Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

A Flaw in the State’s Grand Scheme

The state’s track record hasn’t been holding up well after Hurricane Sandy. First the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) required people needing information to look it up on their website even though power outages made accessing websites rather difficult. That glaring oversight wasn’t enough though because another of the state’s schemes isn’t working so well. It seems replacing physical food stamps with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards has consequences:

Recipients buying eligible foods are suppose to swipe their EBT cards like any other credit card for their purchases but since Hurricane Sandy hit, most Lower East Side stores don’t have electricity to run credit card transactions and are only accepting cash. Leaving many people on EBT with empty wallets, empty refrigerators and no access to food.

“The supermarkets don’t even really want to sell anything. They’re open but if you don’t have cash, you messed up. And everybody in these projects, they take EBT…food stamps,” a La Guardia Houses resident told WNYC’s Marianne McCune.

It shouldn’t surprise anybody that a large central government builds its schemes on large centralized infrastructures. When the power goes out the state’s schemes seem to fail entirely.

Funding the GOP Stupid Train

The Republican Party has decided to dump their money into their stupid train. Remember Mourdock? He’s the Republican candidate who said pregnancies resulting from rape were gifts from God. After making an incredibly idiotic statement like that you would think the Republican Party would have separated themselves from the man faster than they separated themselves from Todd “women seldom become pregnant from legitimate rate” Akins (of course Rand Paul swooped in to help Akin’s campaign). Instead they’re dumping millions into the man’s campaign:

Republicans are spending big to salvage Richard Mourdock’s candidacy in the aftermath of his comments on rape and pregnancy that have imperiled GOP hopes of taking back the Senate majority.

About $4 million is being spent across the airwaves in the final week of the campaign to bolster Mourdock, from the likes of well-known Republican groups like American Crossroads, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Club for Growth. And that comes as both sides acknowledge that Mourdock has taken a hit in the polls since his comments. Democrats are now more confident than ever that their candidate, Rep. Joe Donnelly, is poised to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the cycle.

Why is the Republican Party wasting its money on this guy? Oh, that’s right, it’s because they’re piss poor money managers. If the Republican Party had a brain it would withhold any further money from Mourdock as a lesson to the rest of its candidates to keep their offensives statements to themselves during campaign season.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Minnesota Voter ID Amendment

Political organizations are spending their money for the final push before the election. Television screens are alive with political advertisements, newspapers are filled with pages of propaganda, and billboards across the country are urging you to vote one way or another. In Minnesota we’re being assaulted with advertisements asking us to vote yes or no on two constitutional amendments. These amendments have consumed a great deal of time for the politically active members living in this state, even though they’re really just scams meant to get the Democratic and Republican voter bases out to the polls.

Of the two amendments I find the one that would require voters to present state issued photo identification when voting to be the most interesting. Unlike the amendment that would make the state’s prohibition against same-sex marriages constitutional, which is nothing more than further legislating religious dogma, the voter identification amendment is a potential solution to a potential problem. Both the problem and the solution are only potentials because no reliable study has been performed to determine if the cost of implementing voter identification outweighs the cost. To this point all arguments for and against this amendment are hypothetical. Those who support the amendment claim that it will fight voter fraud but haven’t demonstrated that voter fraud is a significant problem and those who oppose the amendment claim it will disenfranchise specific voting blocks (which can’t actually be demonstrated until the amendment is passed so I give them a bit of a break). Security, like anything else that requires the use of resources, needs to undergo cost-benefit analysis.

In order to perform a cost-benefit analysis we need to identify the threat. Voter identification legislation is meant to combat the threat of individuals claiming they’re somebody else in order to cast additional votes. How many cases of such fraud have occurred in Minnesota? I’ve seen no conclusive studies indicating such a number, just vague statements claiming it’s a rampant problem. Nationwide the rate of voter impersonation is statistically nonexistent:

Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.

.00000013 percent of votes cast nationwide were demonstrated to be cases of voter impersonation. That number is so statistically insignificant as to be entirely irrelevant. Unless Minnesota greatly bucks the national trend voter impersonation isn’t a notable problem here. Considering the likely insignificant nature of the problem how much would it cost to implement a voter identification system? According to the only study I’ve found on the subject the cost it is estimated that a voter identification program would be $68.5 million in the first year [PDF].

Is it really worth spending $68.5 million in the first year on something that hasn’t even been proven to be a problem? Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend a single dime on something that hasn’t been proven to be a problem.

Map of Pakistani Drone Strikes

It appears as though our Nobel Peace Prize winning president has been blowing piles of Pakistanis to pieces. Salon posted a map of American drone strikes in Pakistan noting whether Bush or Obama ordered the strike and the number of reported militants (which is any military age male regardless of whether or not they were actually engaged in hostilities) killed. It’s amazing how a president who campaigned on peace managed to order so many assassinations.

Kurt Bills Appears to be Towing the Republican Party Line

I noticed a handful of my friends posted a message that they purport to be from Kurt Bills (these friends are supporters of Bills so I have no reason to doubt them). The message really shows how that Bill is more about towing the Republican Party line than standing up for true liberty:

In June 2009 Norm Coleman conceded his Senate race to comedian Al Franken.

He lost the race, after 6 months of recounts and legal battles, by 312 votes.

In December 2010, Tom Emmer conceded his race for Governor after a similar recount, losing by fewer than 9000 votes.

Both races have something in common much more important than the fact that they ended after recounts: they ended with extremely liberal politicians taking power entirely due to the defection of Republicans to third-party candidates.

In a very real way, Democrats didn’t win those elections as much as Republicans chose to lose them.

In my mind, that is shameful. Do any of the Republicans who voted for Dean Barkley or Tom Horner really believe our state and our country are better off with Al Franken and Mark Dayton as Senator and Governor?

This really raises a pet peeve of mine; third parties continue to be blamed for the Republican Party’s losses. Who is really to blame? Are the voters who cast their ballots for third party candidates instead of Republican candidates to blame or is the Republican Party to blame for not fielding candidates its base found acceptable? Bills apparently blames the voters. He seems to think voters are too stupid or incompetent to know what’s best for them.

Norm Coleman was, at best, a middle of the road candidate. He flip flopped almost as much as Romney and he followed no understandable philosophy. It’s not hard to see why he lost. Tom Emmer started out sounding like a candidate Republicans would happily support but after he received the endorsement his statements started moving more towards the center of the political spectrum. I’m sure some campaign strategist took Emmer aside and said, “Listen Tom, you have the endorsement now so you don’t have to make the Republicans happy. Keep a low profile so you don’t put off the Democrats and you will win this election.” Needless to say he lost.

I don’t think the Republican’s failures is the fault of the voters, I believe it’s the fault of the Republican Party itself. Why do the party big wigs think they’ll get support for wishy washy candidates? They must feel entitled to support, which is ironic because they are the ones who speak out so adamantly against entitlement programs. It also appears that Bills believes people should vote for Republicans instead of liberty candidates. This doesn’t surprise me, he’s proving to be more and more of a party shill by the day. Even though the liberty movement in Minnesota is largely responsible for Bill’s endorsement he’s been quick to throw them under the bus.

I’m glad Bills is showing his true colors. Seeing who he really is now will dull the liberty movement’s pain if he gets into office (because once he’s in I’m betting he’s going to go full neocon).

Unintended Consequences of Prohibitions Against Texting While Driving

Individual states across the country are passing laws that prohibit texting while driving. How have these laws fair? Not well, in fact these bans have been followed by an increase in accidents:

It’s perplexing for both police and lawmakers throughout the U.S.: They want to do something about the danger of texting while driving, a major road hazard, but banning the practice seems to make it even more dangerous.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 3 of every 4 states that have enacted a ban on texting while driving have seen crashes actually go up rather than down.

It’s hard to pin down exactly why this is the case, but experts believe it is a result of people trying to avoid getting caught in states with stiff penalties. Folks trying to keep their phones out of view will often hold the phone much lower, below the wheel perhaps, in order to keep it out of view. That means the driver’s eyes are looking down and away from the road.

One thing statists and other authoritarians never seem to learn is that making a law against something doesn’t stop people from doing it. Theft, murder, smoking marijuana, and tax fraud are all illegal yet people still steal, murder, smoke weed, and commit tax fraud. What happens when a law is passed that prohibits an action is that people keep performing that action but they try to do it in secret. Thieves move to robbing homes during average working hours when the owners are unlikely to be there, murders come up with complex and sometime absurd plots to avoid being caught, producers and consumers of marijuana have created a very successful black market, and people develop ways to shuffle money around in order to confuse the state’s tax collection goons. In the case of texting while driving people are more apt to hold their cell phone lower, which will entirely remove their eyes from the road and thus increase the chances they’ll get into an accident.

Rand Paul Makes Hating Him too Easy

Even though I already have good reasons to dislike Rand Paul it’s nice to see that he’s working hard to give me more:

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is running ads in support of controversial Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin in his bid to unseat Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.

For the past week, RandPAC has been targeting Senate Democrats for voting against Paul’s proposal to cut foreign aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan.

Rand Paul is throwing his support behind Todd “Women Rarely Become Pregnant from Legitimate Rape” Akins. Normally I wouldn’t waste your time reporting on this. Nobody should be surprised that one sociopathic neocon is supporting another sociopathic neocon. However the fact that many people in the liberty movement still believe that Rand Paul will be our savior makes this stupid political move noteworthy. Obviously Rand’s opponents are going to descend on this news like vultures on a corpse and his supporters will be expected to justify his actions. It’s going to be damned difficult to justify Rand’s support of Akins since Akins’s did a wonderful job of vilifying himself in the eyes of almost everybody. Heck the Republican Party even told Akins to quite.

This should make for a very entertaining episodes of Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers.

The Romney Campaign Needs a Better Propaganda Minister

I don’t know how to put this delicately so I’ll be blunt; the Romney campaign needs to hire a new propaganda minister. After Paul Ryan’s recent fiasco it’s obvious that the campaign’s propaganda minister isn’t doing his job:

The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall.

[…]

Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned.

Upon entering the soup kitchen, Ryan, his wife and three young children greeted and thanked several volunteers, then donned white aprons and offered to clean some dishes. Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.

A propaganda minister has one very simple job: make the candidate or candidates under his or her care look good in the public eye. That’s it. Apparently the Romney campaign’s minister can’t even accomplish that simple task. When this impromptu photo opportunity was starting to develop the minister should have asked some very basic questions such as whether or not Ryan would be able to actually help the soup kitchen. If Ryan came too late to actually help the photo opportunity would be meaningless because it would become public information that the man didn’t actually do anything. In that case the campaign should have just kept rolling and not have bothered going to the kitchen. If Ryan came early enough to help then the minister would have to inform Ryan that he would actually have to help otherwise it would become public information that he did nothing.

This fiasco was a very elementary mistake for a propaganda minister to make. Even an amateur should have caught this and forbidden Ryan from entering that soup kitchen after the patrons had left and everything had been cleaned up. Romney’s campaign really needs to take some lessons from Obama’s campaign. Obama has hired some of the slickest propagandists out there that do some absolutely amazing work. They do such an excellent job that they still have many people who supported Obama during the last election because of his anti-war platform supporting him again even though he’s proven himself to be a complete war monger.

If Romney wants to win the election he needs to get somebody who can propagandize effectively. There are only three weeks left before the election but a really great propagandist could still help pull off a victory by raising Romney and Ryan’s status in the public eye.

The State Never Forgets to Punish Good Deeds

When the state sees somebody performing a good deed they are usually quick to swoop in and mercilessly punish the good Samaritan. Take the paramedic who had the audacity to give a blanket to a man in need:

Two weeks ago, a house caught fire, and the elderly man who lived there was brought outside wearing only his underwear. Paramedic Jeff Gaglio gave him a blanket. Then on Tuesday, Gaglio was informed that the department was bringing him up on charges for his action. Jerald James, chief of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS), who is responsible for Gaglio’s punishment, said in defense of the charges, “We can’t have an employee who feels that they have a right to give away state property without getting prior approval.” In fact, his department and the city of Detroit are strapped for cash. However, it has also been revealed that the department did not pay for the blanket. The one that Gaglio gave away had been donated.

What I find most laughable is the idea that the state can own property. In this case the blanket was donated by if it was purchased by the state it would have been purchased with stolen money. The state exists solely off of extortion in the form of taxes, fines, and other assorted fees. Failure to pay taxes or fines will result in the state’s boot being brought down upon you and if you fail to pay any demanded fees before doing something you will also find the state’s boot coming down upon you. Considering this fact it’s impossible to say the state can own legitimate property since all the property they acquire is acquired through extortion.

The way I see it the state doesn’t own property and the people have every right to claim any property currently claimed by the state. Every building, automobile, and aircraft carrier was made possible by resources stolen from you and me. Were there any justice these goods would be liquidated and the funds dispersed amongst the population based on the amount of money that was stolen from them by the state. Instead the state punishes anybody who attempts to return even the tiniest of these goods to the people.

Inconsistent Libertarians

Brace yourself, I’m about to go on a rant. If you don’t feel like reading a rant just scroll up to the next story.

I’m easily irritated by inconsistency, which is why I loath the /r/Libertarian subreddit. While the subreddit is a great source for libertarian news the contributing members are extremely inconsistent. Yesterday I posted about the story of Leah Plante. She is facing cage time because she is refusing to testify against her fellows in a grand jury. Most libertarians would find such a situation reprehensible as one has the right to remain silent. This story made it to /r/Libertarian and, in general, most comments were on the side of Leah. As expected a large number of libertarians were opposed to the idea of coerced testimonies and witch hunts against political dissidents. That was until somebody pointed out that Leah has been involved in the Occupy movement. Suddenly the general consensus of /r/Libertarian went from “This case is bullshit, you shouldn’t be coerced into testifying against somebody!” to “Fuck that bitch! Occupiers deserve everything they get!”

What the fuck? People only have rights so long as they’re not involved in political movements you detest? A person has the right to free speech or to remain silent unless they’re not a libertarian? That, ladies and gentlemen, is a hypocritical stance if there ever was one.

As a libertarian I’ve found myself defending some very unsavory characters. I find myself defending the right of racists, bigots, etc. to speak freely. I find myself defending the right of those who have committed fraud to keep and bear arms. I find myself defending lots of people who I vehemently disagree with because libertarianism is, at least I thought, supposed to be able equal rights for all. It shouldn’t matter if you’re black or white, man or woman, libertarian or communist. If you’re a human being you should enjoy the same freedoms as every other human being. These freedoms, at least according to most libertarian philosophies, include not being coerced into actions you have no desire to take.

This “us” vs. “them” tribalistic bullshit needs to end. I’m not a big fan of collectivism and spend quite a bit of time arguing against it but that doesn’t mean I will suddenly do a 180 degree turn on my beliefs when a collectivist is facing a bad situation. Remaining consistent is important when you’re trying to make a philosophical argument. If you’re preaching one thing but doing another people will soon ignore everything you say. Arguing that everybody should live free of coercion one moment and then claiming coercion is perfectly acceptable the next moment makes you a hypocrite and nobody listens to hypocrites.

That’s my two cents, spend it however you want.