“Libertarian” Vice Presidential Candidate

Supposedly the Libertarian Party tries to get libertarians elected into offices. The party has a funny way of going about that goal though. For example, the party hasn’t nominated an actual libertarian presidential candidate for at least as long as I’ve been old enough to vote. This year’s ticket is no different.

Gary “Ban the Burqa” Johnson was nominated to be the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate this year. Although the Libertarian Party doesn’t allow presidential candidates to outright pick their running mates, the party voters are usually willing to roll over and approve whoever their presidential candidate wants. Johnson wanted Bill Weld and the Libertarian Party, apparently deciding it didn’t want any libertarians on its presidential ticket, was happy to comply.

After the shooting in Orlando Weld decided to show his anti-libertarian colors:

Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts now running as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for vice president, called today for a 1,000-agent task force to combat Islamic State adherents in the United States, and for a tip line where Muslims could inform on radicalism.

“Let’s face it: The United States is under attack right now by ISIS and ISIS copycats,” Weld said. “They have a deep pool to pull from. There are over 3 million Muslims in the United States — maybe Mr. Trump will want to deport them all, but the better approach is to work with the community.”

Weld, who served as U.S. attorney and then assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s criminal justice division, suggested that the DOJ could take a cue from a program that worked in Massachusetts. The “Drop-a-Dime Project,” a nonprofit tip line created by community leaders, was used by law enforcement to pursue tips about crime in Boston’s black neighborhoods and to achieve breakthroughs in drug investigations.

“We’d get all kinds of tips,” Weld said. “The residents of Dorchester and Mattapan were only too happy to help. There may be some people out there leaning toward ISIS, people who would want to shelter the people going around killing other people. But for every pair of ears that would be sympathetic, there will be pairs that will not be sympathetic.”

I thought the Libertarian Party was all about shrinking government, not growing it. I guess this is what happens when the party doesn’t nominates a libertarian for its vice presidential candidate.

I know the Libertarian Party, especially now that it’s pulling people from the Republican Party, has a lot of statists within its ranks so this idea may sound appealing to them. Let’s consider the effectiveness of such a program. I’ll start by once again quoting Bruce Schneier, “If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get amateur security.” This is something libertarians tend to inherently understand. If you setup a program where average Joes are expected to rat out their neighbors you will get a lot of noise and very little, if any, signal.

How do you tell if somebody expressing sympathies for the Islamic State (IS) is merely angry at the way the United States and European countries have treated the Middle East or is planning to commit acts of murder in the organization’s name? Most people can’t tell and that’s the problem with this kind of tip line. It would be flooded with “tips” from people who think somebody speaking out against the United States dropping bombs on wedding parts is sympathizing with IS. Many of the “tips” would likely come from people who just don’t like their Muslim neighbors and see the tip line as a way to get the State to harass them. Well’s proposal would create a 1,000-agent (you do have to appreciate how all of these proposals involve an arbitrary number of agents that is almost always cleanly divisible by 10) task force that does nothing productive (in other words, it’ll be just like every other government agency).

I’m glad I don’t play politics anymore. If I did I’d be depressed this election cycle because there are exactly zero acceptable candidates running for office.

Equal Slavery Shouldn’t Be the Goal

A lot of debate has occurred on the topic of equality, especially equality between men and women. Equality can mean many things but to the State the only form of equality that matters is slavery:

The New York Times reported today:

“The United States Senate voted to pass a defense bill today that would require young women to sign up for a potential military draft for the first time in U.S. history.”

This issue was bound to come up eventually, as women have recently been allowed to compete for combat positions on the front line. Captain Kristen Griest’s recent completion of Army Ranger School and assignment as an Infantry officer is evidence of this shift in both policy and culture.

The accepted logic goes that if women have equal access to all jobs in the military, they ought to have equal responsibility with respect to the draft. And make no mistake: even though there has not been a draft since the 1970s, the ultimate purpose of Selective Service registration is precisely to enable a draft when deemed necessary.

Many are applauding these changes as an important step towards “equality” and recognition of women’s capabilities. But the focus on equality is masking the underlying injustice of the law in the first place. The more important issue is that forcing anyone to register for Selective Service is unjust because it is based on coercion (and has the potential to place otherwise peaceful people into violent situations). Let’s examine why.

Equal slavery shouldn’t be the goal. The complete abolition of slavery should be the goal. Let’s not mince words, the draft is slavery. It is a mechanism where the State can force you, at the point of a gun, to join its ranks so it can send you off to murder people who you’ve never met and have in all likelihood caused you no harm. Instead of debating whether women should be equally subjected to enslavement, the people of the United States should have been demanding Selective Service registration be abolished.

This is usually where some statist says, “What if somebody was invading the United States? Shouldn’t everybody be forced to fight for the greater good?” It’s a dumb question. Nobody should be forced to fight for a collective ideal. If so few people are willing to fight the invading force that it stands to conquer the nation then it’s obvious that the people didn’t see the nation as worthy of saving. Isn’t that the will of the people? Isn’t that what this supposedly glorious democracy is all about?

Men and women should be equally free to pursue their wants. They should also be equally free from slavery.

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies

Like clockwork, people are demanding the State make it harder for everybody to defend themselves. When this happens many gun owners have a habit of turning to two organizations: the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association (NRA). They’re supposedly friends of gun owners but if these are our friends we scarcely need enemies.

Let’s start with the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Mr. Trump has never been a friend to gun owners but he pretended to be one while campaigning and a lot of people bought it. After the shooting in Orlando he decided to talk with the NRA about abolishing due process:

Trump never favored gun rights so his stance isn’t surprising. Considering Trump’s history and the absurdity of what he’s proposing you would expect the NRA to tell Trump to go pound sand, right? Wrong:

The National Rifle Association said on Wednesday it stood by its position on terrorism watch lists and access to firearms, saying sales to potential buyers who are on the lists should be delayed while they are investigated by the FBI.

In a statement, the gun lobbying group said it welcomed a meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. It also said protections needed to be put in place to allow people wrongfully put on a terrorism watch list to be removed.

The problem with the terrorist watch lists is that they’re secret lists with secret criteria. Nobody knows whether they’re on one of the lists and nobody knows what the criteria is for being put on the list. What we do know, thanks to leak, is that there are 680,000 names on these lists and more than 40 percent of them aren’t even tied to known terrorist organizations.

The NRA is trying to be the middle ground by claiming people on the lists should have their purchase postponed while the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) harasses investigates them. It also says that additional protections should be implemented to allow people wrongfully put on the lists to get their name removed. Of course, we don’t know what criteria is used to place somebody on the lists so we don’t know what wrongfully listed means. If one of the criteria for appearing on the lists is being a gun owner then everybody who owns a gun isn’t wrongfully on the list.

The fact that the terrorist watch lists eliminate due process should automatically mean zero punishment whatsoever befalls anybody whose name appears on any of the lists. Since the lists eliminate due process the NRA shouldn’t even give them the time of day or show any willingness to negotiate with people wanting to utilize them. Instead it kowtows like a good serf and begs for a few table scraps. What a fucking joke.

Who needs Michael Bloomberg and his lapdogs when we have “friends” like these selling us down the river?

The Attack in Orlando

Yesterday a person claiming allegiance to the Islamic State attacked the Pulse club in Orlando. In his wake are 50 bodies. Like vultures the politicians have already descended on this tragedy. Predictably Obama and Hillary are blaming the lack of gun control laws:

Mr Obama said the “brutal murder of dozens of innocent people” was a further reminder of how easy it was to acquire a deadly weapon in the US and shoot people.

[…]

Mrs Clinton said she was an “ally” of the gay community and used a statement to push for tighter gun controls. She said: “This reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets.”

The irony of two people who have used the might of the heavily armed United States military to murder innocent civilians complaining about the wide availability of weapons is not lost on me.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Trump is calling for Obama to step down because he didn’t speak the right words:

Meanwhile her Republican rival, Donald Trump, said Mr Obama should step down for refusing to use the words “radical Islam” when condemning the attack.

Absolutely nothing would have changed if Obama said the words “radical Islam” or any other phrase.

Politicians always leave a sick feeling in my stomach. Their concern for the dead only extends to their ability to exploit them for political posturing.

Over the next week or two the major media outlets are going to report on everything and anything they can get their hands on, even though almost everything will be speculation as an investigation hasn’t been conducted, so they can boost their ratings and up their advertisement revenue. I feel safe in saying that it’s best to ignore them until a proper investigation has been conducted and actual facts are available. Only time will reveal the facts. Until then the only thing that can be done is offering as much assistance to the families of the victims as possible.

Surviving Encounters with the Police

Tony Cornish gains a lot of favor with Minnesota gun owners for being pro-gun rights. However, he’s also a ruthless statist and apologist for rampant abuses of power by police. Two days ago he submitted a letter to the editor to the Star Tribune that offers tips on how us lowly peasant can survive police encounters. Let’s take a look at his tips and translate them into laymen’s terms:

Lately, some advocacy groups have been asking what we can do to “reduce the use of force by police.” Well …

1) Don’t be a thug and lead a life of crime so that you come into frequent contact with police.

So… don’t be a cop?

2) Don’t rob people, don’t use or sell drugs, and don’t beat up your significant other.

Again, don’t be a cop?

3) Don’t hang out on the street after 2 a.m. Go home.

Don’t work night shifts.

4) Don’t make furtive movements or keep your hands in your pockets if told to take them out.

Shut up, slave, and do what the aggressive man who is showing intent to cause you harm demands you to do!

5) Don’t flap your jaws when the police arrive. Don’t disobey the requests of the police at the time. If you think you are wrongfully treated, make the complaint later.

Again, shut up, slave. If you think you’re being abused you should take it! You can file a complaint later, if you survive.

6) Don’t use the excuse of a lack of a job or education for why you assault, rob or kill.

Instead become a cop so you have the excuse of having a job to assault, rob, and kill!

Tips one and two seem to disagree with tip six. The first two advise you to not live a light of thuggery, theft, and violence, which means you should avoid becoming a law enforcer. But then tip six advises you to have a job that allows you to commit assault, robbery, and murder, which is what law enforcers do. Tip three is bizarre since it’s basically a variation of blaming a woman’s clothing choice for her being raped. The only difference is he’s blaming a person’s work shift for being harassed or assault by the police. I also find the other two tips alarming because they advise you to submit to and cooperate with your abuser.

It probably won’t surprise any of you that Tony Cornish is a former police officer. It also shouldn’t surprise anybody that a man who sought a career choice that gave him power over others sought another career choice that gave him power over others. As you can probably tell from his letter he really enjoys being in a position of power. I wonder how he would feel if he was on the receiving end of the State’s truncheon instead of the giving end.

The Most Transparent Government in History

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) claims to allow regular people like you and me to request information from the federal government. Each individual state has also implemented legislation to the same effect. But requests made under these laws often result in responses claiming no such information exists or reams of paper with large black blocks concealing any useful information. New York has gone an extra step. In addition to refuting the existence of requested information or handing over redacted information the state can now tell requesters that it cannot confirm or deny the existence of such information:

Normally, when you submit a FOIA request to a government agency, one of three things happens: You get the records you want, the agency says no such records exist, or the agency says the records are exempt from disclosure.

But there’s another possible outcome: You might be told that the agency can “neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence” of the records. That’s been permissible under federal law since 1976. And now, thanks to a case raising concerns in media circles, it’s permissible under state law in New York—where, for the first time, an appellate court has affirmed the use of such a response under the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

Now New York doesn’t even have to play the usual game where they keep denying your request until you make it so specific that they are no longer able to claim that the information doesn’t exist. Instead it can just tell you that it can neither confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of the information! In other words, the Freedom of Information Law is entirely useless in New York.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

What happens when the municipal government shortens the length of yellow lights to boost the revenue generated by its red light cameras? If you’re a good person you strike back by disabling their red light cameras. Unfortunately, if you’re a good person you also face years in a cage for fighting back against the municipal pirates:

Stephen Ruth, who remains free on bail, was arrested in April shortly after he told a CBS affiliate that he was the culprit and that he dismantled the cameras “in order to save lives.” He said the county shortened the yellow light duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in a bid to make more money.

He’s accused of 17 felonies and faces a maximum seven-year prison sentence if convicted on all the charges. He pleaded not guilty Friday in a local court and wants to go to trial for snipping the wires on as many as 16 red light cameras on intersections on Route 25 between Coram and Centereach.

The lesson of this story is that you shouldn’t publicly announce your good deeds to the world. In this case the municipal government actually put people’s lives at risk by shortening the duration of yellow lights just so it could boost its revenue. That’s the kind of corrupt shit that happens when a handful of people are handed absolute power. But that power can be checked somewhat when good people undermine the government’s revenue generation.

Stephen Ruth is the type of everyday hero we need more of.

Switzerland Dodges a Bullet

The people of Switzerland demonstrated that their knowledge in mathematics is still sound. There was a proposal to implement universal basic income (UBI) and the people voted it down by a wide measure:

Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all.

Final results from Sunday’s referendum showed that nearly 77% opposed the plan, with only 23% backing it.

When I posted this link on Facebook one of my friends asked what my problem with UBI is. While there are a plethora of economic arguments to make against it my only real objection is the fact it can’t be implemented without government violence.

The wealth needed to fund UBI has to come from somewhere. There are two popular methods that governments use to fund their programs. The most common one is the seizing of wealth from the general populace, which is sometimes referred by the far more cuddly term “taxation”. If the Swiss government opted to fund UBI through taxation it would have been pulling the usual government routine of putting a gun to everybody’s head, demanding a tithe, and kidnapping and imprisoning anybody who refused to pay the tithe. As usual, if their intended kidnapping victims refused to go quietly they would be murdered.

The other common method governments use to fund their programs is printing money. This scam is more insidious since it doesn’t rely on overt violence. Instead of sending men with guns to thump skulls, a money printing scam steals wealth from anybody holding the government’s currency (this is why you don’t want to mess with government currency unless you’re under duress) by devaluing it. As more money is printed the purchasing power of each unit already in circulation diminishes.

No matter how you shake it, UBI can only be funded at the point of a government gun.

If You Don’t Talk To Your Kids About State Violence, Who Will

Those of you who have watched Equilibrium probably remember the protagonist’s son. There are a few scenes in the movie where he, wearing his little jackboot uniform, ensures his father is taking his government mandated drug. In the movie the State trains the children to find offenders who aren’t taking their mandated drugs and goes so far as to train them to spy on their own parents. It’s an idea taken right out of the pages of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Sadly, that part of the movie isn’t entirely inaccurate today. Many parents unknowingly have little quislings living in their homes. To make matters worse, they often praise their children’s traitorous behavior. Take the Richardson family as an example:

Little 6-year-old Robbie Richardson called 911 on his dad when he “ran a red light.”

“911 what’s your emergency?,” Quincy Police Dispatcher Michael Bowes asks when he answers the call, a recording of which was obtained by ABC News.

“Um, Daddy went past a red light,” the dutiful kindergartner explained. “Daddy went past a red light. He has a black truck. He was in the brand new car, my mommy’s car, and we had to go to the car wash, and then he went past the red light.”

The 911 operator wasn’t a total douche and didn’t send a law enforcer to thump the father’s skull. But I’m sure the father had a good talk with his son about government violence, right? No:

As for their son, Robbie’s parents are proud of their little law-abiding citizen.

“I am proud of him that he knew if there was an emergency you call 911, but we were kind of in shock,” said McDonald. “We explained to him when we hung up the phone that you don’t call for those things, but if there was an emergency and someone needs to get a hold of the police, then you call.”

She’s now keeping clips of Robbie’s newfound fame because you never know what the future holds.

“He could become a police officer when he’s older and this would be cute to look back on,” she said. “I think I’m going to look into getting him a little ticket book.”

I’m going to have a headache all day from face palming after reading that. State violence begins at home. You should talk to your kids early on about the difference between actual crimes, ones involving a victim, and government decrees. Your children should also know that there is a chance of real violence anytime the police are brought into a situation. What may start as dad growing some cannabis so he can deal with his chronic pain, could end up in dead family pets and dad being kidnapped if a law enforcement agent finds out.

One thing is certain, if you don’t teach your children about government violence the public education system will brainwash them into believing the government is their friend. Programs like D.A.R.E. exist to convince kids at a young age that they can “trust police officers”, that “police officers are their friends”, and that they can always “tell a police officer anything”. These ideas could end up convincing your children to turn you in for violating a government decree.

If you don’t talk to your children about state violence, who will?

Another One Of Those Bad Apples

I’m not sure if this is one of those bad apples that makes the majority look bad, another isolated incident I keep hearing so much about, or a case of an officer who simply wanted to go home to his family at night. Regardless of the typical law enforcer apologist excuse you select, it’s important to remember that the rules are different for men with government badges:

A former Kenosha Police officer who planted evidence in a homicide investigation will not see jail time.

Kyle Baars was sentenced Wednesday to one year probation for felony misconduct in public office.

He was given permission to serve that probation in Illinois, and will be required to serve 80 hours of community service. He could serve a year in jail and one year of extended supervision if he violates the terms of his probation.

Baars could have been sentenced to 18 months in prison and given a $10,000 fine.

The former officer had admitted planting a bullet and an identification card in a backpack during an investigation into the 2014 shooting death of a Kenosha man.

On Wednesday, Baars called planting the evidence “a bad decision” but argued that he should be given credit for eventually admitting his actions and testifying at the homicide trial for one of the defendants that he had planted evidence.

One year of probation for planting evidence in the investigation of a legitimate crime? It’s good to be in the king’s employ. The sentence is ridiculous but the way the officer was handled with kid gloves is almost as ridiculous. Neither his fellow officers, the district attorney, or the judge ripped his ass properly. Instead he received a mild chiding by the judge for blaming other people.

This is just another case of the court system treating agents of the State differently than the rest of us. I’m fairly certain any non-state agent who planted evidence in a criminal investigation would receive a bit harsher of a sentence than one year of probation. I also doubt that excuses such as a “distinguished career” would be considered a legitimate legal defense. The sentencing would likely include the judge delivering much harsher words than a mere “Tsk, tsk. You shouldn’t have done that. That was naughty.”

Police are like you and me, only better!