Tag: Your Government Doesn’t Love You

Happy Loyalty Day You Stupid Serfs

Are you a good an obedient serf? Do you always do what your oligarchs commands of you? If so I have good news. Today is your day! That’s right, today is Loyalty Day:

In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2014, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.

For those of you not familiar with the history of Loyalty Day, it was first observed during the First Red Scare as a response to uppity socialists who chose May 1st to remember the 1886 Haymarket Massacre. During the Second Red Scare Congress passed observance of Loyalty Day into law.

It might seem pretty absurd that Congress would waste time passing the observance of Loyalty Day into law but when you look at the big picture it makes sense. The United States government opted for fascism, which made socialism its ideological enemy (national socialists really hate international socialists and vice versa). Hoping to stomp out its ideological rivals the United States government worked very hard to instill hatred of international socialism in the American people. This resulted in many stupid things included two Red Scares, the Cold War, and an absolutely retarded level of nationalism. Loyalty Day is merely the result of the retarded level of nationalism that exists in this country.

Now get out there, wave your flag, and pledge your lifelong obedience to the oligarchs that run this nation!

Regulation Nation

For being the freest nation on Earth (no, seriously, that’s why my patriotic friends tell me) the United States sure has a lot of red tape. I think the the term “regulation nation” accurately describes the United States. After all, if the costs of complying with its regulations were a nation it would be the 10th largest economy on Earth:

After years of rapid growth during the Obama administration, the cost of federal regulations is now bigger than the entire economies of all but nine countries in the world.

That’s according to the latest annual report on the regulatory state issued by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, titled “Ten Thousand Commandments.”

Suddenly the fact that the average bank regulator makes more money than the average banker makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of money sunk into regulatory compliance and all of that money is entirely wasted (unless you believe investing in an institution that bombs the shit out of foreign nations is productive).

There are a lot of people looking for work at the moment. Once in a while one of these poor souls will ask me what I think a good career move would be. My first question is always “Do you have any moral issue working for criminals?” Surprisingly nobody who has asked me for advice has answered in the negative to that question. But if they had I would then tell them to get a government job. That’s where the real money is made. You usually have to start out as a peon but you can quickly work your way up the ladder. When you get high enough on the ladder you gain authority and connections. The authority is there for personal amusement and allows you to get revenge on all of those kids who laughed at you in elementary school. Connections, on the other hand, are a valuable currency because when you rub enough elbows with enough government bureaucrats you can whore yourself out to a regulatory commission, lobbyist group, or non-profit organization. After that you really rake in the cash!

America is still a land of opportunity, so long as you have questionable or entirely absent morales. As the linked story shows government is a growth industry!

Pentagon to Destroy $1 Billion in Ammunition; Paul Krugman Applauds Its Efforts to Stimulate the Economy

Only an organization so vast, inefficient, and dumb could put itself into a position where it willingly destroys $1 billion worth of ammunition:

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to destroy more than $1 billion worth of ammunition although some of those bullets and missiles could still be used by troops, according to the Pentagon and congressional sources.

It’s impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction — valued at $1.2 billion by the Pentagon — remains viable because the Defense Department’s inventory systems can’t share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report obtained by USA TODAY.

Most of this story focuses on the Pentagon’s shitty inventory system. I will save you some reading by providing you a TL;DR. The Pentagon has a shitty inventory system, it wants a fancy new inventory system, and it needs to make up claims about the potential to save billions of dollars so Congress will fund it.

I believe the more important question is why the Pentagon is destroying all of that ammunition. Obviously Stripes couldn’t be bothered to scrounge up an answer. My guess is that the ammunition is being destroyed as part of the effort to demonstrate how badly a new tax victim funded inventory system is needed.

Setting aside my cynicism I must ask if destroying all of that ammunition is necessary. If the ammunition slated for destruction is handgun and rifle cartridges then I feel the need to propose an alternative. Handgun and rifle ammunition, so long as it’s stored properly, keeps almost indefinitely. That being the case there is no reason that handgun and rifle ammunition needs to be destroyed in most cases. If the Pentagon is simply tired of having the ammunition around it could release it for sale to use mere civilians who can put the ammunition to good work at the firing range.

Verizon Collecting More Customer Information to Sell to Advertisers

Verizon has notified its customers that it will begin collecting more information from its customers for sale to advertisers:

The company says it’s “enhancing” its Relevant Mobile Advertising program, which it uses to collect data on customers’ online habits so that marketers can pitch stuff at them with greater precision.

“In addition to the customer information that’s currently part of the program, we will soon use an anonymous, unique identifier we create when you register on our websites,” Verizon Wireless is telling customers.

“This identifier may allow an advertiser to use information they have about your visits to websites from your desktop computer to deliver marketing messages to mobile devices on our network,” it says.

That means exactly what it looks like: Verizon will monitor not just your wireless activities but also what you do on your wired or Wi-Fi-connected laptop or desktop computer — even if your computer doesn’t have a Verizon connection.

The inevitable outcome of government protected monopolies is customer abuse. This move by Verizon is a prime example of this. Verizon enjoys government protection from competitors in many forms such as the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) monopoly over wireless spectrum distribution, municipal control over the installation of new communication infrastructure, and outright monopolies granted by local governments to favored Internet Service Providers (ISP). Without any effective competition Verizon enjoys the ability to abuse its customers who have two options: put up with the abuse or go entirely without the service. And this abuse is only going to increase as Verizon realizes it has a captive audience who can be used to extract every possible penny from without fear of retaliation.

Abuses by ISPs is another reason why we need to radically decentralize Internet access. One of the more promising ideas for decentralizing Internet access are mesh networks. I’ve been working with several other people on using a combination of Ubiquiti M2-HP access points with Commotion Wireless firmware to create mesh networks. We’ve found out that setting up a mesh network is trivial and I believe it could be an option in bypassing ISPs, especially high-density in neighborhoods where access points could be installed on every building. While such a solution isn’t universal it is a step in the right direction.

The less power ISPs have over us the less they can abuse us. Our priority at this point in time should be to take as much control away from ISPs as possible.

The Fourth Amendment Takes Another Hit Right to the Heart

Once again the Nazgûl have done an outstanding job of serving their master. This time they drove another stake through the heart of the already heavily staked Fourth Amendment:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous 911 tip.

The 5-4 decision split the court’s two most conservative justices, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and Justice Antonin Scalia penning the dissent.

Checkpoints should be much easier to setup now that this ruling has been made. Just have a gun on a cellphone a few miles away from the checkpoint call in an “anonymous tip” on every vehicle the passes. Reasonable suspicion has been a bit too rigorous for cops wanting to search a vehicle. Thankfully this ruling means that they can “receive an anonymous tip” and search go ahead with the search. Many opportunities have been opened by this ruling and I’m sure we’ll get to see them all as creative officers wanting to throw around their power put their minds to the civil rights bypassing grind stone.

The Minnesota GOP Setting Itself Up to Fail Again

It’s nice to sit on the sidelines and observe the great political competitions as they play out. People often criticize those of us on the sidelines and claim that we’re not pulling our weight. But we see things from our vantage point that those playing the games do not. One example is the apparent inability of those playing for the Minnesota Republican Party (MNGOP) to see how ineffective their strategies are.

The MNGOP is currently putting its weight behind taking Al Franken’s seat. Considering Franken’s political track record this competition should be in the bag. Franken’s track record of supporting draconian intellectual property and Internet censorship laws and defending the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance apparatus should be enough ammunition to get young politicos fired up against him. At that point the MNGOP would only need to run a candidate who could stop himself from saying stupid shit in public, advocated Internet freedom, and demanded the abolition of the NSA to achieve victory.

But anybody with knowledge of Minnesota politics knows that the MNGOP can’t bring itself to use winning strategies. Instead one of the leading candidates for the MNGOP senate candidacy has decided to play the Democrat Party’s war on women strategy:

In a petition published on her Facebook page yesterday, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Julianne Ortman says a recently released secret recording of Al Franken joking around in an Arizona driveway shows he “still doesn’t take women seriously.”

Here is the video in question:

Pro tip: never attempt to use your opponent’s strategy against them unless you actually understand it. The war on women strategy only works when the target has said something in a serious manner that makes him look misogynistic. It’s a strategy that works wonderfully against Republican candidates because they have a habit of saying very stupid shit in public. But Franken has never really said anything too misogynistic so using the strategy against him is foolish. In fact the video, which makes it obvious that Franken was trying to be comical, does more to humanize him than make him look misogynistic.

But the failboat doesn’t only dock at that harbor. Ortman also demonstrates that she’s not opposed to the NSA’s surveillance apparatus:

The FISA Court first was authorized in 1979 and operates in secret and ex parte (only the government gets to present its case). It makes sense that we don’t want our foreign enemies to know how we are gathering information to protect ourselves. However, I am deeply concerned that the court has migrated to granting orders authorizing the wholesale gathering of information about presumably innocent private citizens and residents of the United States under the guise of intelligence gathering against unnamed foreign threats. This is where there must be more transparency. To begin with, we should insist that the FISA Court’s analysis and legal justifications be reviewed and discussed publicly by policymakers, with the right of the general public to be heard and considered.

Justifying secret courts is something only a petty authoritarian would do. So that justification was the first mistake. The second mistake was asking for more transparency instead of complete abolition of the secret court. She could have said that the secret courts made sense at the time but now their time has passed and saved herself from looking like a complete authoritarian. But she chose to justify the establishment of the secret courts and then argue that they are still necessary but a little additional oversight would be nice. Franken’s campaign won’t be able to argue against secret courts due to its candidate support of the NSA surveillance apparatus. What it will be able to do is point out that Ortman also supports the NSA surveillance apparatus and render the issue irrelevant for the race.

To quote my friend, “This is why the GOP can’t have nice things.” The party is flailing in a desperate search for a life preserver. Franken’s seat would be pretty easy to snatch if the MNGOP would use an effective strategy. Instead it’s marketing a candidate who is little more than Fraken lite. I’m not aware of any races where an incumbent was removed from office by a candidate advertising him or herself as a lite version of the incumbent.

What’s even more pathetic is that the MNGOP will likely pull the same stupidity in the governor race. Mark Dayton has burned a lot of bridges and his seat could easily be taken but the MNGOP will likely run another lackluster candidate and use absolutely idiotic campaign strategies to ensure its defeat.

This is one hell of a game to observe but I sure am glad that I’m not playing it.

Michael Bloomberg Really is Arrogant

Michael Bloomberg has always been a power-hungry tyrant but his acts could always be written off with the standard “trying to do the right thing” schtick. But a an article about Michael Bloomberg’s continuing push for gun control his arrogance really showed:

Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a grin: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

I may not be the more educated man when it comes to Christianity but most of the people I know who identify as Christians don’t believe that they will be fast tracked into Heaven. Usually they state something along the lines of “When I die I will be judged by God. I only hope that I lived a life worthy of entering his kingdom.”

Mind you this doesn’t surprise me. The man is obviously a tyrant who believes he alone knows what is best for everybody else. But most tyrants are smart enough to keep their arrogance somewhat low-key.

As for his push for more gun control, whatever. He managed to rule New York City with an iron fist and an overtly violent police force. But his track record on pushing for gun control elsewhere has been lackluster. I don’t see him being able to single-handedly overcome the entire gun rights movement. After all, pride goeth before the fall.

When Different Government Departments Have Mutually Exclusive Missions

Trying to unwrap every mission the federal government has tasked itself with is practically impossible. The beast as grown so large that no single individual can fully grasp it. There are many dangers inherit in such a massive system. One of those dangers is different departments holding mutually exclusive mission. Take the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for instance. One of its missions [Warning: link is operated by a dangerous gang of violent criminals] is to defend the nation’s communication infrastructure. This would imply discovering and notifying the public about potential security exploits. Now consider the National Security Agency (NSA). Its mission is to exploit vulnerable system of both domestic and foreign entities in order to spy on them. This mission is mutually exclusive to DHS’s:

WASHINGTON — Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.

But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.

It is impossible for the government to both protect the nation’s communication infrastructure and not inform the public about major security flaws. When you discover a security flaw you cannot know for certain that you’re the only one who knows about it. Any number of people could have discovered it beforehand. That being the case you cannot assume that the flaw isn’t being actively exploited by nefarious individuals or organizations. Therefore the only way to protect the general public is to disclose information regarding the exploit so it can be fixed.

This is one of the reasons why any mission statement given by a government agency is meaningless. While one government agency may be tasked with a certain mission another agency is likely tasked with the exact opposite mission.

Taxes Are Proof of Government Sadism

It’s April 15th, which is the date taxes are due for most people in the United States. If ever there existed proof of government sadism it’s the tax system.

Consider this. The government already knows who your employer is. Your employer is requires to file withholding taxes, take out Social Security “benefits”, and other various taxes for the government. If you have children the state issued Social Security numbers, which means it knows how many children you have and when they were born. Getting married requires a marriage license issued by the government. Basically everything applicable to filing taxes is information already possessed by the government.

This being the case it would seem trivial for the government to kick off a script at the end of the year that collects all information on an individual related to taxes, determines what that individual owes or is owed, and send him or her a bill or check. Instead the federal government demands that you fill out the fucking paperwork. To add insult to injury it then has the audacity to charge you fines and possibly put you in a cage if you fill that paperwork out in an unsatisfactory manner.

One can only conclude that the government is making the act of paying taxes more painful than necessary because it gets off on causing pain.

The Statist Solution is Always More Government

Statists have to be some of the least creative individuals on the planet. For every problem that exists their only solution is more government. The current crusade being waged here in Minnesota is distracted drivers:

ST. PAUL, Minn. – It’s difficult for law enforcement to detect distracted drivers, but thanks to an effort that utilizes a school bus, a pair of Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies lead a crackdown operation that started on Friday.

So we have men with badges and guns driving school buses in the hopes of finding a person looking at their phone so they can be issued a big fat citation. According to their logic:

Distracted driving is a growing problem in Minnesota.

No. The lack of self-driving automobiles is a growing problem in Minnesota (and everywhere else). With a little creativity we can solve the problem of people wanting to utilize their otherwise underutilized driving time by providing a technological solution. Self-driving automobiles would allow drivers to text, tweet, like things on Facebook, and search Craigslist for cheap furniture all while traveling to work, home, or somewhere else.

Instead of sinking resources into sending costume-clad men with guns to fine drivers why not invest those resources into developing more reliable systems for automating automobiles. Hell the damned things already exist and have performed phenomenally in trials. Why not pass legislation that legalizes the use of self-driving automobiles here in Minnesota? The quicker the technology is matured the quicker this problem ceases to be a problem.