Tag: Shut Up Slave

Redundancies in the System

The State has redundant layers of protection to defend itself from being meaningfully changed. We see this every time a police officer is fired for excessive use of force but is then later rehired because the union forced the department’s hand. But the redundancies don’t stop there. When a government goon goes rouge the system quickly moves to stop them from doing any damage.

Rand Paul, while mostly a run of the mill statist, has moments where he decides to go off of the rails. The Republicans have been crafting their Obamacare replacement bill in secret. Since he wasn’t invited to the party, Rand decided to grab a camera crew and attempt to bust into the secret meeting only to be stopped by armed guards:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday blasted House Republicans for keeping their ObamaCare repeal and replace legislation under wraps.

“I have been told that the House Obamacare bill is under lock & key, in a secure location, & not available for me or the public to view,” Paul tweeted.

[…]

Reporters later tweeted photos of the senator attempting to access the room where the bill is being kept, and being denied entry.

It was a good publicity stunt and it shows why the electoral process is not an effective means of changing the system. Even when voters manage to elect somebody who is mostly unoffensive to the State, like Rand Paul, he’s unable to make even minor maneuvers against the status quo. His father, likewise, was almost entirely ineffective as a politician because of the system’s redundant layers of protection. No matter how hard you vote you’re still playing in a system designed by the people in power.

Boogeymen

Watching politics is a lot like watching a train wreck. Part of you wants to look away but the other part of you is too fascinated by the death and destruction.

For me, one of the most entertaining aspects of politics is the boogeymen. Every politician and political group has boogeymen that are supposedly responsible for the nation’s woes. These boogeymen change whenever it’s politically expedient and when they do we’re told that we were never at war with the previous boogeymen but we were always at war with the new boogeyman.

Right now the Republicans and Democrats seem to have settled on their current boogeymen. The Republicans are blaming the nation’s woes on immigrants while the Democrats are blaming the nation’s woes on Russia.

Why do politicians and political groups always point to boogeymen? Because they need to deflect attention away from the people who have been screwing things up, the people who are actually in power in this nation, themselves. And if you talk to most people they’ll acknowledge that the politicians have screwed things up. But then they’ll totally ignore that sentiment when one of the boogeymen is brought up. Mention Russia around Democrats and they’ll fly into a frenzy about how Putin manipulated our election like some kind of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. Mention immigrants around Republicans and they’ll foam and the mouth as they spew vitriol about the evil immigrants who built their deck and roofed their house being lazy and unwilling to work.

The reason politicians continue wrecking things but remain in power is because the average person is stupid enough to ignore their antics so long as they’re given something else to fear.

Government Databases

Every politician needs a boogeyman. The Democrats have decided that Russia is their boogeyman while Republicans have decided that immigrants are their boogeyman. While the Democrats pursue their boogeyman by claiming every Republican is a secret Russian agent, the Republicans have been working to ramp up harassment of immigrants. One method the Republicans have decided on is releasing private data on immigrants in the country:

Over the last month, the Trump administration has waged a war on the rights of immigrants and foreigners — including by issuing a policy that strips away basic privacy protections that have been provided by Democratic and Republican presidents for decades.

This policy shift was tucked into Trump’s immigration enforcement executive order released on January 25. It could let the Trump administration release the names and private information of non-U.S. citizens — including refugees, college students, tourists, and people here on work visas. The new policy could also make it easier for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain information from other agencies that can be used to detain or deport people.

If the government didn’t have the data in the first place it wouldn’t be able to release it.

That’s the lesson people should be taking away from this. Government databases are always dangerous. Sure, they sound like a jolly good idea when your team is in power, especially if the databases are being used to store information about people you don’t like. But when the team you don’t like gets into power they’re granted access to every existing database, including those containing information about yourself and people you like.

If you’ve ever supported the government keeping data on people; whether it be on motorists, gun owners, or anybody who holds an ideology that you don’t agree with; then this recent development is the inevitable result of what you wanted.

Everybody Wants Honesty Until They Get It

What happens when the police in a city are brutally honest about their intentions? People get upset:

CATLETTSBURG — An Eastern Kentucky police chief has removed large decals with the Punisher skull and “Blue Lives Matter” from eight police cars after a backlash following the publication of a Herald-Leader story.

The Catlettsburg Police department, which employs eight full-time and two part-time officers for a population of about 2,500, featured the images on the hoods of its 2013 and 2017 Ford Interceptor sedans and sport-utility vehicles, assistant police chief Gerry Hatzel said. The stylized skull was from “The Punisher” comic book series.

The Punisher is one of my favorite anti-heroes. He’s a no nonsense dude who straight up kills evildoers. Considering the way police act today, I can see why The Punisher would be an idol to them. Of course, The Punisher goes after bad guys whereas American police officers spend a vast majority of their time going after people who haven’t harmed anybody.

Still, I appreciate that the officers put a symbol on their cars that blatantly stated their intentions. But I understand that most people don’t appreciate such honesty so I would have expected this kind of outrage.

This Will End Well

I would think that a nation primary composed of people who have had a rather unpleasant history with government databases would be very reluctant about creating government databases. But then I would be wrong:

The Knesset passed the biometric database law Monday night.

The bill was approved in its second and third readings after all objections were overcome. The final vote was 39-29 in favor.

The bill was significantly changed from its original version.

Over the course of the day it was decided that the database will not include fingerprints of anyone under the age of 16 and will not be used for unusual police applications.

New additions to the law were intended to amend the arrangements for the biometric database, in which all residents of the State will have their pictures and fingerprints taken, but for those who object, their data would be tied to their smart-cards instead of being entered into a database. However, those who choose to not be entered into the database will have to renew their passports and ID cards once every five years instead of every ten.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Be Careful In Legal Gray Areas

There are a lot of vague laws. For example, if you own a computer numerical control (CNC) machine and use it to build a firearm you’re legally in the clear so long as you can legally possess the firearm where you live. However, if you let somebody else use the machine are you still in the clear? You can legally manufacturer your own firearm so long as you don’t transfer it but what constitutes manufacturing your own firearm? This is one of those legal gray areas that one should be careful about operating in:

According to investigators, Crowninshield, known online as “Dr. Death,” would sell unfinished AR-15 lower receivers, which customers would then pay for him to transform into fully machined lower receivers using a computer numerically controlled (CNC) mill. (In October 2014, Cody Wilson, of Austin, Texas, who has pioneered 3D-printed guns, began selling a CNC mill called “Ghost Gunner,” designed to work specifically on the AR-15 lower.)

“In order to create the pretext that the individual in such a scenario was building his or her own firearm, the skilled machinist would often have the individual press a button or put his or her hands on a piece of machinery so that the individual could claim that the individual, rather than the machinist, made the firearm,” the government claimed in its April 14 plea agreement.

CNC machines add a new twist to manufacturing. Instead of being required to learn how to use a series of tools a person can now download specifications, place a raw block of material in a machine, press a button, and grab a coffee while they wait for the machine to finish doing its thing. Crowninshield decided that if he had his customer press the button that started the milling process then they would legally be manufacturing the firearm. I agree with that interpretation but since he plead guilty we don’t know what the courts think of that interpretation.

The lesson this story teaches is that one needs to be careful when operating in legal gray areas. Although you’re at risk of being arrested and charged for anything you do, you’re at especially high risk when the law isn’t clear about whether your activity is legal or illegal.

Without Government Who Would Punish the Victims

Let’s say that you’re in an interracial marriage. Now let’s say a rather unpleasant individual spray painted a racial slur on your garage door. Under the circumstance you’d expect the government to step in to find the vandal and arrest them, right? What would you say if the government decided to fine you for the graffiti through?

The N-word was written on the couple’s garage door over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, but so far, no one has been arrested for the crime.

Heather Lindsay, who is white, said they won’t scrub it off until authorities “do their job” and “not just cover it up and sweep it under the table as they have done in the past.”

The Stamford, Conn., officials have slapped the couple with a blight citation, which carries a $100 daily fine.

The first thing worth noting is the fact that Mrs. Lindsay feels the need to leave the graffiti up in order to motivate the police to do their supposed job. Unfortunately, police are generally disinterested in enforcing property crimes because the State doesn’t stand to rake in a ton of cash off of them. Second, what Mrs. Lindsay does with her own property should be her own business. If she wants to leave the graffiti up then she should be able to leave it up. Third, and this is the most important point in my opinion, Mrs. Lindsay shouldn’t be held responsible for removing the graffiti, the perpetrator should be.

Under any sane justice system the perpetrator is the only person required to right their wrong. Under statism the victim is just as likely to suffer as the perpetrator. This is especially true when the crime that was committed wasn’t one that is generally profitable to the State. I guess the State has to make its profit somewhere.

What Do You Own

When you purchase a computer do you own it? What about your cell phone? Or your automobile? At one time the answer to these questions was an absolute yes. Today, not so much:

Cars, refrigerators, televisions, Barbie dolls. When people buy these everyday objects, they rarely give much thought to whether or not they own them. We pay for them, so we think of them as our property. And historically, with the exception of the occasional lease or rental, we owned our personal possessions. They were ours to use as we saw fit. They were free to be shared, resold, modified, or repaired. That expectation is a deeply held one. When manufacturers tried to leverage the DMCA to control how we used our printers and garage door openers, a big reason courts pushed back was that the effort was so unexpected, so out of step with our understanding of our relationship to the things we buy.

But in the decade or so that followed those first bumbling attempts, we’ve witnessed a subtler and more effective strategy for convincing people to cede control over everyday purchases. It relies less—or at least less obviously—on DRM and the threat of DMCA liability, and more on the appeal of new product features, and in particular those found in the smart devices that make up the so-called Internet of Things (IoT).

I’ve annoyed many electrons criticizing the concept of intellectual property. The idea that somebody has a government granted monopoly on something simply because they were the first to receive a patent is absurd in my opinion. But we live with much more absurd ideas today. Due to the way software copyright and patent laws work, if a company loads software onto a device they can effectively prevent anybody from owning it. At most a buyer can acquire a limited use license for those devices.

Combining software copyright and patent laws with the Internet of Things (IoT) just amplifies this. Now there are a bunch of devices on the market that rely on continuous Internet access to the manufacturers’ servers. If the manufacture decides to drop support for the product it stops working. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) didn’t make it illegal for you to hack the device and load your own software onto it that allowed it to continue working.

Right now we’re dealing with relatively cheap IoT devices. If your $99 Internet connected thermostat stops working it sucks but it’s not something that is so expensive that it can’t be replaced. But what happens when IoT comes to, say, automobiles? What happens when critical functions on an automobile cease to work because the manufacturer decides to drop support for one of the Internet connected components. Suddenly you’re not talking about throwing away a $99 device but a machine that cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Although this scenario might sound absurd to some I guarantee that it will happen at some point if software copyright and patent laws continue to be enforced as they have been.

The Only Solution is Prisons in Space

What is a greater accomplishment, putting a man on the moon or building a prison? I would imagine that most of the people reading this would choose the former. In fact, I hope that most of the people reading this would consider the comparison absurd. But when you’re talking to a politician the two accomplishments are of equal importance:

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) pointed to one of man’s greatest scientific achievements as evidence that his state could build more prisons.

Noting that 2019 would mark the 50th anniversary of his state putting a man on the moon, Bentley argued that Alabama should be able to build more facilities.

“If Alabamians can put man on the moon, we can build new prisons,” Bentley said during his State of the State address on Tuesday. The Saturn V rocket, which propelled Apollo 11 to the moon in 1969, was built at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) put a man on the moon they first asked themselves what would be accomplished by doing so. Then they asked themselves whether a cheaper solution existed. Because NASA is a government agency the motivation was statist in nature, to show the world that American had a bigger dick than the Soviet Union. There wasn’t a cheaper option because putting a man on the moon was the only way to overcome the fact that the Soviet Union put the first satellite and man into space. No lesser endeavor would have done.

But Governor Bentley isn’t even smart enough to ask why more prisons are necessary or whether a cheaper solution exists. The reason more prisons are necessary is because politicians continue creating new laws that turn formerly law-abiding citizens into criminals. There are a lot of cheaper options for dealing with that problem. For example, the politicians could simply stop creating new crimes. Better yet, they could save the state some money by decriminalizing a bunch of currently criminal actions. Then they could commute the sentence of anybody currently rotting in a cage for committing one of those crimes. Instead the politicians continue creating new crimes so, of course, see the need to also create new prisons.

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Governor Bentley decides to combine the two ideas and demand that Alabama build prisons in space.

Your Privilege to Privacy Has a Lot of Exception

I remember hearing a rumor that the Bill of Rights included an amendment regarding privacy. You wouldn’t know it living in our society though. Between the National Security Agency’s (NSA) massive surveillance apparatus, law enforcement’s tendency to deploy cell phone interceptors without so much as a warrant, and the recent trend of municipal governments deploying license plate scanners throughout their realm of influence it’s pretty obvious that if we had a right to privacy it’s effectively dead now. But every so often the courts find a shred of privacy remaining. When they do they work efficiently to destroy it:

It’s a case I first wrote about a year ago when the Minnesota Court of Appeals reinstated charges against a Meeker County resident after a district court threw out the case against Leona Rose deLottinville because sheriff’s deputies captured her while she was visiting a boyfriend. The lower court had also ruled that evidence seized in the arrest could not be used against her because the warrant for her arrest did not authorize police to search her boyfriend’s apartment.

In upholding that decision Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court said the woman, who was suspected of possessing meth, had no greater expectation of privacy when visiting another home than in her own home. [Updated]

[…]

“We understand that a homeowner might well be surprised and distressed to learn that police may enter at any time to arrest a guest,” he said. “But there is no indication in this case of any such abuse; deLottinville was visible to the officer before he entered the home. And the question of what rights the homeowner may have in such a situation is not before us.”

In a dissent, however, Justice Margaret Chutich said Lillehaug the majority opinion “fails to protect the right of a host from unreasonable governmental intrusion into the sanctity of her home, a right at the ‘very core’ of the Fourth Amendment.”

Of course the majority ruled based on the rights of the kidnapped individual, which completely ignored the rights of the homeowner. At least Justice Margaret Chutich understood this fact. Unfortunately, she was part of the minority and as we all know in a democracy the majority rules.

I believe the potential for abuse of this ruling is obvious. Home owners in Minnesota can now lose their privacy privileges if they invite the wrong person over. How can a homeowner decided whether or not they’re inviting the wrong person over? I guess they have to call their local police department and ask if a warrant has been issued for any guests they have over.