Tag: Your Government Doesn’t Love You

Everything is a Conspiracy

When Obama was in office a bunch of neocons claimed that he was planning to use the United Nations military to establish martial law, secretly a Muslim Brotherhood operative trying to bring Sharia to the United States, plotting the destruction of Israel, and a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the neoliberals were calling those neocons paranoid and mocking them ruthlessly.

Today a bunch of neoliberals are claiming that Trump is planning to abolish the public schools, reestablish institutionalized racism, round up and kill homosexuals, and a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories. Likewise, now the neocons are calling neoliberals paranoid and mocking them ruthlessly.

As it turns out, this sudden flip in conspiratorial thinking is pretty common:

Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. The reason isn’t just that a Republican now occupies the White House. Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.

This isn’t surprising. Anybody who isn’t directly embroiled in the political mess of this country but pays attention to those who are have noticed this type of behavior. When a politico’s team is in power all is great and the world is moving in the right direction. When a politico’s team isn’t in power everything is terrible and the world is going to come crashing down. Regardless of the situation, politico’s will tend to believe whatever news fits their personal bias. If they think everything is great they’ll believe any news that supports that bias and label any news that doesn’t as fake or propaganda. The same goes for when they think everything is terrible.

Rules are for Thee, Not for Me

The State makes hypocrites of everybody involved in it. At some point even the most principled individual will have to compromise those principles. Take Representative Devin Nunes, for example. He strongly supports the National Security Agency’s (NSA) widespread surveillance program when it’s used against you and me. But when surveillance is used against him and his ilk he suddenly hates it:

Back then there was a bipartisan push to try to require some more due process in National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of Americans. Nunes used the deadly attack on the nightclub in Orlando to argue against it, claiming it would hamper the government in its fight against the war on terror.

But while he was opposed to protecting you and me from unwarranted government surveillance, apparently Nunes does think that the feds recording a call between ex-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and a Russian ambassador in December is beyond the pale. From The Washington Post:

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that the most significant question posed by the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn is why intelligence officials eavesdropped on his calls with the Russian ambassador and later leaked information on those calls to the press.

“I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is conducting a review of Russian activities to influence the election. “The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.”

The ability of politicians to hold two mutually exclusive beliefs simultaneously never ceases to amaze me. Usually their cognitive dissonance comes out when discussing so-called rights. Most politicians seem to believe that the State has unlimited rights whereas the people have no rights.

The right to free speech? The State can say whatever it wants, even if it’s false, but the people should have certain restrictions placed upon what they can say. The right to bear arms? The people should be heavily restricted in what they are allowed to possess while the State should be allowed to have an unlimited number of goddamn nuclear weapons. The right to privacy? As Mr. Nunes demonstrated, the State should enjoy an expectation of privacy while the people should be surveilled at all times.

The politicians espousing their cognitive dissonance always have a convenient excuse. The right to free speech is dangerous when that speech is seditious, hateful, untrue, etc. The right to bear arms is dangerous in general because people use weapons to kill other people. The right to privacy is a direct threat to national security because it makes it more difficult for the State to find terrorists. All of these excuses would apply equally to the State but the politicians never mention that.

Unintended Consequences

Whenever the State involves itself in an issue there are unintended consequences (okay, the consequences could be intended but I’ll give the politicians the benefit of the doubt in this case). When the State involved itself in the alcohol market by prohibiting its manufacture, sale, and consumption criminal organizations arose to provide the prohibited good. Today we’re seeing the same thing happen again as the State has involved itself in the markets of several other substances. When the State further involved itself in the healthcare market health insurance premiums skyrocketed.

What happens when the State involves itself in immigration? Unintended consequences:

For four months every year he employs almost exclusively Hispanic male workers to pick the harvest. This year he had 64 men out in the fields.

Then HB56 came into effect, the new law that makes it a crime not to carry valid immigration documents and forces the police to check on anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally.

The provisions – the toughest of any state in America – were enforced on 28 September. By the next day Cash’s workforce had dwindled to 11.

Today there is no-one left. The fields around his colonial-style farmhouse on top of a mountain are empty of pickers and the tomato plants are withering on the vine as far as the eye can see. The sweet, slightly acrid smell of rotting tomato flesh hangs in the air.

On Friday, the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta blocked the first of those measures, but allowed the state to continue detaining suspected illegal migrants. So it is unlikely that Cash’s workers will dare to reappear.

The blow to Cash can be measured in those $100,000 – money he says he had wanted to put aside as insurance against a poor crop in future years. But it can also be measured in other ways.

A great deal of manual labor in this country is performed by “illegal” immigrants. Why? Because they’re willing to do the work for the pay being offered, unlike most Americans. When those immigrants aren’t available to do the work the work often ends up not being done, which costs producers money and consumers available goods.

Immigration is a hotly debated topic amongst libertarians. One camp believes that the State has the authority to decide who can and cannot cross the arbitrary lines it has created. The other camp, i.e. the correct libertarians, don’t recognize the State has a legitimate entity and believe that the only person who can decide who can and cannot enter a property is the owner. If a farmer wants to allowed laborers from Mexico to enter their property then those Mexicans can enter the property. Property rights cease to exist the second the State is allowed to dictate who can and cannot enter the farmer’s property.

Taxation is Slavery

Last year Robert Higgs wrote an excellent article about how taxes are slavery. This sparked my interest in researching the practice of slaver renting. Needless to say, the analogy between slave renting and taxation dead on:

In some instances, masters allowed slaves to hire themselves out; this practice permitted some slaves to save enough money to purchase their freedom. Slave-hiring in Charleston became so complex that many slaves wore a badge around their necks with a number indicating their particular skill or craft. The Charleston city council taxed those badges, masters still received money for renting out their slaves, renters had laborers or skilled slaves for extended periods of time, and some slaves earned money in this elaborate process.

[…]

For masters, hiring or renting out their slaves brought additional income; for slaves with skills, especially those who rented themselves out, the process could lead to freedom. Even when masters took a good portion of their money, good carpenters, brick masons, and blacksmiths could, over a period of time, earn enough to buy their freedom.

Last year Americans were working until April 24th for Uncle Sam. It’s only after that point that they were allowed to make money for themselves.

Every one of us, except people who work purely in the agorist economy, has to buy our temporary freedom from Uncle Sam. If you are an employee then your employer buys your freedom by renting you out. Being rented out by your employer takes the form of automatically withheld taxes from your paycheck. If you are a contractor then you buy your own temporary freedom by paying estimated owed taxes every quarter. Slave renting hasn’t gone away, the criteria have just changed so that everybody is a slave of Uncle Sam.

But what happens if you fail to buy your temporary freedom? If you are an employee Uncle Sam may start by garnishing your wages, which is a fancy phrase for stealing your money. Uncle Sam might also opt to steal your assets, sell them off, and put the profits towards your temporary freedom. If Uncle Sam believes you are truly unruly he might sent his slave patrol to kidnap you and make you work in one of his forced labor camps prisons. In the absolute worst case his slave patrol might just murder you outright.

If you believe that you’re anything other than property in the eyes of the State then you are sorely mistaken. You are a slave. You just have the option of renting yourself out to raise money to temporarily buy your freedom.

Streamlining Subjugation

The United Kingdom is planning to streamline its subjugation of its subjects. As things currently stand, pleading guilty to a crime requires at least signing a piece of paper and mailing it in. But soon subjects of the crown will be able to plead guilty by logging into a website:

A government report has confirmed it plans to roll out a scheme that allows petty criminals to plead guilty online and then have their sentence handed out over a computer.

“Under this proposal, defendants who opt in to the online procedure and plead guilty will be offered the option to accept a pre-determined penalty (including the payment of any appropriate compensation and costs), be convicted and pay the amount immediately.” said the report.

Progress!

This really isn’t as big of a story as some might think. Right now it’s aimed at petty “crimes” that usually don’t require a court hearing. But like those petty “crimes”, this is yet another example of a so-called justice system morphing into a pure revenue generation system.

If a “crime” doesn’t even require a court hearing then it’s not really a crime because there generally isn’t a victim. Consider the “crimes” that this system will be initially used for:

Initially the system will be tested with petty crimes that are non-imprisonable such as: Railway fare evasion, tram fare evasion, and possession of unlicensed rod and line.

If the railways and trams are privately owned then somebody who uses them without paying the required fare is guilty of trespassing. Justice in that case is the trespasser paying the owed fair and any expenses the railway and tram owners faced in collecting the owed fee. If the railways and trams are owned by the State then no crime has been committed because the State cannot legitimately own property. I shouldn’t say that no crime has been committed. The State committed the crime of theft to acquire the resources to build the railways and trams. Conveniently, the State’s courts, which have monopolized justice, won’t prosecute that crime though.

What about possession of an unlicensed rod and line? That’s not a crime no matter how you look at it.

So the real story here is that the United Kingdom’s court system is continuing its evolution into a revenue generation system. Creating a website for people to log into to plead guilty to non-crimes is just streamlining the process of subjugation that already exists.

Increasing Government Opaqueness

Barack Obama promised to create the most transparent government in history. After eight years his administration managed to create one of the most opaque governments in history. His predecessor’s administration, which at least saved us the lying about creating a transparent government, is continuing in his footsteps:

But on March 1st, the FBI is intentionally rolling back the technological clock, and will only allow requests via fax or snail mail, plus a limited amount through their online portal.

This will undoubtedly hinder the public’s ability to get information from the agency. On top of eliminating a far less burdensome method of communication, submitting through the FBI’s portal requires including personal information, including phone number and address, and agree to the site’s terms of service. Nested in the TOS is the requirement that users only make one FOIA request per submission per day.

At least the current administration won’t get a free pass from the political left like the last one did.

This change in policy is an example of the low level nonsense the State pulls to make the lives of its detractors more difficult. On the surface it doesn’t seem like much. After all, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) hasn’t been changed. Below the surface the difficulty of filing a FOIA request has been increased slightly, which will likely discourage some people from filing such requests. In time the difficulty will be raised slightly again and again and again. Eventually filing a FOIA request will be such a pain in the ass that almost nobody will do it. Then the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) will have achieved its goal of making FOIA a toothless law without having to actually violate it.

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.

Without Government Who Would Attack the Homeless

According to statists, the State is necessary to provide a social safety net for those with nothing. Like all statist beliefs it exploits that unease people feel when they are uncertain about their ability to provide for their needs. Why do statist beliefs have to exploit our unease? Because they’re entirely fictitious.

What demographic has less than the homeless? Homeless individuals generally have about as close to nothing as one can get without actually having nothing. Since the State provides a social safety net that means it is providing the homeless with clean water, food, clothing, and shelter, right? Wrong. The State doesn’t give a shit about people who have nothing to steal so instead of providing the homeless with a social safety net it is waging war against them:

Enforcement of new regulations targeting homeless people who live in their vehicles will start today, reports KPCC. The new rules dictate where people living in RVs and cars can park. For example, parking “for habitation purposes” on residential streets from 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. is now banned.

And, living in a vehicle is prohibited at all times within one block, or 500 feet, of schools, pre-schools, daycare facilities, and parks.

Results from the 2016 homeless count found more than 7,000 people live in their cars in Los Angeles, says KPCC.

Politicians create regulations like this in the hopes that they will make the lives of homeless individuals so miserable that they’ll go somewhere else and thus become somebody else’s problem. They aren’t even particularly coy about it. Yet people continue to buy into the statists’ bullshit claims.

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.

Ihre Papiere Bitte

Many World War II movies have a scene where normal folk are walking down the street minding their own business when they’re suddenly confronted by a pair of police officers who say, “Ihre Papiere bitte.” Usually the people being confronted will hand over a set of documents, the officers will look them over, and then one officer will say, “Ihre Papiere sind nicht in Ordnung.” Such scenes are used to show the audience that Nazi Germany was an authoritarian police state. But if demanding identification from people minding their own business made Nazi Germany a police state what does it make the United States:

PHOENIX – You could go to jail for four months if you get caught without an ID as a passenger in a car if a new law proposal passes.

[…]

Current law only requires the driver of a vehicle to carry a drivers license, which serves as evidence of identity.

If this bill passes, a passenger would also be required to have evidence of identity. Failure to do so would be a class 2 misdemeanor, which allows for up to four months in jail by current state law.

Isn’t it funny how all of the things the United States government once criticized authoritarian regimes for doing are either being done or are being proposed here? And isn’t if funny that many people living here have managed to delude themselves enough to believe that they live in the freest country on Earth?