Tag: You Can’t Cure Stupid

Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Lies?

I admit that my bullshit detector isn’t perfect but I think it’s pretty well calibrated. One of the things that always raises a red flag on my bullshit detector are stories that seem to be a little too perfect for a group or individual. When the news broke that immigrants were running rampant and sexually assaulting women in Germany the story raised a few red flags. It just fit too perfectly into the alt-right’s narrative. Of course I had nothing but a gut feeling to go on since I can’t read German (yet) so I was relegated to the sources available to me. As it turns out, my bullshit detector wasn’t wrong:

But police confirmed on Tuesday to the Frankfurter Rundschau that their investigation of the allegations had led them to believe that they were spurious.

“Interviews with alleged witnesses, guests and employees led to major doubts with the version of events that had been presented,” the police said.

“One of the alleged victims was not even in Frankfurt at the time the allegations are said to have taken place.”

The police were indeed unequivocal in how they understood the events to have unfolded.

“Masses of refugees were not responsible for any sexual assaults in the Fressgass over New Year. The accusations are completely baseless,” the police said.

Before the Bild report, no sexual assaults were reported to police from Fressgass over New Year.

I’m sure the alt-right will either completely ignore this story or explain it away as a conspiracy by the police to coverup immigrant crime.

The first casualty of politics is language. The second is the truth. Usually the former is used for the latter. But sometimes the truth is killed by good old fashioned lying.

More Security Theater at the TSA

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has a sordid record when it comes to airport security. Since airport security is the agency’s primary job and it hasn’t been doing an effective job at providing security you might expect it to, you know, try to improve its capabilities. Instead the agency has been doubling down on security theater. But the best part is that the agency realizes that its efforts are theater:

If you’ve ever suspected that the TSA’s airport behavior screening (where it looks for visual signs of lying or stress) was just another example of ineffective security theater, you now have some science to back up your hunches. Thanks to a lawsuit, the ACLU has obtained TSA files showing that the organization has pushed and even expanded its “behavior detection” program despite a lack of supporting evidence. While the TSA maintains that it can detect signs of shady activity through fidgeting, shifty eyes and other visual cues, studies in its files suggest just the opposite — you’d have just as much success by choosing at random. And those are in controlled conditions, not a busy airport where anxiety and stress are par for the course.

The TSA hasn’t thwarted a single terrorist attack since it was founded. It hasn’t even done anything noteworthy in the field of security. The only thing the agency has managed to do is bolster the profits of bottled water manufacturers by stealing air travelers’ water and forcing them to buy more inside of “secure” areas. Yet this agency continues to exist. It continues to exist because the government that established it believes stealing your money and giving it to one of its entirely ineffective agency is fiscally responsible.

The next time some statist dipshit tells you that taxes aren’t high enough remind them that a ton of tax money is being irresponsibly dumped into agencies like the TSA.

He Had Won the Victory Over Himself

I admit that the aftermath of this election has been fascinating. While the current occupant of the White House means almost nothing to me (it means a little bit to me simply because the occupant gives me a lot of blogging material) I do enjoy seeing people’s reactions to the election.

The political left has been entertaining because they suddenly found a love of firearms, suppressing free speech, limiting the State, opposing war, and other political positions that they were entirely against during Obama’s reign. Likewise, the political right has been busy throwing out their supposed principles by finding a love of executive orders and suppressing sedition.

But the most entertaining crowds, in my opinion, are self-proclaimed libertarians an anarchists. It has been fun watching Stefan Molyneux transform from a minor cult leader with anarchist leanings into a full blown statist with a huge chubby for keeping foreigners out of his beloved fatherland. Christopher Cantwell has gone from a loud and obnoxious but mostly harmless libertarian to total fascist with a fetish for helicopters. But nobody has provided me with more entertainment for my buck than Alex Jones. Alex Jones, a humble water filter salesman, was once obsessed with the idea that the governments of the world were creating a new world order that had the express purpose of enslaving all of humanity. Now? Now he’s willing to lay down his life for his reptilian shape shifting overlords:

ALEX JONES (HOST): Trump is so fire-breathing, so energetic, so cunning, so real, and he’s having results so amazing that it just makes me endeared to Trump – I’m ready to die for Trump, at this point. And I’m already ready to die for America, it’s the same feeling I have for America, because he is America, you’re America.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

The New Secretary of the Department of Government Indoctrination

Betsy DeVos was confirmed as the Education Secretary yesterday:

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos on Tuesday as education secretary, approving the embattled nominee only with the help of a historic tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence.

The 51-to-50 vote elevates Ms. DeVos — a wealthy donor from Michigan who has devoted much of her life to expanding educational choice through charter schools and vouchers, but has limited experience with the public school system — to be steward of the nation’s schools.

The only thing newsworthy about this is the fact that it was getting so much goddamn media coverage than even I heard about it. Why did the nomination of a secretary to a government department get so much media coverage? I have no idea. But I hope other nominations don’t have the same coverage because there are far more interesting things going on in the world.

Still, I’m entertained by the aftermath. People genuinely cared about this nomination. Those who didn’t support DeVos are genuinely upset over her confirmation.

Here’s the thing, the Education Secretary doesn’t matter if you don’t put your children into a government indoctrination center. A lot of people figured this out some time ago. Instead of letting the government brainwash their children under the guise of providing an education they opted to enroll their children into a private institution, homeschool their children, unschool their children, or chose some other means of providing their children with an actual education.

There’s a valuable lesson in DeVos’ nomination for those who are upset that she’s not running the Department of Education. If you place your children into a government indoctrination center they’re going to be indoctrinated by whoever is currently controlling the government. If your political opposition controls the government then they will be indoctrinating your children.

Republicans Move to Sell Land They Don’t Own

I’ve seen quite a few friends flipping out over this news:

Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans’ public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling “step two” in the GOP’s plan to offload federal property.

The new piece of legislation would direct the interior secretary to immediately sell off an area of public land the size of Connecticut. In a press release for House Bill 621, Chaffetz, a Tea Party Republican, claimed that the 3.3m acres of national land, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), served “no purpose for taxpayers”.

What amuses me isn’t the face that I have friends flipping out over this, it’s that they believe the government has any right to the land in the first place.

The State, being an illegitimate organization, cannot legitimately own anything. Yet it claims ownership over a great deal of land in the Western United States. Now it believes it has the right to sell that unowned land. And for some reason people are not only happy to play along with this charade but they’re upset that the State is planning to sell the land because they want it to remain in the State’s hands!

This is why I don’t give a shit about politics. Politics isn’t an act of legitimate parties trying to resolve disputes. It’s an act of two sides arguing over things neither of them have any right to involve themselves with in the first place. This issue is a prime example. Two sides are arguing over whether or not the State should sell a particular chunk of land. One side says it should sell the land and the other side says it should keep the land. But neither side has any right to decide what should be done with the land because they don’t own it.

In order to involve yourself in the political process you must first accept falsities. Why waste time arguing over falsities?

We’ve Always Been at War with Eastasia

The hits seem to keep coming. First Trump issued an executive order to build a multi-billion dollar wall that will serve no meaningful purpose. Then he issued an execute order banning people from victims nations the United States is bombing from traveling to their tormentor’s realm. Now it appears that he’s planning to issue an executive order to boot out poor legal immigrants:

Now, with the huddled masses yearning to breathe free taken care of, the Trump administration is coming for your tired and your poor. Or so a draft executive order obtained by Vox and the Washington Post seems to suggest.

[…]

But the Trump administration’s draft order would change that, by instructing the Department of Homeland Security to bar immigrants from the U.S. if they are likely to receive any means-tested benefit at all.

More radically, the order would subject visa holders who are already in the U.S. to deportation, if they use public benefits above a certain threshold. And — just in case that isn’t enough to keep non-wealthy foreigners away from our shores — the order would require the friend or family member who sponsored the deported immigrant to reimburse the federal government for the cost of the benefits he or she used.

While opponents of Trump flip out about is executive orders anybody who is well read on history or has ready Nineteen Eighty-Four knows exactly what’s going on here. The health of the State is fear. Fear is what allows the State to continuously expand its power. Without an enemy there is no fear. What Trump and his administration are doing is the same thing previous administrations have done, they’re creating an enemy.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union the enemy was always communists. Before the enemy was communists it was always the Jews. Before it was the Jews it was always the Chinese. United States history, and the history of almost every nation on Earth, is a constantly changing stage of boogeymen.

I doubt Trump or anybody in his administration has any real feelings about immigrants one way or another. All they know is that immigrants are outsiders and outsiders always make a good enemy.

On Immigrants and Freedom

Neoconservatives, the alt-right, and even a lot of libertarians are unable to contain their enthusiasm for Trump’s order to build a wall between Mexico and the United States. Why would these supposedly fiscally conservative individuals cheer on the construction of a multi-billion dollar wall that won’t accomplish anything? Because they are under the mistaken belief that a mass migration of immigrants into the United States will cause a loss of individual liberty. Like the boogeyman, this is an entirely imaginary fear as Dr. Robert Higgs so eloquently explained on Facebook:

When Your Organization Collides with Poe’s Law

Nathan Poe once commented that, “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.” From that statement arose Poe’s Law, which states that it’s impossible to tell the difference between somebody holding an extreme position and a parody of somebody holding an extreme position.

For some time I’ve suspected that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an elaborate parody of animal rights activists. It seems that the organization has been performing increasingly outlandish stunts and making increasingly absurd demands in the hope that somebody will finally realize that the entire organization is one giant troll:

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals affiliate in London is asking developers at Games Workshop to ban animal furs from its Warhammer 40,000 board game.

[…]

The group spoke out on the issue in a blog post by PETA UK’s digital marketing manager, Dan Howe.

“[N]othing on the bloody battlefields of Warhammer’s conflict-ravaged universe could match the terrible reality that foxes, minks, rabbits, and other living beings experience at the hands of the fur trade,” Mr. Howe wrote.

I’ve never played Warhammer 40,000 but I’ve been down several Wikipedia wormholes about its backstory. Warhammer 40,000 is probably the darkest universe every conceived by man. We’re talking about a universe where hundreds or thousands of people are sacrificed every day to keep a decaying emperor alive because he is the only thing that stands between humanity and forces far worse than hundreds or thousands of humans dying every day. It’s like somebody took a black metal album and turned it into a story for a war game (which is to say it’s pretty fucking awesome). And PETA’s biggest gripe with it is that some characters wear fur.

I’ve said it before and I’ll double down on it now, PETA isn’t actually an animal rights organization. It’s a parody of an animal rights organization that is desperately trying to find an act or demand so outlandish that the world will finally figure it out.

Armed Revolution

Remember the good old days when neocons were whispering about armed revolution and neoliberals criticized them for it? Remember the standoff at the Bundy Ranch and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation where neocons traveled to help with the armed standoff? Remember the neoliberals calling those neocons traitors and wanted the feds to send in the troops to take them all out?

Now the neoliberals are whispering about armed revolution and neocons are criticizing them for it. Last year Time was already trying to start a tax protests. Within the last week we’ve had a Nazi get punched, Madonna talk about blowing up the White House, and a Dallas school teacher shooting an image of Trump with a squirt gun while yelling “Die!” In each one of these cases neoliberals justified these acts and even called for more while neocons labeled the perpetrators traitors and want the feds to throw the book at them.

Those two groups were made for each other. I just wish that they would hurry up and fuck and get it over with.

Where Criminals Get Their Guns

Where do criminals get their guns? From other criminals:

Police are searching for the person who broke into an unmarked Ramsey County, Minn., sheriff’s car and stole an AR-15 rifle with a loaded magazine.

St. Louis Park police and the Ramsey County sheriff’s office are both very tight lipped about this unusual theft, executed Friday night by someone who seems to have known exactly what they were after and just how to steal it.

It amuses me that either the police or the author of this story saw fit to make the crime look more complex than it was. By “…someone who seems to have known exactly what they were after and just how to steal it.” the author means that the thief knew how to break open a car door and pry a firearm from a cheap locking mount. When criminals do that to a nongovernment car it’s usually referred to as a smash and grab. When criminals do that to a government car it’s referred to as an unusual theft executed by a highly cunning individual.

I know two people who have had firearms stolen from their vehicles (ironically, in both cases, the guns were in their vehicles because they had to enter a gun-free zone). In both cases the individuals did their due diligence to secure the gun but one can only do so much when it comes to securing something in an automobile. And in both cases the individuals called the police who showed up and spent most of their time giving a sermon about not leaving valuable items in plain site (which they hadn’t done). It amuses me that the police don’t appear to be giving themselves a stern talking to about leaving valuables in plain sight.