Tag: Shut Up Slave

Budget Permitting, You Have a Right to a Speedy and Public Trial

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution says:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

However within that amendment lies a caveat, your have a right to a speedy trial only if the state has the budget to prosecute you:

A judge said it was “stunning” that lawyers might not be ready for the case because of unpaid leave imposed by the so-called sequester.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith last month denied charges in New York that he helped plot the 9/11 attacks on the US.

His trial could now be delayed until next year.

The handcuffed defendant listened to Monday’s proceedings through an Arabic interpreter as it emerged that his case could be held up because of budget cuts caused by political gridlock in Washington.

Since sequestration is actually a $110 billion spending increase there is no ground from which to demand mandatory unpaid leave. Furthermore, there is no reason that the mandatory unpaid leave couldn’t be taken after the conclusion of the trial (which is likely to be a show trial with a preordained result). This maneuver is likely a tactic to further delay the trail as the United States government has demonstrated no desire to actually try those accused of being involved with the 9/11 attacks.

Delaying this trial could set an interesting, and extremely dangerous, precedent. As it currently stands an illusion of due process exists. If this trial is allowed to be delays under the guise of budget issues then there is no reason other trials couldn’t be indefinitely delayed under the guise of budget issues. The state can finally jail people without trail, while maintaining the illusion of being constrained by currently established laws, by simply saying the trial will occur when the budget allows and ensuring the budget never allows for it to occur.

You Keep Using that Word

Somebody needs to get Dianne Feinstein a dictionary:

Speaking to an audience of 500 people in her hometown of San Francisco, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that game publishers need to make voluntary actions to avoid glorifying guns and violence following the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

She noted that Congress would take action if the industry didn’t do something, according to the Associated Press.

If the only options are do as the state says or do as the state says then voluntary action is impossible. Feinstein’s offer is coercion, she’s putting a gun to the heads of video game developers and threatening to pull the trigger if they don’t roll over and do as she says. I’m not surprised that Feinstein misunderstands what voluntary means since she is one of the most authoritarian tyrants out there.

Everybody is an Extremist

Are you a Catholic or evangelical Protestant? Then, according to the Defense Department, you’re an extremists:

The Defense Department came under fire Thursday for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as “extremist” religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.

The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.

I’m sure a lot of people are confused about this classification since Catholics and Protestants aren’t known for committing violent acts (now that the Crusades have concluded). The reason for this classification is simple:

More than half of all Americans identify themselves as members of those two Christian denominations. National Public Radio reported in 2005 that 40 percent of active duty military personnel were evangelical Christians.

The state has a keen interest in labeling everybody a criminal. With so many Americans identifying with Catholicism or Protestantism it gives the state leverage over a large portion of the population if those people are considered extremists. In addition to leverage the state has never taken too kindly to religions that compete with statism, which is likely another reason for labeling people who identify with other religions as extremists.

The Government Isn’t Us

Barack Obama, during one of his speeches urging the American public to support the state’s efforts to disarm them, tried to argue against the idea that the people need firearms to protect themselves from the government:

You hear some of these quotes: “I need a gun to protect myself from the government.” “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away.”

Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. (Applause.) They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.

It’s interesting to hear a man that has personally ordered the murder of hundreds of people claim he is constrained. I also like how he tries to say that the government is legitimate because it was elected by “us.” I’m not entirely sure who he’s talking about but I certainly didn’t elect him or any of the other politicians currently occupying the country’s large marble buildings. They don’t represent me, my views, or my desires. Quite the opposite is true. They stand against everything I believe in. I am not the government, regardless of what Obama claims. If I was the government things would be different because my first and only act would be to entirely abolish the government. Interestingly enough that option isn’t available on any ballot so my views can’t be represented at the voting booth.

Obama can’t even claim the support of the majority of voters. During the 2012 presidential election Obama received 65,909,451 votes. According to the United States Census Bureau the number of eligible votes in 2010 (the most recent year data is available) there are approximately 229,700,000 [PDF] potential voters. That means Obama only enjoys the support of roughly 29% of potential voters. In other words the majority of eligible voters don’t support Obama and he therefore cannot claim to be elected by “us.”

Considering the majority of potential voters didn’t support Obama, the state accomplishes all of its goals by initiating violence against the general populace, and Obama has personally ordering hundreds of murders it’s pretty easy to understand why people feel the need to have some measure of protection against the government. It’s also easy to see why the government wants to ensure those measures are removed from the table. An entity that acquires wealth by stealing it from others has a vested interest in ensuring their victims are unarmed. This is true of muggers, burglars, scam artists, and the state.

Microsoft and the NYPD are Partnering to Spy on You

Fascism, the marriage between the state and private entities, is a lucrative business for both parties. Sadly, unlike mutual exchange, fascism involves more than the exchangers, it involves everybody who falls under the tyranny of the state, and those people always suffer from the unholy union. Last year Microsoft and the New York Police Department (NYPD) announced their partnership in expanding the police state. The two collaborated to create the Domain Awareness System, a system that integrates city-wide surveillance technology to assist the state in spying on the general populace. As it turns out this marriage stands to be very profitable for both parties as other cities are looking to implement the system:

A unique public-private partnership that joined gut-level police acumen with advanced computer algorithms is proceeding toward two goals that rarely coincide: The policing system is making New York safer and it will also make money for the city, which is marketing it to other jurisdictions.

In the six months since the Domain Awareness System was unveiled, officials of Microsoft, which designed the system with the New York Police Department, said they have been surprised by the response and are actively negotiating with a number of prospective buyers, whom Microsoft declined to identify.

“The interest from the United States has come from smaller municipalities, from sheriff’s departments, and police chiefs from several major cities,” said Dave Mosher, vice president of Microsoft Services. “Outside the U.S., large sporting events have approached us, and also law enforcement — people who are interested in providing public security.”

Buyers would pay to access the software (at least several million dollars and more depending on the size of the jurisdiction and whether specifications have to be customized). New York City will receive 30 percent of the gross revenues from the sale of the system and access to any innovations developed for new customers. The revenue will be directed to counterterrorism and crime prevention programs.

The state loves surveillance because it offers a method to expropriate wealth from the general populace without having to hire and pay additional enforcers. I’m not even slightly surprised that Microsoft and the NYPD have been met with such high demand. Let’s face it, most municipalities are hurting for money. The only way those books can be shored up is if more wealth can be expropriated from the general populace. In order to increase expropriation the governments of those municipalities must increase taxes, increase the number of issued citations, or both. Technology like the Domain Awareness System assists in increasing the number of issued citations because it allows enforcers to see more taxable vices (speeding, parking violations, etc.) and record evidence for a court case if a citation is challenged.

There is some goods news. Surveillance systems are vulnerable to a type of exploit known as smashing cameras and audio recording devices.

Absolute Equality

The left, progressives, collectivists, or whatever you want to call them have an overall obsession with equality. They want to see a world where everybody is perfectly equal in all regards. It’s a noble goal, although one that is impossible to achieve. Being impossible has never stopped the state from attempting something, and it periodically attempts to level the playing field, at least for the serfs (the state will never create a level playing field, it wants power to lord over the serfs). The state’s desire for equality manifests in odd, at least from an outside observer’s vantage point, ways. For example, the state continues to leverage its monopoly on declaring individuals criminals to create equality by declaring everybody a criminal. Having created enough decrees to label most adults criminals the state has moving on to declaring children criminals:

During his first term, President Barack Obama declared October 2009 to be “National Information Literacy Awareness Month,” emphasizing that, for students, learning to navigate the online world is as important a skill as reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a move that echoed his predecessor’s strong support of global literacy—such as reading newspapers—most notably through First Lady Laura Bush’s advocacy.

Yet, disturbingly, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) of both the Bush and Obama administrations have embraced an expansive interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that would literally make it a crime for many kids to read the news online. And it’s the main reason why the law must be reformed.

Equality an be achieved in our lifetime. No longer will there be a lower, middle, or upper class. There will only be a ruling and subservient class. Members of the subservient class will enjoy perfect equality as they all live in tiny concrete cells, eat gruel, and work as slave laborers for the ruling class. The only thing needed to secure this future is for the state to declare everybody a criminal, kidnap them, and lock them in a cage. At the rate things are going this utopian future isn’t far away.

New Contender for Dumbest Gun Control Statement

Once in a great while a new person steps up to the plate to challenge Carolyn McCarthy’s “I believe it is a shoulder thing that goes up.” response for dumbest gun control statement. Let me introduce you to Diana DeGette, a politician from Colorado. She has decided to take it upon herself to fill the large shoes left by McCarthy. She started off her challenge to McCarthy by stating that magazines are ammunition:

While participating in a public forum on gun control hosted by the Denver Post Tuesday, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Col., said that the number of magazines will decrease over time as shooters fire bullets, CNS News reported.

“What’s the efficacy of banning these magazine clips? I will tell you, these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now, they’re going to shoot them,” she said.

She went on to say that “the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will be shot and there won’t be any more available.”

Either nobody informed her that magazines can be reloaded or she’s trolling the living shit out of the shooting community. I would prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter but I’m fairly certain it’s the former. DeGette wasn’t satisfied with just one moronic statement though, she double down:

During a public forum on gun control hosted by the Denver Post Tuesday night, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Col., mocked a senior citizen who wondered how he was supposed to defend himself under the state’s new gun laws, Jim Hoft reported at the Gateway Pundit.

The audio was not very clear, but the man can be heard talking about being at a disadvantage when facing an armed criminal.

“The good news for you, you live in Denver. The Denver PD would be there within minutes,” she said to laughter.

“You’d probably be dead anyway,” she added, smirking.

I think she may have taken the title from McCarthy. While stating that a barrel shroud is a “shoulder thing that goes up.” is pretty dumb it’s still little more than a lack of technical knowledge. DeGette not only demonstrated a lack of technical knowledge but she also told a elderly gentleman that his life wasn’t worth protecting. In all likelihood DeGette assumed that the gentleman was retired and therefore no longer profitable to the state, which makes him worthless in the eyes of politicians. Still, most politicians at least have the good taste not to publicly say such things. In three sentences DeGette was able to tell the man that he doesn’t need a firearm because he has the police and the police aren’t going to save him so he’ll be dead anyways.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a politicians say “Shut up slave.” so insensitively. DeGette is going to be a politician to watch in the coming months.

The Real Reason So Many Laws Exist

Anybody reading federal or state statutes would quickly realize that there are a lot of damned laws on the books. Why does the state feel the need to enact so many laws? Somebody who believed the state exists to protect the general population would likely believe that all, or at least a majority, of those laws are necessary for the protection of the people. Those who understand the true nature of the state also understand that the reason for the large number of laws on the books is so the state has a means of threatening individuals into compliance. Alfred Anaya was a victime of that very tactic:

But in late January 2009, a man whom Anaya knew only as Esteban called for help with a more exotic product: a hidden compartment that Anaya had installed in his Ford F-150 pickup truck. Over the years, these secret stash spots—or traps, as they’re known in automotive slang—have become a popular luxury item among the wealthy and shady alike. This particular compartment was located behind the truck’s backseat, which Anaya had rigged with a set of hydraulic cylinders linked to the vehicle’s electrical system. The only way to make the seat slide forward and reveal its secret was by pressing and holding four switches simultaneously: two for the power door locks and two for the windows.

[…]

Sometime in late 2008, Anaya received a call from a customer who lived in the San Diego area. The man wanted him to fix a malfunctioning trap located in Tijuana. Anaya was scared to venture across the border; as much as he hated to renege on his warranty, he refused to go to Mexico.

Anaya thought he had protected himself by turning down the job, but the damage had been done the moment he answered the phone. This particular customer was the target of a DEA investigation, and agents had eavesdropped on their conversation. The DEA decided to tap Anaya’s phone too, in an effort to identify other drug traffickers who were having traps built by Valley Custom Audio.

[…]

The agents took Anaya to the DEA’s office in downtown Los Angeles, where they questioned him at length. Anaya spoke freely about his traps, estimating that he had built 15 over the past year. He even boasted about his perfectionism, stressing that he was always careful to conceal his wire harnesses.

The agents told Anaya that he could avoid any potential legal complications by doing them a big favor: They wanted him to outfit his clients’ cars with GPS trackers and miniature cameras, so the DEA could build cases against suspected traffickers. They told him to take a few days to mull over the offer, then they released him from custody.

The next day, a dazed Anaya drove to his father’s grave to meditate on the choice before him. The epiphany he had while kneeling by the headstone wasn’t comforting. “I had a feeling that no matter what decision I made, something bad was going to happen,” Anaya says. “But I couldn’t do anything that would put my family in danger.” And while he felt he could handle jail time, he worried that any trafficker big enough to interest the DEA would have no compunctions about killing his children, nieces, and nephews. That made the decision clear.

When Anaya told the DEA that he was too frightened to become an informant, the agents made a new, more enticing proposition: They would set up Valley Custom Audio in a deluxe storefront, complete with every piece of equipment that Anaya desired. They wouldn’t ask him to place any surveillance gadgets in cars, but the shop would be bugged from floor to ceiling.

Once again, Anaya refused.

On December 10, Anaya was arrested and subsequently charged in Los Angeles Superior Court for “false compartment activity.” He was initially denied bail, in part because an illegal assault rifle and a bulletproof vest had been discovered in his house during a police search. (“Y’know, hey, I like to shoot guns,” Anaya says unapologetically; he has two large pistols tattooed on his chest.) His lawyer advised him that, given his totally clean criminal record, he was unlikely to spend much time behind bars for such a minor offense.

But in March 2010, Anaya received grim and surprising news: The federal government was taking over the case, and it was going to prosecute him in Kansas—a state he had never set foot in.

Although Anaya did nothing illegal the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) used California’s law against building secret compartments to first coerce him. State agents gave him two options to avoid cage time: bug customer vehicles or work in a bugged garage. Both options carried a great deal of risk for Anaya and his family. Drug runners aren’t generally known for being nice people. They are attracted to the high payout that drug running offers and not put off by the fact that they could suffer a great deal of state violence. In fact knowing initiated violence is a likely outcome many of the people attracted to the drug trade are individuals who hold very few moral quarrels with using violence themselves. To protect themselves from state violence drug runners often employ violence against individuals who they fear will turn them over to the state. Thanks to the state the drug market is a vicious cycle of violence. Thanks to the DEA Anaya only had two options: face the violence of the state or face the potential violence of drug runners. He chose the violence of the state.

The reason for the vast number of laws on the books is simple; it gives the state a tool to coerce individuals with. If California didn’t have a law against creating secret compartments the DEA may not have had any leverage to use against Anaya. Thanks to the law they had a tool to threaten him with. Since Anaya didn’t fold under the threat of violence the DEA decided to make an example of him. Now the DEA can tell future compartment builders about Anaya, which may convince those builders to take their chances with the potential violence of drug runners instead of the state’s demonstrated violence.

Taxing Self-Defense

Do you want to protect yourself? If you live in Cook County you must now pay the state yet another fee in order to enjoy the privilege of self-defense:

Buying a gun in Cook County officially became more expensive this week.

A new $25 tax on every gun purchased in the county took effect Monday as part of County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s plan to pay for the violence she says crowds jails and drives up health care costs.

“Gun violence is a real problem for us,” Preckwinkle said when she proposed the tax in October. “It’s a problem for us in our criminal justice system and it’s a problem for us in our health care system, and I make no apologies for the proposal.”

When this tax was first proposed I pointed out that it had nothing to do with stopping violence. What this tax is aimed at is erecting another barrier between non-state individuals and the ability to defend themselves. Your life, in the eyes of the state, is less than worthless. The only way your life becomes worth anything to the state is to surrender a portion of your wealth to it. When you do that the state may be benevolent enough to allow you to preserve it but only so it can continue to extract wealth from you.

I do have some good news for those of you living in Cook County, there is an easy way to get around this tax. Instead of buying a firearm from a dealer in Cook County buy one on the “black” market. Buying on the “black” market allows you to avoid all of the hoops state-licensed dealers are forced to make you jump through and you can avoid buying a permission slip from the state to protect your life.

Paying Twice for Information

California is such an interesting state to watch. Not only is it the state that shows us what happens when you rely on the state for everything, it is currently giving us a glimpse of the aftermath of state reliance. One of the more laughable proposals being put forth by California’s state is double charging denizens for access to public information:

A proposal under consideration in California would significantly limit access to public information by levying a $10 fee any time anyone—including members of the public and the media—wants to look at a court case record in person. While EFF is certainly sympathetic to the budgetary woes facing all levels of government in California, this measure would trade transparency, citizen engagement and the power of a free press for a short-sighted fiscal stop-gap. On the whole, such a fee would do little to fix institutional spending problems while inflicting massive damage to the public trust.

Not only do you pay for the creation of this information through taxes, state issued fines, and other regulatory fees but now you can get pay to read it! On top of soaking California denizens for more money this proposal, from a more cynical point of view, may also discourage individuals from investigating the goings-on of the state they suffer under. If you want to know what dirty little deeds the political bureau of California is up to you’ll have to pay for the privilege.