Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

Wonderful Drama in the Gun Rights World

If there’s one thing I love it’s Internet drama. And boy do I have a heap of it for you guys. Dudley Brown, the main guy behind the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) rustled Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF), jimmies:

Dudley Brown and his “National Association for Gun Rights” (NAGR) have built a reputation by attacking every other major gun rights organization and even pro-gun politicians, to the detriment of the gun rights movement. His rhetoric has done more to marginalize Second Amendment activism than all of the slanders from gun prohibition lobbying groups combined.Now Dudley has spewed his venom toward Alan Gottlieb, a true champion of Second Amendment advocacy with a proven track record of accomplishment. Gottlieb is founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

In his latest effort to raise money for his own self-aggrandizement, Dudley Brown has launched a vicious canard against Alan Gottlieb, accusing the veteran gun rights advocate of “Leading the fight for national gun registration.”

Alan Gottlieb has never advocated for gun registration in his life. His legislative efforts have been to prevent that, and Dudley knows it.

Burn! Of course the SAF delivers an onslaught of just retribution:

The Second Amendment Foundation has championed gun rights legal actions and won in federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember, it was SAF that took McDonald v. City of Chicago [PDF] to the Supreme Court and won. Where was Dudley?

SAF and CCRKBA have conducted the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference for more than 25 years, bringing together major gun rights leaders with grassroots activists to unify and expand the gun rights movement. Where was Dudley?

When SAF and the National Rifle Association joined forces to stop the unconstitutional gun grab in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where was Dudley?

When SAF and NRA joined forces to defeat the San Francisco gun ban, where was Dudley?

When SAF, NRA and CCRKBA joined forces to defeat the City of Seattle’s parks gun ban – thus strengthening state preemption in Washington state and providing a lesson for anyone who might challenge other states’ preemption laws, where was Dudley?

When the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) was created, Alan Gottlieb was there to help bring together an organization that now has member groups from every continent and several nations. Where was Dudley?

When multi-national gun rights organizations gather in Europe to resist global gun control efforts, Alan Gottlieb is there, but where is Dudley?

I have been very critical of Mr. Gottlieb’s recent advocacy of universal background checks but there is one major difference between him and Mr. Brown. Mr. Gottlieb and the SAF actually gets shit down.

The NAGR is only well known for two things: whining about everybody else and taking people’s money. Scratch that, there’s a third thing they’re well known for: leaking the personal information of its members to random people. But as far as victories in the fight for gun rights? The NAGR has done all of jack shit. Sure they’ve cultivated some extremely zealous supporters, a couple of whom are friends of mine (more on that in a bit), but they can’t actually point to any of their victories.

What’s really annoying is that us Minnesotans have to deal with one of the NAGR’s dumb ass affiliate groups called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR). MGR mimics the NAGR very well. It invests a lot of time bitching about the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) and asking for money from people but it hasn’t actually done a damn thing as far as fighting for gun rights in Minnesota is concerned.

Now back to what I said about the NAGR having a track record of cultivating some very zealous supporters. As I mentioned a couple of these zealous supporters are my friends. One actually went so far as to block me on Facebook when he was praising MGR and I asked for a track record of what the organization has accomplished (by the way being blocked was my only answer). This rabid devotion from people who are generally cynical and skeptical of any political organization leads me to believe, although I have no proof, that they’re getting some money from either the NAGR or MGR. Either way they tout both organizations as the greatest thing since sliced bread (and denouncing every other gun rights organization as quislings) but cannot produce any information demonstrating either organization’s effectiveness. When your most devout supporters can’t provide any proof that you’ve actually done something then you’ve almost certainly done nothing.

It amuses me to no end that the individual who runs the NAGR, and presumably its affiliate organizations, is criticizing organizations like the SAF while his organization has absolutely nothing to show for itself. That would be like me criticizing Ludwig von Mises for failing to advance the cause of liberty while being unable to provide any evidence that I have advanced the cause of liberty (the only difference is that I’m pretty certain I have done more to advance gun rights and liberty than the NAGR has, and all I’ve done is help introduce people to the shooting sports and write this blog). As the saying goes, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I really hope this drama spreads (as you can see here I’m doing my part to fan the flames). Watching the NAGR shoot its mouth off is just fucking hilarious and I love watching it made a fool of in public.

Congress is Making the Big Sacrifices

The United States is faced with a several trillion dollar deficit. Truth be told this isn’t a big deal because this country’s debt is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, which is a euphemism for aircraft carriers, drones equipped with Hellfire missiles, and tanks. But Congress needs something to quibble about between their daily circlejerks so the deficit is brought up from time to time.

Every time the issue of the deficit is brought up Congress introduces some meaningless bill that is, at most, a symbolic gesture meant to make it appear as though they’re making major sacrifices. This time around the bill would prevent members of Congress from using tax victim money to buy first class airliner tickets:

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation aimed at preventing members of Congress from flying first class using taxpayer funds.

The bill, titled, “If Our Military Has to Fly Coach Then so Should Congress Act,” was introduced by Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.; Raul Ruiz, D-Calif.; John Barrow, D-Ga.; and Walter Jones, R-N.C., in a bid to end the purchase of first-class flight seats with taxpayer money.

“All it does is prohibit members of Congress from using taxpayer funds to purchase first class airfare,” Gosar said in a statement. “At a time of massive deficits and with a national debt in excess of $17 trillion, members of Congress should not be using taxpayers’ hard-earned money to buy luxury airline seats.”

You have to love how the authors were able to tied a bill restricting the flight arrangements of Congress to the military. Nothing gets people fired up quite like patriotism!

Much like the title the idea behind the bill is absurd for two reasons. First of all making members of Congress fly coach instead of first class isn’t going to put a noticeable dent in the deficit. We’re talking about a bill that could potentially save a couple of hundred dollars per flight per member of Congress. That amount of money isn’t even a blip on the radar when we’re talking about $17 trillion dollars.

But there’s another reason this bill is absurd. It doesn’t prevent members of Congress from utilize its fleet of private jets:

Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets, a substantial upgrade to the fleet used by federal officials at a time when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies receiving taxpayer funds.

The purchases will help accommodate growing travel demand by congressional officials. The planes augment a fleet of about two dozen passenger jets maintained by the Air Force for lawmakers, administration officials and military chiefs to fly on government trips in the U.S. and abroad.

Who gives a damn about first class when you have a fleet of private jets? I’d much rather fly on a private jet than a public one anyways and I’m sure members of Congress feel the same way.

Some Basic Rules for Blogging

I’ve been at this blogging thing for a while now (year five, baby). In that time I have learned a thing or two about blogging. Part of what I’ve learned is from direct experience (in other words I screwed up) and other things I learned by experiencing other blogs. I would like to take a moment to discuss a couple of the things I’ve learned. Namely linking to sources.

A site that has become popular with my libertarian friends is The Free Thought Project. One of the topics commonly covered on that site is police brutality. Anybody who has read this blog even for a short while know that I’m not a police apologist and generally despise modern policing practices. Therefore a site discussing police brutality should be right up my ally. But time and again I’ve noticed two issues with The Free Through Project: claims are made without any citation and quoted articles aren’t linked to.

Case in point, this article discussing a woman who was blinded by a police officer who apparently used a JPX Pepper Gun under the minimum recommended range. The article makes the following claim:

The results from firing the gun at such a close proximity were catastrophic.

The blast of pepper gel sliced her right eye in half, fractured her right orbital bone and severed the optic nerve in her left eye.

But no source is given. In fact the only source provided is an article that was merely referred to by “According to the Press Enterprise,”. No link was given to the article. Thankfully Google makes it easy to search for an article with a few simple keywords. Two links come up on Google. The first simply delivers me to a 404 error while the second takes me to an article that covers the story but isn’t the article quoted (but I don’t know if the link that now leads to a 404 error was the originally quote article because no link was provided on The Free Through Project). It’s possible that the description of the woman’s injuries were in the first article as well but no mention of any source was given in regards to that claim.

The problem with failing to link to the originally quote article is that I can’t use The Free Through Project as a source. No claim made within it can be verified. I can’t even look up a cached version of the quoted article to see whether or not it originally stated what is claimed by The Free Thought Project article because I don’t have an actual link.

To put it bluntly, The Free Thought Project article is shit. For all I know the author found the original story and made up a bunch of crap to make it sound even worse in an effort to push an agenda. The headline screams sensationalism as does the graphic description of the damage done to the woman’s face. If the claims made in the headline and the description of the injuries could be verified then the apparent sensationalism would be fact. But they can’t be verified, which makes the entire article worthless for anybody seeking actual facts about the story.

If you’re a blogger, or writing any webpage really, you should link to any articles you reference. Failing to do so not only make you look unprofessional it also makes you look sleazy.

Mozilla Throws in the Towel on DRM

I thought Mozilla releasing its version of Chrome was the most disappointing thing the company could do this year but I was wrong. Yesterday Mozilla announced that it decided to throw in the towel against digital rights management (DRM) technology being included in its browser:

Despite our dislike of DRM, we have come to believe Firefox needs to provide a mechanism for people to watch DRM-controlled content. We will do so in a way that protects the interests of individual users as much as possible, given what the rest of the industry has already put into place. We have selected Adobe to provide the key functionality. Adobe has been doing this in Flash for some time, and Adobe has been building the necessary relationships with the content owners. We believe that Adobe is uniquely able to bring new value to the setting.

Mozilla was the last holdout of the major browser providers to refuse to implement DRM technology. I understand why Mozilla is doing this. The company’s browser marketshare has been diminishing since Google released its Chrome browser. If major video providers start using Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), the new DRM technology that has been settled on, and Firefox is unable to display those videos it will further hurt its marketshare.

But by implementing DRM Mozilla has also abandoned its manifesto:

The Mozilla project is a global community of people who believe that openness, innovation, and opportunity are key to the continued health of the Internet.

[…]

The Mozilla project uses a community-based approach to create world-class open source software and to develop new types of collaborative activities.

[…]

2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.

[…]

7. Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource.

[…]

build and enable open-source technologies and communities that support the Manifesto’s principles;

Since the beginning Mozilla has touted itself as an open source project meant to support an open Internet. But it cannot do so while implementing DRM technology. As its blog post states:

The industry is on the cusp of a new mechanism for deploying DRM. (Until now, browsers have enabled DRM indirectly via Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight products.) The new version of DRM uses the acronyms “EME” and “CDM.” At Mozilla we think this new implementation contains the same deep flaws as the old system. It doesn’t strike the correct balance between protecting individual people and protecting digital content. The content providers require that a key part of the system be closed source, something that goes against Mozilla’s fundamental approach.

Emphasis mine. In order to implement the DRM technology Mozilla has to rely on a closed source binary provided by none other than Adobe (who, I might add, has a deplorable security record). This goes against its manifesto of working to keep the Internet open and providing a quality open source project.

However I will begrudgingly give Mozilla some credit. The DRM binary will be sandboxed, optional, and not installed by default:

Firefox does not load this module directly. Instead, we wrap it into an open-source sandbox. In our implementation, the CDM will have no access to the user’s hard drive or the network. Instead, the sandbox will provide the CDM only with communication mechanism with Firefox for receiving encrypted data and for displaying the results.

Traditionally, to implement node-locking DRM systems collect identifiable information about the user’s device and will refuse to play back the content if the content or the CDM are moved to a different device.

By contrast, in Firefox the sandbox prohibits the CDM from fingerprinting the user’s device. Instead, the CDM asks the sandbox to supply a per-device unique identifier. This sandbox-generated unique identifier allows the CDM to bind content to a single device as the content industry insists on, but it does so without revealing additional information about the user or the user’s device. In addition, we vary this unique identifier per site (each site is presented a different device identifier) to make it more difficult to track users across sites with this identifier.

As plugins today, the CDM itself will be distributed by Adobe and will not be included in Firefox. The browser will download the CDM from Adobe and activate it based on user consent.

As I said earlier I understand why Mozilla is doing this. I don’t like it but at least the Mozilla development team is being as smart about this implementation as possible. This way people like me who trust Adobe as much as a kleptomaniac can simply not install this crap.

What really worries me about this is that it sends a message to the media production industry and that message is that they can now demand DRM be made an integral part of the web and have their demands met. Make no mistake this is just the beginning of a snowball that will continue to grow in size. The DRM may be primarily geared towards video today but it will expand to include images and eventually text. Before you know it the web will be turned into a wasteland where content providers attempt to tightly control said content.

The only upside is that DRM technology always loses against the hacker community. But due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) bypassing DRM technology now carriers legal risks, at least in the United States. That means taking what steps are necessary to maintain an open web will be a criminal act. Some very bright people will likely end up in a cage for doing the right thing (not that that’s uncommon, especially here in the United States).

Now I Don’t Want the Ability to Remotely Disable My Phone

I live in Minnesota, the state partially made famous for its oddball political atmosphere. This state is both the source of some pretty decent legislation (the legislation regulating our ability to carry a firearm is surprisingly good) and some absolutely atrocious legislation. This is an example of the latter:

A first-in-the nation measure would require smartphone manufacturers to install mandatory “kill switch” technology to deter thefts became law with Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature Wednesday.

“This is a very important step forward for protecting young people and protecting people of all ages,” Dayton said.

The law mandates that smartphone manufacturers equip their phones with the technology by July 1, 2015. The “kill switch” enables a smartphone owner to remotely disable a smartphone or tablet if it is lost or stolen, rendering the devices useless.

I carry an iPhone, which has the ability to be remotely disabled via my provisioning server. For me it’s a desired feature because I would like to render the device unusable should somebody steal it and, due to the fact that I have the feature tied to my provisioning server, the feature is entirely within my control. With that said, I do not want the inclusion of such a capability to be mandatory. There are a lot of legitimate reasons why an individual wouldn’t want such a capability.

First and foremost is that the capability will most commonly be in the hands of the phone manufacturer. Having somebody’s finger on your phone’s kill switch is generally a bad idea. Second if the ability to remotely kill a device exists in any form it’s possible that an unauthorized third-party will find a way to gain access to that feature. Political dissidents performing a protest probably don’t want devices that can be remotely disabled since there is always the possibility that the state they’re protesting against will pressure the manufacturer into disabling the dissidents’ devices.

And because this is a Minnesota bill it had to include an extra heap of stupidity:

The law also prohibits retailers from paying cash for used phones, rather than electronic transfer or check.

In other words if you sell your phone the government wants to know about it. This is just another step in the state’s desire to track all financial transactions. Like every previous step this one is being marketed as a method of help the people. But the first part of this legislation, the mandatory kill switch, renders the second part irrelevant because no retailer is going to buy a useless phone. So this part is entirely unnecessary in regards to protecting people against cell phone thefts.

Why I’m Not a Collectivist Anarchist

In anarchist realms there are numerous subgroups. Two of the most well-known subgroups are collectivists and individualists. Although describing all of the nuances of the two groups would take ages their main divergence point is whether they focus on society or individuals. As societies are made up of individuals I tend to align with the individualist camp. But there is another reason I don’t align with the collectivist camp, the drama tends to run very high in their meetings. I believe drama is inherent in any collectivist movement because those movements rely on organization, collective action, solidarity, and other group strategies. These strategies require each person to be mostly committed to the group, which can cause major issues when the group decides to do something you don’t want to do.

I’ve been to a few collectivist anarchist meetings. Compared to the meetings I have with my individualist anarchist friends, which usually involved beers at a local watering hole, the collectivist meetings were pretty dramatic (also the meetings lacked booze as those meetings were declared “sober spaces”, which may have been 90 percent of the problem). A recent meeting of anarcho-syndicalists at Portland State University, although more severe than any of the collectivist meetings I’ve attended, does give a good idea of what tends to happen:

A meeting of Anarcho-Syndicalists devolved into chaos at Portland State University last week. The “Law & Disorder” conference presented by the Students of Unity was disrupted by protesters complaining about “survivor trauma” and the “patriarchal society” which is “prioritizing powerful white men.”

In my experience what usually happens at these meetings is a general assembly is arranged to make decisions related to the group. Everybody presents their pet issues and tries to convince the collective to agree on fighting for that issue. This usually devolves into a battle of wills as one or two members of the collective don’t want to fight for the issue. The winner is determined by the side that is most charismatic (which is a relative term when the meeting devolves into yelling and sometimes crying) because the group will eventually decided to vote for or against it simply to move on with things (this usually happens after an hour or more of debate). Oftentimes the following weeks will involve a great deal of animosity between those for and against the issue, which breeds more drama. And it’s not uncommon for that animosity to become an outright feud, which really cranks up the drama level.

Our individualist meetings tend to be much more laid back. Somebody presents an idea and those who want to join him do and those who don’t don’t. It’s a far more comfortable atmosphere for somebody like me who only enjoys watching drama, not participating in it.

In closing I do want to clarify that I’m not trying to insult my collectivist brethren with this post. Collectivism simply isn’t for me but if it’s your thing more power to you. And if you have a collectivist group that manages to get things done without a ton of drama that’s great. This post is based solely on my experience and a video of an experience that mirrors mine.

I’m Not Sure Why She’s in Prison

There are times where I’m left completely baffled by a court decision (OK, truthfully it happens more often than not). Take the case of Maria del Carmen Garcia. When her daughter was 13 years-old she was raped. The rapist was sentenced to nine years in prison and was released on parol after seven. After being released the rapist ran into Maria:

While on parole he came in contact with Garcia after returning to the family’s hometown in Spain and asked her, “How’s your daughter?”

I’m sure running into her daughter’s rapist wasn’t a happy situation to begin with but asking how her daughter is doing is rubbing salt in an open wound. Maria then responded in a way that I feel was actually very lenient:

Locating the convicted rapist in a bar, she doused him with newly purchased petrol, and set him on fire, reports The Local. The man died a week later as a result of the burns.

Of all the horrible tortures she could have inflicted on her daughter’s rapist I must admit that dousing him with gasoline and lighting him ablaze was actually quite civil. It was certainly far better than the rapist deserved. Unfortunately the courts disagreed and decided locking Maria in prison was the best way to handle the situation. Initially she received a longer sentence than her rapist but at least the Spanish Supreme Court reduced it. Still the decision to cage Maria doesn’t appear to be very popular with the locals as thousands have signed a petition requesting clemency, which goes to show how popular people who rape children are.

The fact that Maria is sitting in a cage baffles me.

Patents Don’t Equal Implementation

There are some rumors that just won’t die. What’s worse is when these rumors are reported as facts. Take this article. It claims that Apple is implementing a method that would allow law enforcement agents to remotely disable an iPhone’s camera:

The rapid emergence of smart phones with high definition cameras leads to consequences for law-breaking cops.

Recently, law enforcement throughout the country has been trying to pass laws that would make it illegal to film them while they’re on duty.

But Apple is coming out with a new technology that would put all the power in a cop’s hands.

The evidence? Apple filed a patent on this type of technology back in 2008. Ever since that patent was filed people have claimed that Apple is implementing or has secretly implemented the technology.

What people seem to miss is that companies file patents on anything they can think. It doesn’t matter if a company plans to actually implement a patented technology, they file the patent to build up an intellectual property war chest just in case they get sued by another company over an intellectual property matter. So far Apple has made no indication that it plans to actually implement the technology covered in the linked patent. Claiming anything other then the fact that Apple has filed a patent for such technology is pure fear mongering and it really needs to stop.

Selling Rand Paul

Mondays are rough for blogging. The new cycle hasn’t ramped up to the weekly top speed so we’re left scraping the bottom of the barrel. In my quest to give you guys some content to read I’ve decided to go for the low hanging fruit of politics. Specifically the popular (in libertarian circles) political topic of Rand Paul.

Something has been bugging me about Rand’s supporters that I couldn’t quite figure out until now. Whenever Rand’s name is mentioned on a libertarian discussion board a handful of people always try to sell him. Any seemingly poor decision (poor in regards to libertarianism) made by Rand is justified as him needing to play the political game in order to generate neocon support that is necessary to win the presidency. When somebody expressed ideological differences with Rand one of his supporters invariably shows up to talk about how libertarians, whether aligned with Rand or not, must support Rand because he’s the only small government option on the board (it’s rather ironic that so-called libertarians feel that it’s appropriate to tell other people what they must do).

And this is what bugs me about Rand Paul’s supporters. In my experience if a politician has to be sold to an ideological group than that politician doesn’t support that group’s ideology.

In fact Rand’s supporters remind me of a sleazy used car salesman in a way. They approach you when you’re browsing their lot and point out a few cars that will supposedly fit you well. Listening to the salesman would lead you to believe that every car you’ve looked at is in excellent mechanical condition even if the body looks a little banged up. You’ll also be lead to believe that the previous owner (of which he assures you there was only one) was very strict about performing scheduled maintenance and drove like an old man. But when you run a CARFAX report you find that the vehicle was actually rebuilt after being totaled out due to an accident with a semi that pushed it into a river.

Like the used car salesman above, Rand’s supporters are being deceptive in the hopes of selling him to libertarians. The only part about this entire exercise that I don’t understand is why. Libertarians, unfortunately, make up a small percentage of Americans. A presidential candidate can easily win without their support. So why are Rand’s supporters investing so much time in trying to sell him? My guess is self-reassurance. If they can convince a majority of other libertarians that Rand Paul is in fact a super secret libertarian then his libertarian supporters can sleep well at night convinced that they are supporting a candidate who reflects their ideology. Either that or they’re just trolling the libertarian community, which would be hilarious.

Slacktivism, The Inability to Get Things Done

Here in the United States our attention span is effectively zero. In general there is a new cause every week and sometimes that cause can last a whole two weeks. Last week’s cause, which is looking to span into this week, is bringing back girls who were kidnapped from Nigeria. This means that a bunch of people, in lieu of doing something, have develop a catchy new Twitter hashtag and are posting pictures of themselves holding up signs with that hashtag on it. Larry Correia concisely explains how effective this will be at solving the problem:

I did a lot of research on human trafficking and modern slavery before Mike Kupari and I wrote Swords of Exodus. It is a horrible, evil, and surprisingly gigantic thing. One thing I’m fairly sure of about the kind of people who do that sort of thing for a living, is that they really don’t give a shit about a bunch of American movie stars taking pouty selfies of themselves holding up signs with hash tag give our girls back. The disapproval of fat, soft, Americans on Facebook really doesn’t move them. They care about getting paid or getting killed, that’s about it. The self-righteous pouting is useless.

The reason slacktivism fails in situations like this is because the perpetrators are truly evil individuals who gives zero fucks about what other people think of them and their actions. Why would anybody think that an individual willing to kidnap and sell young girls would care about other peoples’ opinions?

Problems like this, hell most problems, cannot be solved by pictures of people holding up signs with flavor-of-the-week phrases written on them. The only way problems like this can be solved is through action. In the case of kidnapping the only real options are provide protection for would-be victims and dedicate resources to saving present victims. These are solutions that almost always require the use of force, which is something many slacktivists have a problem with.

Either way this cause, like every cause before it, will fade from the memories of Americans within another week or so. We don’t have the attention span required for prolonged caring. And that, in my opinion, is a true tragedy.