Tag: Shut Up Slave

Big Brother is WWWatching You

There is a really good series on YouTube call The Rap News. The series consists of very well done videos discussing actual consequences of current news stories in a light hearted manner. Needless to say the latest video covers the surveillance state and fucking nails it:

The Internet is the last place where a truly open exchange of ideas can occur. Technology makes it too easy for the state to track down printing presses and radio transmitters so those options are no longer available. On the other hand the Internet is a global communication system where users can remain anonymous so long as they use the right tools. Yet the state continues to legislation the Internet, trying to kill it as they know it’s a threat to their power based. We must keep the Internet free of state intrusion at all costs. If we lose it we’re truly sunk because then the state will be able to have almost complete control over everything being said.

Let’s heed George Torwell’s advice.

Another Example of St. Paul’s Finest

How does the St. Paul Police Department handle a man lying on the ground? By kicking him in the face:

If anybody has any information pertaining to the arrest of the suspect (his badge number, car number, name, etc.) please report it immediately to any and all press outlets.

Destroying Incentives to Provide Services

What happens when a business owner, who requires the state’s permission to increase his prices, petitions to the state to increase his prices and is denied? He retires:

David Bryson, president of Champion’s Auto Ferry, blamed the MPSC’s refusal to grant a requested fare increase for his decision to retire and close the ferry service at a yet to be determined date.

[…]

“Our tariff was rejected even though we submitted detailed evidence that the traffic volumes were down 8% and that it has been almost 4 years since the last price adjustment,” Bryson wrote.

He said the commission refused to allow the ferry company to include pensions, leases, employee bonuses and legal costs in its operating expenses.

[…]

In his letter, Bryson also blasted the agency for publishing “Champion’s sensitive and detailed financial information on the internet, even though it was shared with you on a confidential basis.

“As a result of the Commission’s practice of applying ever more burdensome utility rules and standards to Champion, we find that we are essentially being regulated out of business and there is no longer any incentive to continue to provide this non-subsidized transportation service.”

Imagine that, when an individual is no longer able to make a profit on his work he no longer has an incentive to do that work. I’m sure Bryson’s announced retirement came as a shock to the regulators. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the regulators make a statement blasting Bryson for his “greed” and condemning him for taking away a “right” from the people he served. As much as I don’t like Ayn Rand’s philosophy she really did call it when it came to regulators destroying businesses.

Huckabee is a Funny Man

During an interaction with the press Huckabee demonstrated that he has quite the sense of humor:

“I don’t think they’ve been disrespected,” Huckabee told a gaggle of reporters as we walked through the convention center here near the Tampa Bay Times Forum. “Elections are about—you get numbers. I lost four years ago, and I didn’t feel disrespected as much as I felt defeated. You have to accept that the voters make a choice and the voters made a choice.”

He cracks me up. Elections are about votes? You just have to get the numbers? I guess that is true in a roundabout way. After the Republican Party threatened Nevada’s delegation with banishment if “too many” of them were Ron Paul supporters, had Ron Paul supporters arrested at a convention in Louisiana, invalidated Ron Paul delegates in Massachusetts, and prevented Ron Paul supporters in Maine from participating the vote certainly are in Romney’s favor.

It’s good to see that Huckabee isn’t bitter over his severe loss last election cycle and can still find the time to crack a joke or two at the expense of the political process.

Advocates of Liberty to the Back of the Bus

Reading this story leads me to believe the Republican Party doesn’t want the liberty advocates making a ruckus at the Republican National Convention (RNC):

The GOP is shoving the Ron Paul Revolution to the margins — of the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The Republican National Convention seating chart, obtained by POLITICO Sunday, shows the delegations from Nevada, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma all located on the outer fringe of the convention floor. Each are states with significant Paul followings.

The delegation for the Northern Mariana Islands, on the other hand, is right in front behind the gang from Michigan, birth state of Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Other groups with pretty good seats include those from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and American Samoa. None has electoral votes that can impact the outcome of the election.

I’m sure this is just a massive coincidence because I’ve been told time and time again that the Republican Party is the party where members truly have a say. Shoving off dissenters would be akin to censorship and we all know the Republican Party would never do anything like that.

Witch Hunt Failed to Find Any Witches

The New York Police Department (NYPD) have been performing witch hunts for terrorists since 9/11 by spying on Muslims. After spending more than six years secretly spying on every Muslim they could find NYPD failed to find any witches:

In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

I know this will come as a shock to many Americans who believe the state’s lies about every communist Muslim being a threat to liberty terrorist but for those of us that actually look beyond the state’s propaganda the result of NYPD’s witch hunt aren’t at all surprising. A vast majority of Muslims are everyday people who wish no harm on their fellow man. Condemning every Muslim for the actions of a handful of extremists is no different than claiming every Christian is a murdered because of the Crusades.

It’s doubtful that NYPD will cease spying on Muslims although they may begin weighing Muslims to see if they weigh the same as ducks.

Carry Permit Holders to the Back of the Bus

Not only is the University of Colorado Boulder segregating permit holders into “separate by equal” housing but one of the university’s instructors has state he will cancel any class that is attended by a lawfully armed student:

The state Supreme Court has made it clear that the University of Colorado can’t stop students with concealed-carry permits from bringing their guns to campus. But the chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly says if he ever discovers that any of his students are armed, class is over.

CU physics professor Jerry Peterson — speaking for himself Monday, not the faculty group he leads — said he wants his students to feel safe to engage in classroom discussions that could be controversial.

“My own personal policy in my classes is if I am aware that there is a firearm in the class — registered or unregistered, concealed or unconcealed — the class session is immediately canceled,” Peterson said. “I want my students to feel unconstrained in their discussions.”

In other words if there are any “undesirables” attending his class Peterson will cancel it. I wonder if his list of “undesirables” includes more than permit holders. Will he cancel class if there are homosexual or minority students present? Perhaps he’ll cancel class if a Jew or Muslim is present. I’m curious to know just how far Peterson’s bigotry goes.

Peterson’s stance should be a boon to students who are unprepared for class. Any student who fails to complete an assignment on time or isn’t prepared for a test need only accuse his neighbor of lawfully carrying a gun, at what point Peterson will cancel the class and the unprepared student will buy himself time (by the way, if you’re attending one of Peterson’s classes I highly recommend doing this).

That Didn’t Last Long

At the risk of being called a communist I expressed my support for the actions of activists in Oakland reopening a library that was abandoned and sealed by the city. Since tax victims were forced to pay for the building why shouldn’t they reopen it and get some kind of use from it? Only a violent entity more obsessed with authority and power than people would stand in the way of such an action. Needless to say the City of Oakland is more concerned with authority and power than people:

Books were still available for checkout Tuesday but from the sidewalk outside the vacant city building that briefly had been occupied as a “people’s library” before police shut it down.

Ten to 15 people left the property at 1449 Miller Ave., near International Boulevard, shortly after officers entered the building about 11 p.m. Monday and told activists they were trespassing, said Officer Johnna Watson, a police department spokeswoman.

Members of the makeshift library project, which drew many veteran activists, including some who had been part of Occupy Oakland, had been in the building since 7 a.m. Monday. The activists said the vacant building in the San Antonio neighborhood had been left unlocked.

After word spread on Facebook, about a dozen volunteers arrived and started stocking it with donated books and clearing out grime, old mattresses, graffiti and other markings. They put up a bilingual banner proclaiming the “Victor Martinez People’s Library,” named for the late Latino author.

That’s what the state does. It takes money from you at gunpoint to build a library, it then abandons the library and seals the building, and then it uses force to protect the abandoned building that was paid for by the community through the force of its gun.

Assange Granted Asylum

I don’t believe I’ve spent much time discussing WikiLeaks. In general it appears that WikiLeaks enjoys popular support on the Internet although there are a few statists who disagree with what the organization has done. WikiLeak’s critics usually cite the potential dangers that could be caused by the information they leak. It is my belief that any country willing to murder its own citizens without so much as a trail has forfeit any right to keep secrets. It’s obvious that the United States government cannot be trusted with secrets and thus I entirely support any attempt to leak confidential state information.

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julius Assange, has obviously pissed off the wrong people (or the right people, depending on how you look at it). To avoid being extradited Assange sought asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London, which was granted. The United Kingdom, apparently hellbent on arresting Assange, threatened to invade the Ecuadorian embassy:

“Today we received from the United Kingdom an express threat, in writing, that they might storm our embassy in London if we don’t hand over Julian Assange,” he said.

“Ecuador rejects in the most emphatic terms the explicit threat of the British official communication.”

He said such a threat was “improper of a democratic, civilised and rule-abiding country”.

He added: “If the measure announced in the British official communication is enacted, it will be interpreted by Ecuador as an unacceptable, unfriendly and hostile act and as an attempt against our sovereignty. It would force us to respond.

“We are not a British colony.”

Embassies are considered sovereign soil and an invasion of an embassy can be treated as an invasion of the embassy’s country. In essence the United Kingdom are willing to threaten war against Ecuador in order to arrest Assange. I think Nigel Farage’s tweet summed up the situation concisely:

The EU arrest warrant has made us so subservient to the EU we’re now storming the territory of another country in their name.

It’ll be interesting to see this story play out. Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuador embassy but the United Kingdom government has stated they won’t guarantee safe passage for Assange to leave the country:

Though the UK government says it wants to continue talks, it says flatly that it will not guarantee Mr Assange safe passage out of the country and will not compromise over its obligation to extradite him to Sweden.

This guy has obviously pissed off some higher ups, something that should be commended. I hope he survives but if things are this bad I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with an assassin’s bullet in his head. The state doesn’t tolerate those who stand against it and will happily employ violence to silence them.

The State Wants to Take Everybody’s Stuff

The state exists for one reason and one reason only, to grant the ability of a few to take wealth from the many. It doesn’t matter if you’re a wealthy businessman or a seven year-old girl:

A 7-year-old Connecticut girl will lose her 20-pound pet rabbit if North Haven officials get their way.

Zoning Enforcement Officer Arthur Hausman issued a cease-and-desist order to the Lidsky family two weeks ago, informing them that they were violating town zoning regulations because their property was smaller than the 2 acres required to keep rabbits and other types of livestock.

Whether it’s your money, guns, or giant rabbits the state wants to take it all.