to be part of the 9% of people in the world governed by a “full democracy,” they are now part of the near 45% who live in a “flawed democracy.”

That’s according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which downgraded the U.S. in their 2016 Democracy Index published Wednesday. The move puts the U.S. in the same category as Poland, Mongolia, and Italy.

Democracy is touted as an amazing governmental system where the people have a say in how they’re governed. In reality it’s nothing more than mob rule. The plurality of voters get to inflict their will on everybody else. Worse yet, when things inevitably turn to shit the people tend to turn on each other, as we’re seeing here in the United States, instead of the politicians that are doing the actual damage.

Between democracy and monarchy there isn’t a terrible amount of difference. Under both systems the people who compose the State are able to do whatever they please and the people can either take it or revolt. The upside of a monarchy is at least when the people revolt they tend to go after the monarch instead of each other.

The Neocons’ Change of Heart

Remember when neocons were throwing a fit because Obama kept issuing executive orders? I still remember them pointing out that Obama was acting like a king and violating the Constitution by bypassing Congress. Most of them seem to have had a change in heart though because Trump has been issuing executive orders left and right and so far the neocons have been as silent as the anti-war left was during Obama’s reign.

When people ask me why I’m not politically active I note things like this. I try to live a life that is consistent with my principles. But almost everybody that I’ve encountered who is politically active has no principle other than the ends justify the means. Technically that is an ethos but so it national socialism. And like national socialism, the ends justify the means is an ethos that goes nowhere good.

Most of the anti-war left weren’t actually anti-war. They were neoliberals who saw opposing war as a means to get their guy into power so it he could implement their desired policies. Neocons are no different. They advocate small government and governmental checks and balances when doing so advances their cause. When those things interfere with their cause they become arduous supporters of big government and presidential rule by decree.

Since most politically active people in the United States fall into either the neoliberal or neoconservative camps there’s no point in being politically active if you’re actually a principled individual. You’ll be used when you’re convenient and discarded when you’re a hinderance.

The New York Civil Liberties Union Hates Cops

Our brave boys and girls in blue are out there everyday putting their lives on the line! They are they only thing that stands between us and anarchy! Knowing this, how can we stand idly by while organizations like the New York Civil Liberties Union spew their hatred of our glorious officers by demanding they abide by the Fourth Amendment:

The New York Civil Liberties Union is pushing a new state bill that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant prior to deploying a cell-site simulator, or stingray. The bill also includes other new restrictions.

[…]

The bill, which was first reported by ZDNET, doesn’t mention stingrays specifically. However, it specifically forbids law enforcement from accessing “electronic device information by means of physical interaction or electronic communication with the device” unless they have a warrant. There are a few narrow exceptions, such as exigent circumstances.

Requiring a warrant before a search can be performed or a wiretap put into place? What is this world coming to?

I’m sure there are cop apologists out there who believe this restriction is a terrible affront to law enforcers. But cell-site simulators are both searches and wiretaps wrapped up into one convenient package. Historically warrants have been required before law enforcers could perform a search or install a wiretap. For some reason that requirement was seen as unnecessary when the searches and wiretaps could be done wirelessly. I’m not sure what the logic there was other than it was slightly different therefore the rules must not apply.

The Most Joyous Holiday

It is tradition for a new Führer to issue a series of decrees when they take office. Our new Führer wasted no time brining his vision to the Fatherland by issuing a decree to create a new holiday. From now on January 20th will be known as the National Day of Patriotic Devotion!

Our Constitution is written on parchment, but it lives in the hearts of the American people. There is no freedom where the people do not believe in it; no law where the people do not follow it; and no peace where the people do not pray for it.

There are no greater people than the American citizenry, and as long as we believe in ourselves, and our country, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

There is no freedom where the people don’t believe in the United States Constitution? There are no greater people than the American citizenry? I can feel the nationalism and it makes me want to seig heil so hard!

After eight years of international socialism the American people spoken and they said that they wanted international socialism this time around. While there isn’t a bit of meaningful difference between the two sects, at least we’ll have some new punchlines for our jokes!

Obama Finds Some Humanity

Yesterday Barack Obama showed the world that he still has some humanity buried deep under his bloodlust. As is tradition for exiting presidents, Obama handed out a series of pardons and commuted sentences to chosen federal prisoners. Amongst his list was Chelsea Manning:

In one of his last moves in office, President Obama has commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army private who leaked a massive trove of military secrets to WikiLeaks.

The former intelligence analyst’s prison sentence has been shortened to expire on May 17, 2017, according to a statement from the White House.

And by “leaked a massive trove of military secrets” NPR means evidence of war crimes.

While I could spend an entire post criticizing Obama’s unwillingness to pardon Chelsea or commute her sentence sooner, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The No Win Situation of Politics

More and more people seem to be realizing that all available political options are no win situations:

Establishment political parties have been playing a dangerous game — contriving situations in which the only acceptable choice happens to be one favored by elites, and hoping that voters will choose it under duress.

Voters have been revolting against no-choice politics by choosing the unthinkable: Brexit, fringe political parties, rejecting the Italian reform referendum, Trump.

You should be mad at voters for the alarming choices they are making. I certainly am. But you should also be mad at the establishment leaders and political parties who put voters in the position of choosing between the unpalatable and the absurd.

I often compare candidate choices to the choice of either colon cancer or lung cancer. While arguments can be made in favor of one over the other the end result of both if left untreated is death.

What amuses me is that the absurdity of our “choices” is becoming so obvious that even mainstream media outlets are having a difficult time ignoring it. Just look at the last presidential election. The choice was between a male fascist or a female fascist. The media pushed for the female fascist but the difference between the two was so insignificant that it had a difficult time finding a characteristic to sell her on. In the end the male fascist won because votes basically flipped a coin.

If you’re a student of history you’ve read about how this plays out. Things will continue to deteriorate. The “choices” will become worse. At some point the system will collapse in on itself like a massive star at the end of its life.

Thanks, Obama

I’m sure that’s what Trump’s administration said as Obama’s administration expanded its power:

WASHINGTON — In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

[…]

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions.

I’m sure the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are going to have a field day with it.

Initially the National Security Agency (NSA) was tasked with surveilling foreign entities but not domestic entities. That mandate changed over time. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that the NSA is now surveilling people domestically. However, the agency itself has no enforcement powers. But the FBI and DEA do! And that’s why this rule change should be concerning.

There’s a world of difference between having access to filtered data and raw data. Presumably, the NSA’s goons were feeding other intelligence agencies data that it thought was pertinent to its mission. Even if the NSA was feeding other intelligence agencies more than that it still had access to limited manpower, which meant the amount of data it was handing over was necessarily limited. With access to the raw data agencies like the FBI and DEA can now comb through it for their purposes. There will be more eyes looking at the data and those eyes won’t be restricted to what the NSA considers important.

We know that the NSA surveils domestic Internet and phone communications. Since so many illegal transactions (not criminal, since a vast majority of these transactions don’t involve victims) take place over the Internet or through phone calls the FBI and DEA now have access to data that gives them a potentially rich target environment. Even if agencies like the FBI and DEA are legally restricted from using data acquired by the NSA to prosecute domestic individuals the law enforcement community has already created a workaround to such limitations.

When Obama took office his administration was given control of the vast surveillance apparatus that Bush’s administration had expanded. Under his tenure as president those apparatuses expanded further. Now Trump’s administration is receiving control of that expanded surveillance apparatus. To all of the people who didn’t give a shit about those expanding powers under Obama but are now flipping out about Trump having those powers, this is why us libertarians are against expanding the State’s powers. You never know who will be given those powers after your guy leaves office.