Tag: Politics

The Popular Vote

A lot of people are getting an education in the electoral college. Even though Clinton won the popular vote by a razor thin margin Trump won the presidency.

Except Hillary didn’t win the popular vote:

  • 46.6% didn’t vote
  • 25.6% voted for Hillary Clinton
  • 25.5% voted for Donald Trump
  • 1.7% voted for Gary Johnson

Clinton and Trump both received about a quarter of the potential votes. The plurality of voters, by a significant margin at 46.6 percent, appear to have wanted no master. This is one of the biggest shams of democracy. Democracy is seldom the “will of the people.” It’s the will of the people who decided to select a preference from a curated list of approved options.

Voting Won’t Fix This

Zero tolerance policies are one of those topics no candidates want to touch. Another policy no candidates want to touch are permits. Permits, like the income tax, started off as a requirement that only effected a handful of people but quickly ballooned into effecting everybody. At first major projects required permits. If you wanted to build a building, for example, you needed to acquire a permit from the city. Today almost everything requires a permit. And if you don’t obtain a government mandated permit you can end up facing time in a cage:

Reulas, who hails from Stockton, California, is part of an informal potluck group on Facebook, where people who like to cook can trade recipes, cooking tips, and occasionally dishes. It’s not uncommon for a someone to offer a small amount of money for an equally small amount of food, says Reulas.

According to Fox 40, someone in the Facebook group offered to buy a plate of Ruelas’s signature ceviche, a Mexican seafood fish. That person was an undercover cop carrying out a sting: twelve potluck participants were arrested for selling food without a permit.

Reulas refused to plead guilty and accept a lesser sentence—probation—so her case is headed to trial.

Good on Reulas for refusing the plea deal. If more people opted to fight their cases the court system would quickly be overflowing with cases and a denial of service attack against the courts would effectively be underway. But the fact remains that by refusing to take the plea deal she faces the risk of being found guilty and thrown into a cage for the crime of selling food.

When you go to cast you vote today remember that these seemingly minor issues aren’t being addressed by candidates even though they are negatively impacting the lives of people across the country. Sure, one or two city council members might pay a bit of lip service to reducing the number of permits required within their city but by and large no candidates are even whispering about the burden of needing permits for even the most minor activities. And there’s no motivation for them to do so because the State rakes in a ton of cash off of permits.

No matter how hard you vote today nothing will change. A few figureheads will be swapped around but the machinations of leviathan won’t be altered.

This One Weird Thing No Candidate Will Fix

If you’re heading to the polls today take a moment to remember exactly what your vote will change, nothing. People keep talking about the importance of this election because of guns rights, gay rights, the Supreme Court and so on and so fourth. But nobody seems to be addressing the epidemic of ridiculous laws and policies. For example, no candidate, as far as I know, has come out against zero tolerance policies in public schools, which are fucking kids’ lives up:

Nine elementary school kids in South Carolina have been suspended for violating a school drug policy because they were caught with so-called “happy crack,” a mixture of Kool-Aid and sugar that is not actually illicit but, simply by resembling an illicit substance, violates school policy.

WYFF4 reports that their punishment was reduced from expulsion to suspension, though privacy laws prevent the school from disclosing whether students, who are around age 10, were distributing or simply eating the powder.

While stories like this may seem minor they are important illustrations of the mountain of little laws and policies that punish innocent people every day. In this case the kids’ only crime was possessing something that kind of looks like an illicit substance just as kids before them have been punished for eating a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun shape. These zero tolerance policies are punishing kids who have literally done nothing wrong yet no candidates that I’m aware of have brought up the issue as part of their campaigning.

Go ahead and vote. Vote really hard. But realize that your vote won’t actually change anything. You’ll still be buried under a mountain of stupid laws and policies tomorrow regardless of who takes the presidency, Congress, or your local city council.

The Slave Suggestion Box Doesn’t Matter

Voting, when you boil it down, is nothing more than a slave suggestion box. From a curated list of approved options we’re granted the privilege of submitting our opinion. But what happens when the slaves submit the wrong suggestion? That’s when the machinations of the court systems kick in. The slaves in the United Kingdom were given the option of voting to secede from the European Union and they voted to do so. That turned out to be the wrong way to vote so the courts have nullified their suggestion:

LONDON — The British government’s plan for leaving the European Union was thrown into uncertainty on Thursday after the High Court ruled that Parliament must give its approval before the process can begin.

The court’s decision seemed likely to slow — but not halt — the British withdrawal from the bloc, a step approved by nearly 52 percent of voters in a June referendum.

Democracy is an illusion upheld only as long as the slaves vote the way their masters want. When it looks like the slaves will vote the wrong way the rules are either changed or the courts are brought in to invalidate the vote. Here in the United States, for example, most states have implemented various restrictions on who can appear on an official ballot or is considered an acceptable write-in candidate. These rules exist to both prevent the slaves from voting for somebody who isn’t approved by their masters and to maintain the illusion that they can vote for an unapproved master.

Gun Sales are Up

This year’s presidential election is notable for many reasons. Somehow both major parties managed to nominate the single worst option that was available to them. The level of hatred supporters of both candidates have for supporters of the other candidate has reached unprecedented levels. And both parties have managed to nominate advocates for gun control. This last point is likely what has lead to yet another month of very impressive gun sales:

There were 2,333,539 gun-related checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, last month, according to FBI documents posted on Monday. That represents an increase of more than 350,000 checks over the previous October, itself a record. It’s also the 18th month in a row to set a record.

With two months to go, 2016 has already seen 22,206,233 NICS checks, making it the second highest year for checks in the history of NICS with only 2015 seeing more.

I sometimes wonder if gun control advocates are secretly being funded by firearm manufacturers because their actions do more to increase gun sales than anything else.

If gun control advocates really wanted to decrease the number of guns in circulation the easiest thing they could do would be to stop pushing for gun control. The only reason people are buying pallets of AR-15 lowers, AK-47s, and standard capacity magazines is because they believe that they can make a significant profit if the manufacturing of those items is prohibited. It’s basic economics. The more scarce a desirable product is the more expensive it becomes. If I can buy a pallet of AR-15 lowers for $50.00 a piece today and the manufacturing of those lowers becomes illegal tomorrow the profit I can make off of those lowers will only increase over time.

“Libertarians”

I make no secret of my disagreement with political libertarians. While they claim that we need to implement incremental change by working within the system I’m rolling my eyes because I know that the system has numerous redundancies that prevent anti-statist meddling and that the State, like the One Ring, corrupts all who try to wield it.

The Star Tribune ran a story about the Crystal City Council. Crystal, for those who don’t know, is a suburb here in the Twin Cities. The Libertarian Party controls a majority of its city council. That’s the joke, this is the punchline:

At the same time, in a seeming departure from Libertarian principles of thrift, the city has raised property taxes and water and sewer fees.

Libertarians seized control of a municipal government and taxes went up. If these Libertarians didn’t exist I’d have to make them up to illustrate my point about political action being an ineffective strategy for libertarianism. One is probably wondering why a “libertarian” city council would raise taxes and water and sewer fees. After all, that seems like a pretty anti-libertarian decision. It’s for muh roads and the children, of course:

The alliance split in September when the City Council raised property taxes nearly 8 percent. One of the Libertarians, Councilwoman Olga Parsons, said she voted in favor because she thought the budget was already lean and she didn’t see anywhere to cut spending.

The budget was already tight? She is obviously not a libertarian. Any libertarian could find a significant amount of unnecessary crap to cut. For example, they could start with the police. Most police departments invest the majority of their time in enforcing victimless laws such as drug offenses and speeding citations. Stopping the department from enforcing those nonsense laws would greatly reduce the need for officers and the city could downsize the department (I would personally eliminate it entirely but this is me trying to play the libertarian political game). City “services” could be privatized or eliminated entirely and the city properties related to providing those “services” could be sold. Doing that would allow the market to decide what the community actually wants and what has been forced down its throat by a handful of politically connected community members. The bottom line is that if the budget is tight that means the city is providing things it shouldn’t be providing.

In spite of what the Star Tribune and these “libertarians” claim, paying cash for government projects isn’t libertarianism. Libertarianism is dismantling the government. If there’s a government project any libertarian worth their salt should be working to eliminate it, not fund it.

Politics is the Opium of the People

One of Karl Marx’s most famous sayings was “Religion is the opium of the people.” It’s a rather hypocritical criticism for a man whose philosophy makes the State into a religion to make. But as we all know, because we’re all suffering due to it, Marx was the victor in the great political philosophy war. Almost every government has been influenced by his works. Even the United States, which was once heralded as the beacon of individual freedom, has more in common with what Marx preached than what Mises preached. So we shouldn’t be too surprised to see statism become the predominant religion.

Statism has become such a predominant religion that previously established religions have had to step aside. Even Catholics are apt to side with statism before Catholicism:

One significant voice about climate change has been Pope Francis, who released a letter (called an “encyclical”) in 2015 titled Laudato si’ (or Praise be to you). The encyclical acknowledges human-caused climate change as an unavoidable reality and frames action as a moral imperative. Many hoped that this might have an impact among Catholics who still doubted climate science.

A group of researchers led by Texas Tech’s Nan Li neatly planned out a pair of before-and-after surveys to assess those hopes with data. So what impact did the encyclical actually have on American Catholics?

Many prominent climate “skeptics” and politicians demonstrated one possible response that fell somewhat short of sudden conversion—they stuck to their guns and criticized the pope’s statements. They argued that this was a political and economic issue rather than a moral or doctrinal one, leaving the pope perfectly capable of being fallible.

The point of this post isn’t about climate change but the way people are increasingly likely to let their political affiliation guide their ideals over their stated religious beliefs. Statism has become their true religion whether they want to admit it or not.

I don’t know how anybody who has been observing politics from the outside can deny that statism is the new religion. The State is treated as a god that provides all that is good in the world, other states are treated at demons that are responsible for all that is bad in the world, desecrating the symbols of the State is treated as hearsay, and for many political participation is almost indistinguishable from religious worship. The State even has its own prayers, such as the Holy National Anthem, and those who fail to publicly proclaim their faith but reciting the prayer are harshly criticized. People even sign up to be sent off to foreign lands so they can kill the heretics of heathen states.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats is the difference between Catholics and Lutherans. They both worship the same god but they have some disagreements that seem very important to them but absolutely trivial to outside observers. Likewise, the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties seem very important to party members but absolutely trivial to us outside observers.

And now we’re seeing that belief in Republicanism or Democratism is usurping belief in Catholicism or Lutheranism. That being the case, it’s not surprising to see Catholics side with their political party’s beliefs over a statement made by the Pope (and in fairness to Catholics, there are Catholics out there that don’t view the Pope very highly and do cool things like hold mass in Latin but their views in that case aren’t formed by their political affiliation). Politics really is the opium of the people and the people are very addicted.

The Issue Nobody Wants to Talk About

I didn’t watch last night’s debate. I’ve already seen enough videos of monkeys flinging feces at each other for a lifetime. But I did find an excellent video that summarizes both candidates’ position on a very important issue:

During his first presidential run, Obama spent a lot of time talking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He claimed that he was going to make ending those wars a priority. While he was lying through his teeth it was refreshing to have at least one major candidate opposing war. This year? Both major candidates are war hawks and want to turn Syria into rubble (not because of anything Syria has really done but because it’s a proxy for Russia and old Cold War attitudes die hard). But neither one of them wants to address the fact that the United States is involved in five fucking wars:

In an election flush with conspiracy theories, here’s one that’s real: Both major party nominees, as well as the journalists who cover the election and moderate the debates, are actively conspiring to avoid talking about the fact that the United States is waging war in at least five countries simultaneously: Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.

In the first two presidential debates, our involvement in the Syrian civil war was briefly discussed, as was ISIS in vague terms, and the Iran nuclear deal, and Russia’s mischief-making in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and Libya, though mostly in the past tense, focused on our 2011 intervention to depose Moammar Gadhafi and the subsequent attack on American government facilities in Benghazi a year later.

But our role in “advising” the Iraqi army “a few miles behind the front lines” as it works to take back territory from ISIS? Our “secret war” against Shabab militants in Somalia? Our support for Saudi Arabia’s bloody assault on Houthi rebels in Yemen? Our air strikes pounding positions in and around the city of Sirte on the Libyan coast?

Nada. Zip. Nothing.

While Keynesians have wet dreams over all of the economic “stimulus” wars create the only people who benefit are those within the military-industrial complex. Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Blackwater (or whatever the hell they call themselves now), etc. make big dollars on war. People (if you can really call Keynesians people) will also mistakenly point out that construction companies and other rebuilders make big dollars as well. But their ignorance of Bastiat’s broken window fallacy causes them to ignore the fact that those builders would be building newer, better buildings instead of replacing older buildings in an economically prosperous (i.e. not blown to Hell and back by war) region. Furthermore, an economically prosperous region would have goods and services to trade with other regions, which would increase the wealth of both sides. When wars are waged everybody outside of the military-industrial complex gets screwed.

In times of peace wealth is invested in developing new more technologically advanced goods and services. During times of war wealth is diverted to onetime use munitions and rebuilding everything that was blown up. Both sides are diverting wealth that was stolen from their populace into first building bombs, tanks, ships, bunkers, supply lines, surveillance technologies, etc. and then replacing them all when they’re destroyed. It’s an unending cycle of wasted potential.

The United States is already involved in five wars. Getting involved in more wars or throwing more resources into existing wars is only going to increase the amount of wealth wasted on death and destruction. No matter which president wins in November it’s clear that the current wars will not only march on but increase in intensity. This will only worsen the already tedious economic situation the country, and really most of the world, is in. And nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about what is probably the single biggest issue facing the world right now. What is the point of political debates if the important issues aren’t being broached (don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question)? Where is the choice in an election if both candidates hold the exact same destructive positions on truly important issues (again, this is a rhetorical question)?

Before I end this post I want to address something. I’m sure some very decent human beings are asking themselves why I’m framing this discussion within economics instead of human lives? I’m trying to reach the statists here and as we know statists tend not to value human lives very highly (if they did they wouldn’t be statists). But they never shut up about the economy. I guess a part of me hopes that framing this discussion within economics I might be able to reach one or two of them and convince them to ask why nobody is addressing the issue of war in this election.

They Want Your Fuckin’ Retirement Money

George Carlin once said, “And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ’cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”

Social Security is often referred to as a Ponzi scheme and that is a fairly accurate assessment. Ponzi schemes tend to enrich the early participants of the scheme at the expense of the newer participants and the State, which passed the legislation mandating we all participate in this scheme, was certainly enriched while newer participants continue to get screwed harder than the last set of participants. What makes matters worse is that we all realize it. How many people in their 20s and 30s have you heard say “I don’t expect to get anything from Social Security?” Hell, I say it quite frequently. But you know who is benefitting from Social Security? The State.

Since its inception the Social Security Trust Fund has been “invested” in Treasury securities. In other words, the State pulls money from peoples’ supposed retirement accounts and lends it to itself. But its cronies have been wanting to get a piece of the action and, as George Carlin predicted, they’re going to get it.

The State has been unwilling to directly cut its cronies in on the Social Security scheme but it did throw them a bone. The bone was a tax rule that allowed money invested into a sanctioned scheme to be withdrawn from employee paychecks before taxes. This scheme, referred to as 401(k), has two major flaws from the point of view of the State’s cronies. First, it’s decentralized. There is no single mandatory 401(k) account that all employees have to invest in. Second, it is voluntary so many employees didn’t hand their money over to the State’s cronies. A lot of that is likely to change in the near future under President Clinton:

While Hillary Clinton has spent the presidential campaign saying as little as possible about her ties to Wall Street, the executive who some observers say could be her Treasury Secretary has been openly promoting a plan to give financial firms control of hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings. The executive is Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group.

[…]

It is a plan that proponents say could help millions of Americans — but could also enrich another constituency: the hedge fund and private equity industries that Blackstone dominates and that have donated millions to support Clinton’s presidential bid.

The proposal would require workers and employers to put a percentage of payroll into individual retirement accounts “to be invested well in pooled plans run by professional investment managers,” as James put it. In other words, individual voluntary 401(k)s would be replaced by a single national system, and much of the mandated savings would flow to Wall Street, where companies like Blackstone could earn big fees off the assets. And because of a gap in federal anti-corruption rules, there would be little to prevent the biggest investment contracts from being awarded to the biggest presidential campaign donors.

The “millions of Americans” that proponents are claiming will be helped by this change are the State’s cronies on Wall Street. Me and you? We’ll get fucked on the deal just as we’ve been getting fucked on Social Security. Instead of voluntarily opting to enter into 401(k) we’ll be forced to give money to yet another national retirement scheme. It’ll basically be Social Security II but the money will go to the State’s cronies instead of itself.

Every decree by the State exists to expropriate wealth from the populace. It’s a nice system if you’re either the king or are connected enough to the king to hold a royal title. But it really sucks for us lowly serfs.