Tag: Superdickery

Silencing the Opposition

While the court system is used from time to time to settle legitimate disputes between individuals, it’s becoming more and more common for the court system to be used to silence dissenting voices. That’s what’s happening in Waller Country, Texas:

A Texas county sued a gun-rights activist who has complained that county officials were unlawfully barring firearms from being brought into a public building.

[…]

Holcomb has sent letters to more than 75 local governments and other public entities across the state complaining of restrictions placed on license-holders from bringing a firearm into a public arena. Others have filed complaints with the Texas attorney general’s office accusing Austin City Hall, the Dallas Zoo, a nature preserve, a suburban Houston convention center and other places with unlawfully banning firearms. Those complaints are on top of regular fights that rage in Texas over guns, most recently with lawmakers approving the concealed carry of firearms on college campuses.

Texas Carry, the organization Mr. Holcomb is an executive director of, has been notifying a lot of locations that their firearm prohibitions are unlawful. What was the response they received? In the case of Waller County they filed a lawsuit against Mr. Holcomb:

Holcomb argues that the “heavy-handed” decision by Waller County to sue him makes his case much more than a Second Amendment matter.

“We can agree or disagree on the gun issue but this is different than that,” he said, contending that the county’s suit is frivolous and “borderline official oppression.”

There’s nothing borderline about it. Filing a lawsuit against somebody for brining up the fact that your prohibition may be unlawful is outright official oppression. The county, of course, is claiming that Mr. Holcomb misunderstands the intention of the lawsuit and that the fact the lawsuit is seeking $100,000 in damages was a clerical error. But the supposed goals of the county, to received an official court ruling on the matter of whether or not an entire courthouse facility can prohibit firearms, could have been easily accomplished without suing Mr. Holcomb.

What seems more likely is that the lawsuit was filed to punished Mr. Holcomb. Even if he managed to win the lawsuit he would face notable legal expenses that could likely only be recouped by filing a countersuit. Lawsuits send a clear message to the public, which is that anybody causing trouble for the State will be legally harassed at a minimum.

I hope this lawsuit is dismissed for what it is, a thinly veiled attempt to punish Mr. Holcomb for not being a good little slave.

The Armed Robbery Epidemic in Minnesota

Did you know there was a rash of armed robberies in Minnesota last month? You wouldn’t have known it from the headlines since the media seemed more interesting in covering the dumpster fires that are the presidential campaigns. But during the month of July over 13,000 Minnesotans were victimized of armed robbers:

ST. PAUL, Minn. – More than 13,000 motorists are a few bucks poorer after being ticketed during a recent statewide speed enforcement crackdown.

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) says officers, deputies and state troopers wrote 13,214 citations for unsafe speeds during the crackdown, that was carried out by more than 300 law enforcement agencies between July 8 and July 22. That compares with 16,410 speeding tickets issued during last year’s campaign.

There were also 1,543 seat belt citations compared with 2,101 in 2015, which suggests a bit of progress in the campaign to improve driving and road safety in Minnesota.

Oh, I guess I was mistaken. Since the men with guns who were robbing people had magic suits and badges these incidents weren’t labeled armed robbery but “traffic citations.” We truly live in a world of Orwellian doublespeak.

I think an important question must be asked now, why were these officers sitting on the highways looking for prey instead of solving crimes? I’ve been told by many statists that there aren’t enough police officers to deal with all of the crime. If that’s the case why are they sitting in their cars instead of finding muggers, rapists, murderers, and thieves?

This is why I roll my eyes whenever some boot licker tells me that I’m only free to criticize cops because the cops are keeping me safe from criminals. The police don’t seem very interested in dealing with criminals. Most of their time seems to be invested in harassing motorists exceeding an arbitrarily chosen speed, kidnaping people using recreational chemicals, and shooting the neighbors of people selling those recreational chemicals (apparently the officers can afford to fuel a BearCat but can’t afford somebody to double-check addresses before a raid).

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Chelsea Manning did the American people a service by leaking a great deal of information concerning the government’s activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. For her efforts she was subjected to a military trail and tossed in a cage. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the prospects of being in a cage for the remainder of her life got to her and she attempted suicide. In response the State decided to do what the State does and indulge its sadism:

These new charges, which Army employees verbally informed Chelsea were related to the July 5th incident, include, “resisting the force cell move team;” “prohibited property;” and “conduct which threatens.” If convicted, Chelsea could face punishment including indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security, and an additional nine years in medium custody. They may negate any chances of parole.

Instead of providing Manning the psychological help she needs, the State is planning on making her torment even worse but subjecting her to solitary confinement (which they did to her when she was being held while awaiting trail). This isn’t about justice, it’s about a sick desire for revenge. She disobeyed the State and now the State doesn’t merely want to punish her, it wasn’t to torture her for the rest of her life. It really is akin to the Room 101 scene from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Don’t Think of It as Rigging, Think of It as Investing

This year’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) may be the greatest public display of cognitive dissonance in history. Through leaked e-mails we’ve learned that the Democratic Party primaries were being manipulated by the DNC to favor Hillary. I was hoping that Bernie’s supporters were going to react by flipping every table at the DNC and storming out. Instead many of them are latching onto the suspicion that the e-mails were acquired by Russia as fact and using that to sweep the entire affair under the rug. Apparently factual information ceases being factual if Russia acquired it.

Political corruption is nothing new. Politics itself is an exercise in corruption. But the e-mails give us an interesting insight into the payoffs. Take the DNC’s former chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The leaked e-mails revealed that she used her position to rig the election in Hillary’s favor. Although this revelation forced her to resign, she was immediately snapped up by the Hillary campaign:

Ms. Wasserman Schultz was widely criticized during the Democratic primary by supporters of Bernie Sanders of using her position at the DNC to tip the race toward Mrs. Clinton. At least some of that was confirmed at the weekend by the release by Wikileaks of internal DNC emails, which forced her to announce her resignation Sunday.

But in a reaction statement to reporters Sunday, Mrs. Clinton gave Ms. Wasserman Schultz a soft landing by announcing that she would join the Clinton campaign.

Corruption is becoming more blatant now than ever before. It used to be that a scandal like this would require somebody like Wasserman Schultz to stay out of the public limelight for at least a few weeks before joining another political organization. Now corrupt politicos can jump right into the next political organization and nobody gives a damn.

Wasserman Schultz is just one example of the corruption going on in the DNC. Another example revealed by the leaked e-mails is how the DNC planned to give large donors federal appointments:

Democratic National Committee documents recently released by WikiLeaks include spreadsheets and emails that appear to show party officials planning which donors and prominent fundraisers to provide with appointments to federal boards and commissions.

[…]

The records, which WikiLeaks released along with nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails and other documents on Friday, also expose one of the Beltway’s worst kept secrets: that wealthy politicos can often buy their way to presidential appointments.

Worst kept secret is right. Like most corrupt activity that occurs in the political realm, the fact that big donors received special privileges was well known. What these e-mails provided was proof. Writing off accusations of such payoffs can no longer be relegated to the realm of conspiracy theories.

What’s the lesson from these leaked e-mails? The same lesson we always learn about democratic systems: your vote doesn’t matter. Every dollar and hour donated to Bernie’s campaign was wasted. Not only did Bernie sell out in the end by endorsing Hillary, but he had no chance of winning anyways because the DNC itself was manipulating things behind the scenes to ensure Hillary received the nomination. Bernie, effectively, only existed to create the illusion that there was a choice for the Democratic Party presidential nominee. But the DNC had already decided on its candidate and from there on it was predestined that Hillary would win by hook or by crook.

Submit, Slave

Remember what I said in the previous post about the police not liking any of our government granted privileges? Here’s another example:

[Waterbury Conn.] Police Chief Vernon L. Riddick Jr. brought a message of cooperation with police to a mostly African-American crowd of more than 200 people at Mount Olive A.M.E. Zion Church on Wednesday night.

If an officer stops your car, if they ask to search your person or vehicle, if they demand entry into your home, comply and then complain later to the department’s internal affairs office and police chief’s office if you feel your rights have been violated, Riddick said.

In other words, when an officer asks to search your vehicle or home you should just roll over and be a good little slave.

The exact opposite is true however. If an officer requests to search your property the only response you should give them is, “Come back with a warrant.” Officers asking to search your property are on fishing expeditions. They’re asking permission because they don’t believe they have enough grounds to get a warrant issued. Fishing expeditions can’t help you but they certain can hurt you. As police are required to tell you when reading you your Miranda warnings, anything you say can and will be used against you in court. Likewise, anything an officer finds during a fishing expedition can and will be used against you in court.

Always keep in mind that the police are out to get you. That’s their job. The politicians pass laws and then task the police with finding and dealing with anybody who breaks them. Many of these laws, such as traffic citations and drug offenses, include a nice kickback to the department that makes the arrest. So do yourself a favor and always exercise what few privileges you have against the police.

Implied Licenses are Bullshit

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been thoroughly fucking over people in the United States since 1998. One of the things that the DMCA accomplished was effectively abolishing property rights on anything that includes copyrighted material. This has had wide reaching ramifications including preventing farmers from repairing their own equipment:

In fact, the craziness of this goes even further: In a 2015 letter to the United States Copyright Office, John Deere, the world’s largest tractor maker, said that the folks who buy tractors don’t own them, not in the way the general public believes “ownership” works. Instead, John Deere said that those who buy tractors are actually purchasing an “implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”

[…]

But what this has meant is that tractor owners can’t repair their own tractors—and if they do, they’re in violation of the DMCA. So, if a machine stops working, its owner can’t pop the hood, run some tests, and find out what’s going on; he or she is legally required to take the tractor to a service center (one owned by the manufacturer, since that’s the only entity allowed to analyze the tractor’s issues).

I’m against the concept of copyright, in part, because it is an implied license.

That is to say it’s a contractual agreement that the purchaser didn’t agree to. If you manufacture something and want to restrict the user of that thing then you need to get them to agree to contractual terms. For example, if you want to sell a book and prevent the buyer form copying it then you need to write up a contract that states the signer agrees not to copy the book and include penalties if the contract is broken. Then you need to convince the buyer to agree to it.

Copyright doesn’t work that way though. When you buy a book you don’t sign a contract binding you to an agreement not to copy the book. The agreement is implied, which is a fancy way of saying you were bound to it involuntarily. As the article notes, John Deere stated in a letter to the United States Copyright Office that people who had purchased its equipment were restricted by an implied license. The company is changing the rules after the fact by trying to force an agreement upon farmers through the State. In any sane sense of contract theory that is nonsense but in the statist interpretation it’s a perfectly sound method of getting buyers to agree to specific terms.

People should not be subject to involuntary agreements of any sort and nobody should be allowed to change an agreement willy nilly after the fact without the other party agreeing to those changes.

Like You and Me, Only Better

Online harassment is pervasive. Death threats on the Internet are a dime a dozen and if you’re a woman there’s a good chance punk kids are going to subject you to a constant stream of variations on “Show me your tits,” followed by accusations that you’re a whore and should be killed. Anybody who has played online games has probably lost track of how many times pissed off children have claimed to have slept with their mother and challenged them to a fight in real life.

I’ve received enough threats online that I could paper my living room walls if I printed them all off but I mostly ignore them because I don’t really care. However, if you do feel the threats are credible and report them to the police you’ll likely receive little more than a shrug and a claim that there’s nothing the department can do. Things are a bit different when the harassment is aimed at police officers though:

Five police officers were killed in the Dallas shootings, constituting the highest number of police casualties in an attack since September 11. And as a result, law enforcement officials everywhere are suddenly much more sensitive to threats against their lives.

But one result has been that several police departments across the country have arrested individuals for posts on social media accounts, often from citizen tips — raising concerns among free speech advocates.

The police are like you and me, only better.

Another issue here, as pointed out by The Intercept, is free speech. A lot of people will argue that since many of the posts in question were threatening in nature that free speech doesn’t apply. But statements such as “I have no problem shooting a cop for simple traffic stop cuz they’d have no problem doing it to me,” aren’t threats in my opinion because the person is stating an opinion, not a course of action that they’re planning to pursue. If the statement had been “I will shoot any cop for pulling me over,” then it could been seen differently as the statement is expressing a potential planned course of action (of course it could also been seen as a statement expressing a willingness to defend one’s self). But then questions of means must be answered because a threat is meaningless if the person making it doesn’t have the means to go through with it.

Regardless of your opinions on threats in regards to freedom of speech, there is no question that the police are treating people who threaten them online different than people who threaten regular Janes and Joes. It’s no different than a politician who argues regular people shouldn’t be allowed to carry a gun but then carries a gun themselves or hires armed body guards to protect them.

The Minneapolis Police Department is a Bit Red in the Face

The Minneapolis Police Department is well known for its high speed, low drag attitude. Instead of deescalation and conflict avoidance the MPD prefers throwing down with anybody it can create an excuse to throw down with. In fact the department is so cocksure that it didn’t even try to hide its love of violence in its recent recruiting video. However, many people weren’t amused by the video so the MPD was a bit red in the fact and decided to abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in an attempt to erase the video from the Internet:

Less than a week after an officer from a nearby force shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop, leaving him to die in front of his child and girlfriend (and the world on livestream) the Minneapolis Police Department has perjured itself in issuing a copyright takedown notice to Youtube in order to suppress a controversial recruiting video that depicted the jobs of MPD officers as being a firearms-heavy shoot-em-up.

The video had attracted alarm and criticism by officials and the public, who saw it as indicative of a deep culture of violent, shoot-first policing in the Minneapolis police.

When you start repeating a lie often enough you also start to believe it. The MPD believes that their job is to be domestic soldiers. Who are they at war with? The people. At least that’s the only enemy that exists in Minneapolis because the city isn’t really known for being in a state of civil war. That leads the department to choose violence before deescalation. At this point the attitude is so prevalent that the department’s recruiters can’t even make their recruitment videos looks like anything other than an Army recruitment video. When their videos are finally criticized by the public the MPD resorts to its default tactic, government violence, by threatening anybody hosting the video with a DMCA takedown notice.

Giuliani Wants Black Parents to Raise Their Kids to be Better Slaves

I’m a firm believer that respect is earned, not given. But I’m also not a statist. In the mind of a statist respect is owed to anybody in a position of authority, no matter how ridiculous the authority is. With the police’s war on the people being waged across the country a bunch of statists have gone into victim blaming mode. Rudolph Giuliani, the former warden of New York City, made sure to take time out of his day to blame black people for not being good enough slaves:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani thinks black Americans need to worry less about police violence and more about teaching their children to respect police and fear other black people.

In light of the killings of five police officers in Dallas last week, Giuliani went off on the Black Lives Matter movement, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. He called the slogan “inherently racist” and “anti-American,” while neglecting statistics that show black people are disproportionately targeted by police.

“There’s too much violence in the black community,” he said. “[I]f you want to deal with this on the black side, you’ve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police and you’ve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police; the real danger to them, 99 out of 100 times, 9,900 out of 1,000 times, are other black kids who are gonna kill them. That’s the way they’re gonna die.”

Why should anybody respect the police? They spend most of their time enforcing victimless laws such as drug use, driving faster than arbitrarily selected speeds, parking in the wrong place or for the wrong amount of time, and other such nonsense that their department usually get a nice payout for. Meanwhile, if you call the police because somebody has broken into your home and is trying to murder you you might be left waiting for hours, if the police dispatch anybody at all. If a burglar breaks into your home and steals your valuable the only purpose the police generally serve is giving you a report that you can give to your insurance company.

In other words, the police aren’t working to earn our respect so why should people be expected to respect them? If Giuliani actually cared about reducing the number of deaths of black children, or anybody else for that matter, he would be demanding an end to the drug war, which is probably the single largest contributor to police militarization in this nation. After ending the drug war he could move to advocate for the repeal of all victimless crimes so that the police were focused on something other than revenue generation. But he doesn’t give a shit. He’s just upset because he can’t own a few black people to perform manual labor for him anymore.

Incentives Matter

I’ve been focusing a lot on the law enforcers as of late but I think it’s important to also take a look at the people who create the laws. Specifically, what incentives they put forward for enforcing different laws.

What does a law enforcement department receive when they solve a murder, robbery, or rape? Perhaps some respect from the community and the gratitude of the victims.

What does a law enforcement department receive when they go after a suspected drug user or seller? A percentage of the proceeds from the property taken under civil forfeiture.

What does a law enforcement department receive when they write a traffic citation? Here in Minnesota, as I’m sure is true with most other states, a percentage goes to the cities, which usually give that money back to their law enforcement department.

The law enforcers are focusing on the crimes that the politicians have incentivized them to focus on. The fact that the politicians are incentivizing crimes such as drug manufacturing, selling, and use over murder, robbery, and rape should be damning.