Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

The Failure of Consensus

One of the common events taking place at the various occupations throughout the country are general assemblies. These general assemblies are basically a collectivist’s wet dream come true. As an individualist I look at them as completely unproductive wastes of time and after sitting through a couple I still hold that belief. Apparently I’m not the only one:

For the past three hours the crowd had been debating the creation of a new working group called Urban Youth. The process was laborious: While the facilitator had a microphone, it didn’t carry far, and each comment had to be repeated through Occupy’s elaborate Human Microphone system. The process was reminiscent of New England bureaucracy and legislative officialdom, procedures I’ve often panned as a local. Things were said like: “We need to see everyone’s hands in the air, because if we don’t have a quorum of people voting it won’t be considered consensus.”

At one point it looked like a decision was about to be reached. After hours of legislative meandering, the facilitator’s excitement was palpable. “Are there any points of information? No points of information. How about strong objections? I’m not seeing any strong objections. Are there any friendly amendments?” There was a long pause. An individual raised his hand, which indicated an amendment proposal. A moan rumbled through the crowd. The facilitator chuckled. “This is democracy,” he said. “Everyone has a voice.” The crowd began to cheer. “This is why we do this. Because we all have a voice!” You could feel the sense of frustration, of fatigue giving way to elation. I thought: Perhaps the essence of democracy is somehow entwined with the procedural humdrum of a Cambridge zoning board.

The biggest failures of general assemblies is the fact everything must be decided, and I mean everything. Each general assembly I viewed started with a discussion on how votes were going to be handled for that general assembly. I shit you not, an hour was spent discussing a vote on how voting was going to be done. These discussions usually revolved around whether or not 99% agreement was truly consensus or if 100% of the people present had to agree on everything.

Have you ever been in a meeting where 100% of the participants had to agree on something? If you have then you understand the impossibility of such a requirement. Have you ever stopped to wonder why a huge majority of businesses usually have a set hierarchy of power and why the military doesn’t both worrying about getting consensus of soldiers? It’s because getting such consensus takes for-fucking-ever.

Even apparently minor topics of discussion can take hours to debate before consensus within the group is reached. Ask a group of friends where you should go to eat sometimes, you won’t be out the door for an hour in all likelihood. The requirement of consensus is what ultimately paralyzes collectivist movements. Those of us who are individualists have it much easier because we simply say, “Hey I’m going to go do this, if you want to join me you’re welcome to and if you don’t that’s fine.” The only opinion an individualist worries about is his or her own and that’s why they can get things done (you can bet Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and most other successful people never asked for consensus of those they were working with before doing their thing).

During the general assemblies I bore witness to you could see fatigue spreading throughout the attendees fairly quickly. Consensus was often reach simply because those who opposed whatever measure was being put forth were sick of debating and wanted to move on so they voted in favor. While the organizers and collectivists praised this democracy in action my friends and I simply stood there with small smiles as we watched the biggest failure of collectivism in action. After all if we wanted to do something we never worry about group consensus, we just go do whatever the Hell we want to go do.

Thankfully there is no way to make people abide by the decisions of those general assemblies. If everybody had to abide by the decisions of the entire group nothing would get done.

Demands of the Mentally Deranged

Recently an Occupy Wall Street protester posted a list of demands. As I stated in my article covering the local OccupyMN movement these types of protests are composed of a great number of individuals with varying grievances. It is unfair to state any set of demands is attributed to the entire movement but alas the recently posted set of demands are being promoted by a great number of the participants so I thought it would be fun to go through the demands one by one and point out the complete failure of logic.

Admin note: This is not an official list of demands. This is a forum post submitted by a single user and hyped by irresponsible news/commentary agencies like Fox News and Mises.org.

Stating that the Mises Institute and Fox News are in any way comparable demonstrates the complete ignorance of the person posting that note. One is a news organization that panders to its neo-conservative audience while the other is one of the few sources of real scholarly economic knowledge and libertarian philosophy.

Anyways we know what level of idiocy we’re dealing with here so let’s move onto the demands:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages.

Oh wow… at least the author presented his complete ignorance from the get go. First of all free trade isn’t the problem with our economy, government regulations are. The author stated other countries have wage and environmental regulatory advantages so the United States government needs to respond by enacting further regulations to offset the disadvantage created by their current regulations. I’m guessing if the author’s house was burning down he’d try dousing the blaze in gasoline in an attempt to improve the situation.

While current economic conditions are one of the most common complaints being presented at these occupations, many of the most vocal complainers obviously have no knowledge in the field of economics. Perhaps they should read some articles on that irresponsible Mises Institute website. Also, why not throw in another rather arbitrary demand:

Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

How did the author come up with $20.00 an hour? Also the author further demonstrates his economic ignorance by not realizing minimum wage laws is part of the reason unemployment in this country is as high as it is. Jacking up the minimum wage to $20.00 and hour would only create one of two outcomes; either it would cause a majority of businesses to fail causing even higher unemployment or it would cause the price of all goods to increase as an offset to the new influx of money into the economy (this is called inflation). Do you think McDonald’s will continue selling $0.99 burgers if they have to pay every employee $20.00 an hour? If they did they would fail, if they didn’t the cost of their burgers would increase drastically.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

This makes sense. Government regulations is what ultimately cause the massive increase in healthcare costs so the author’s solution is to… give the government more control over the healthcare industry? If the author actually knew anything about economics, healthcare, and liberty he would advocate the government remove itself completely from the healthcare industry and allow the free market to find viable solution it did back in the day when mutual aid societies were still allowed by the state to exist.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

If people are no longer required to work in order to survive what will motivate them to produce the goods and services needed by society? Would you work your ass off farming if you knew simply sitting on your ass would allow you to draw enough income to live? Most people would not and this is ultimately the problem with communism. If nobody has to work nobody will work and if nobody is working to produce the needs of society the needs of society will not exist. You can’t eat if nobody is producing food, you won’t have shelter if nobody builds it, and you won’t have clean drinking water if nobody takes care of sanitation.

Demand four: Free college education.

There is no such thing as a free college education, somebody has to pay for it. What the author probably means is, “Force all the people wealthier than me to pay for my college education.” Somebody has to pay the teachers, maintain the facilities, and provide the supplies needed to keep a college running.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

How? The only viable alternative source of energy that will meet the current and future needs of our society is nuclear. Nuclear energy is basically verboten so we continue to rely on the only viable alternative, fossile fuels.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Seriously, who the fuck is supposed to pay for all of this? Where is that $1 trillion going to come from? Why was $1 trillion chosen instead of another arbitrary number? Did the author do a study? If so, where is the study?

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

It’s amazing that the exact same amount of money needed for infrastructure is also needed for ecological restoration. That’s so convenient it must be an arbitrarily selected number that the author thought was sufficiently big to fix any problem.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Umm… it’s currently illegal for an employer to discriminate against somebody because of their race or gender. Perhaps the author means we should make all forms of racial and gender discrimination illegal. That would be great because I would absolutely love to receive some maternity leave even though I’m completely incapable of becoming pregnant. We could force white supremicists to converse with minorities at the point of a gun because they wouldn’t further forge their irrational hatred or anything.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Wait… the author wants to restrict free trade but also wants to make it legal for anybody to enter the country and work without hinderance? I love being for what I’m against as well.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

How exactly is that going to fix the problem of election fraud? The primary problems encountered in this country stem from either idiots too stupid to properly fill out the ballot as instructed or straight up fraud via people voting multiple times. Our problems run much deeper than a simple inability to counter ballots correctly.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Instantly all financiers go out of business and those wanting to get a loan for a home, piece of necessary equipment, or to expand their business are unable to. Since businesses are unable to expand they are unable to hire more employees and thus unemployment increases when those involved in the finance market suddenly find themselves without jobs. People who would have become successful entrepreneurs and flooded the market with new and amazing products sudden find themselves unable to start a business because no institution exists to loan them the money they need. Other currently established businesses will then start to fail because a very expensive piece of equipment critical to their operations breaks down and they are unable to get a loan for a replacement.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Why? No, I’m dead serious, what the fuck is this supposed to accomplish?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Is there going to be an equal right to vote yourself exempt from a union? If you want to voluntarily come together and form a union that’s cool, I full support you in your endeavor. Personally I prefer to represent myself or hire another individual with my own money who exclusively represents me and my interests.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

No, those demands will create a new economic dark age of record high unemployment rates, starvation, and pestilence.

I’m glad to see a lot of opposition to these demands in the comments section. Since I understand the nature of these occupations I realize these demands are not representative of anybody besides the author and the people who decide to sign onto them. With that said the media doesn’t have the same understanding and they are going to take these demands as though they apply to the entire movement. That is to say the media will state these demands are wanted by everybody currently occupying Wall Street and it will discredit the movement as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad people are finally pissed off enough to stand up and take action. It’s refreshing to see American people doing something besides sitting on their asses complaining about the current condition of the economy, corruption in the government, and disagreements with current socially accepted norms. With that said, the protesters need to realize that the media is going to take anything said by a crazy participant and run with it. When that happens others in the movement needs to loudly declare that no single individual represents the entire movement and statements made by individuals can only be applied to those individuals.

The Obama Campaign Blame Game

Those dastardly Republicans are at it again, they’re doing everything in their power to block the Obamessiah’s jobs bill! What a bunch of despicable bastards! Don’t they know that they’re going to ruin this country unless they follow the plan of Our Dear Leader? Wait a minute… when did Harry Reid become a Republican:

On the Senate floor today, Republican leader Mitch McConnell asked for unanimous consent to proceed on voting on the bill. Reid, who has struggled to find enough votes for the bill in the Democratic caucus, objected to the motion and killed the opportunity for a vote.

But that doesn’t jive with the message the Obama Campaign sent out regarding this:

President Obama is in Dallas today urging Americans who support the American Jobs Act to demand that Congress pass it already.

Though it’s been nearly a month since he laid out this plan, House Republicans haven’t acted to pass it. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is out there actually bragging that they won’t even put the jobs package up for a vote — ever.

It’s not clear which part of the bill they now object to: building roads, hiring teachers, getting veterans back to work. They’re willing to block the American Jobs Act — and they think you won’t do anything about it.

But here’s something you can do: Find Republican members of Congress on Twitter, call them out, and demand they pass this bill.

So Harry Reid blocked the vote on Obama’s jobs bill and the Obama Campaign is blaming the Republicans. Since our politicians are acting like a bunch of three year-olds I propose we change the Capitol Building into a giant playpen full of children’s toys. Hell we can even get them a pony.

Rick Perry Wants to Invade Mexico

If it wasn’t blatantly obvious that Rick Perry is a neo-con he decided to show his true colors for all to see. Mr. Perry seems to believe that sending American troops into Mexico is a logical method of fighting the drug cartels:

Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Saturday said he would be open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to combat drug cartels.

Speaking in New Hampshire during a campaign stop, Perry said, “It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and keep them off our border.”

Let’s stop to think about this for a minute. The only reason the drug cartels in Mexico have any power is because they were able to attain wealth through an illegitimate business. Their business is only illegitimate because the United States government declared a pointless war on drugs. One sign of insanity is performing the exact same sequence of events and expecting a different outcome. By that definition the federal government must be insane because we had a little episode in our history known as Prohibition. Due to alcohol being declare a verboten substance the criminal underground began making a fortune off of bootlegged liquor. This lead to an increased level of violent crime which was only reduced when the constitutional amendment banning alcohol was repealed.

So what does our miraculous government do several decades down the road? Start a prohibition against various politically selected drugs which turned manufacturing, selling, and using those substances into a crime. This lead to a dramatic increase in violent crime which has not subsumed. If Rick Perry is serious about reducing the violent crime rate along the Mexican-American border he will advocate an end to the war on drugs as Ron Paul has. By ending the needless war on drugs we will take the power from the drug cartels as legitimate competition enters the market and the production of currently illegal substances begins to drop sharply in price. So long as the federal government attempts to play nanny we’re going to have to deal with drug cartels whose power is ever increasing.

An invasion of Mexico to stop the drug cartels will end in nothing but more wasting of taxpayer dollars and more of our soldiers dying needlessly. We already have several wars going on overseas anyways so why is there any talk about starting another one?

Be Sure of Your Target

As Tam points out you should always be sure of your target:

BILLINGS, Mont. — A hunter attacked by a wounded grizzly in a Montana forest was killed not by the bear, but by a gunshot fired by a companion trying to save him, authorities said Friday.

[…]

The shot was fired by 20-year-old Ty Bell, also of Winnemucca, as he attempted to stop the bear’s attack. No charges are expected, Bowe said.

Although I commend Mr. Bell for putting in the effort to try to save his friend I must say, ultimately, the outcome ended up being the same. Actually scratch that, there is a chance his friend would have survived the grizzly’s attack.

With that said if I’m ever being mauled by a grizzly feel free to step in and help, I’ll not ridicule you regardless of the outcome. I take that back, I’ll ridicule the shit out of you if I die.

Freedom of Speech is Dead

Although most of my readers already know this I feel it necessary to state this for the record, the freedom of speech is dead. The freedom of speech has been under attack in this country for a very long time, going back at least as early as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Still the fact that somebody can be punished simply for having an unpopular belief is a bit disconcerting:

An honors student in Fort Worth, Texas, was sent to the principal’s office and punished for telling a classmate that he believes homosexuality is wrong.

[…]

Dakota was in a German class at the high school when the conversation shifted to religion and homosexuality in Germany. At some point during the conversation, he turned to a friend and said that he was a Christian and “being a homosexual is wrong.”

“It wasn’t directed to anyone except my friend who was sitting behind me,” Dakota told Fox. “I guess [the teacher] heard me. He started yelling. He told me he was going to write me an infraction and send me to the office.”

Dakota was sentenced to one day in-school suspension – and two days of full suspension. His mother was flabbergasted, noting that her son had a spotless record, was an honor student, volunteered at his church and played on the school football team.

I’m sure somebody will say I’m anti-gay for writing this article but if you do a little browsing on this blog you’ll know that’s not true. It is my personal belief that all people should enjoy equal rights regardless of your race, religion, or sexual orientation. I also believe everybody has the right to their opinion and should be allowed to express it without fear of punishment. Vengeance shouldn’t be brought against somebody simply because they’re racist, bigoted, etc. While I reserve the right to call such people idiots they reserve the right to call me one and so long as nobody initiates violence it’s all good.

The fact that this kid was given three days of suspension is disgusting. What kind of message do you think that sends the kid? If the teacher was disgusted by the child’s belief maybe he should have had a discussion about it with the kid or the entire class. Punishing somebody for disagreeing with you only generates resentment and will likely strengthen their belief. Reason is the most effective tool for promoting logical ideas. Had the teacher used reasoning to express why he believed the child’s belief to be wrong perhaps he could have helped the kid understand that homosexuality isn’t wrong as it harms nobody.

Instead the teacher went all authoritarian on the child and likely generated resentment which will strengthen the child’s belief that homosexuality is wrong.

This is What Bailing Out General Motors Accomplished

The American people footed the bill to bail out the failures that is General Motors (GM) and what has received in return? Jack shit. Well more specifically jack shit and, as Days of our Trailers points out, constant tracking of everybody whose vehicle is equipped with OnStar:

Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

For those who aren’t aware OnStar is a subsidiary of GM so they would have gone under had the market been allowed to operate freely. But the thing you should be taking away from this is the fact that OnStar is not only tracking the location of paying customers but also the location of customers who have cancelled the service. Although OnStar claims they aren’t currently selling this information you know they eventually will be.

Setting this violation of trust aside there is another thing to consider, the possibility of such data being used to retroactively issue traffic violations or setup speed traps. Data collected by TomTom was used by the Dutch government to setup speed traps so it’s not like the scenario I’m hypothesizing is unprecedented.

More Delays Caused by TSA

At this point I almost feel bad picking on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). It’s not because I feel sorry for them but because it’s so easy that it makes me feel lazy as a blogger. The TSA have become on of my personal punching bags because every program they implement in the name of security ends up causing further headaches for those flying while offering no additional security. Case in point their new profiling scheme which ended up causing a four hour backup at the Logan International Airport in Boston:

New security procedures being tested at Logan International Airport caused significant backups at security checkpoints Thursday, according to airlines.

Backups lasted for about four hours after the Transportation Security Administration began testing a procedure that requires more human interaction between security agents and passengers.

The process takes about 30 seconds, but it caused many passengers to be delayed. TSA agents engaged in “chat downs” while checking their IDs and boarding passes.

So now instead of arriving two hours early to make your way through airport security you’ll be expected to arrive four hours early. I’m seeing a market in the not too distant future for people with mobile cots. After a couple more TSA programs jack the wait time up to 24 hours you can rent out a mobile cot and pay an airport employee to push you through the security line while you sleep.

The funniest part of this story though is the fact that the TSA was happy with their performance:

An airline worker said the lines were the worst he had seen in 30 years, but the TSA said they were pleased with how the pilot program has gone over the last month and in time it will help them decide who needs more screening and who needs less.

I’m not surprised by this as the TSA is a government agency and thus doesn’t understand efficiency.

I’m Sure People Will Take PETA’s Message More Seriously Now

I doubt I even need to make any comment on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’s (PETA) latest idea for getting their message out:

The non-profit organisation, whose controversial campaigns draw criticism from women’s rights groups, said it hopes to raise awareness of veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.

“We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn’t anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site,” said Lindsay Rajt, PETA’s associate director of campaigns.

Right, because when organizations want to be taken more seriously they always turn to pornography.

I Must Have Missed the Shooting at the Football Game

Apparently I’m quite oblivious to the news because I must have missed a recent shooting at some football game. At least that’s my guess because unless such an event occurred I can’t see any reason for the National Football League (NFL) to demand that every fan receive a full pat down before being let into games:

The NFL wants all fans patted down from the ankles up this season to improve fan safety.

Under the new “enhanced” pat-down procedures, the NFL wants all 32 clubs to search fans from the ankles to the knees as well as the waist up. Previously, security guards only patted down fans from the waist up while looking for booze, weapons or other banned items.

I must confess that I’m not a real American as I’ve never attended a professional sports game. After reading this story I’m quite happy about this fact because I won’t submit to a pat down just to enter some entertainment event. Yes it’s the right of private establishments to make such a requirement before allowing entry but it’s my right as a free individuals to take my money elsewhere.

The NFL apparently think they’re the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) considering the advice they’re giving to fans:

The NFL recommended the new guidelines before the kickoff of the 2011 season which coincided with the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The league hopes fans will be “patient,” says spokesman Brian McCarthy, and arrive earlier to games to avoid long, punishing lines.

Hear that? If you don’t like the idea of longer lines due to pointless security theater then you’ll just have to arrive earlier. On a related note, does it sicken anybody else that authoritarian mandate such as this are how 9/11 is remembered and recognized? Roughly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks and instead of standing strong against authoritarian measures we’re implementing them. This is what admitting defeat looks like ladies and gentlemen and so long as we continue down this road to serfdom the terrorists are winning.

Fuck the NFL, if they had been receiving any of my money before they certainly wouldn’t be now. Then again I may not have a choice soon if the Vikings receive tax money to build their stupid stadium.