Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Copsuckers, Mobsters and You the Citizen by Kent McManigal

Copsuckers, Mobsters and You the Citizen by Kent McManigal

I was encouraged to write an article for Zero Gov, so here it is:


Recently, I have gotten very angry over cops. Very! Not just the cops themselves, but those who support (or even worship) cops. L. Neil Smith calls these starry-eyes fans “copsuckers”.

My first reaction to my own anger is “Why should I get mad? It’s a waste of energy to get mad over stupid people.” But then I remind myself that there are times when anger is the only reasonable response. Of course, I get mad. This is an outrage! Unconditional cop-loving is similar to saying it is OK to rape babies. Any decent person should get mad over such nonsense.

I understand why cop-lovers focus on individual cops when they try to make the case that cops are “regular people” who have families to support, and are nice neighbors and good relatives. It deflects attention from the real problem.

I am sure individual cops can be very nice to those they like. It is just the nature of the vast majority of humans. Pick any human monster or tyrant from history and I’d bet there were those who knew him personally and who would say he was a kind and loving person who was just misunderstood.

It isn’t how the cop treats people he knows in family situations or normal social situations that shows his character, but how he behaves when he is taking part in a check point, or when he sees a person with a gun on his hip walking down the street, or any time when he sees himself as the “authority”. That is when the true character shines through.

An individual mobster might never steal or murder- perhaps his mafia “job” is completely unrelated to those mob functions, maybe he’s just the accountant, but he is tainted simply by belonging to that organization. The same goes for a cop. He might never steal, kidnap, or murder, but by choosing to belong to the police department he is choosing to belong to a group that does all those things as a fundamental part of its daily existence. And no cop, not one, would keep his job more than a day if he refused to take part in, or was open with his opposition to stealing (“fines”), kidnapping (“arrest” for violating counterfeit “laws”), and often, murder (killing for reasons of “officer safety”) committed by his brother officers. A person who makes the choice to remain a part of such an organization is choosing to be a bad person by association even if he stays otherwise “clean”.

I can more easily forgive the old guys. They grew up in an era where the harm of The State was slightly better balanced by some good; good that would have been better provided by a voluntary system rather than a coercive system based upon theft, but still some little good. That is no longer the reality. But they are set in their ways and probably see things as they used to be rather than as they are. Those days are gone and will never return. The State can never again be excused, and young people just starting out and who choose to join this corrupt organization, are making the wrong choice. They are much harder to forgive.

I have a very hard time understanding why anyone would continue to support cops today. But then I remind myself that there is a characteristic that I don’t share with the cop-lovers: Cops are popular only because people have generally been trained to be helpless. A helpless adult is a pitiable thing.

But do even the helpless, pitiable citizens “need” cops? What happens if there are no cops to enforce “laws”? Do “laws” even need to be enforced?

The laws of the Universe- laws of physics- cannot be violated. (Unless you believe in the supernatural, in which case believing in The State is understandable.) These real laws need no enforcement or enforcers, and there ARE no enforcers, other than the laws themselves, to prevent you from going faster than light, or to prevent you from violating gravity for example. The laws of the Universe are self-enforcing.

Laws of ethics are almost self-enforcing, although they can be violated. Remove the blinders that make exceptions for acts of government agents and you know an act that is wrong when you see it. People usually act to stop an act that is wrong if they see it happen, unless they have been brainwashed into believing that is someone else’s responsibility. Few people would excuse me if they saw me beating a child in the street. Put a uniform on me and some people would assume the kid deserved it. That’s insane.

Then there are the false “laws” imposed by The State. “Laws” of The State utterly fail to be self-enforcing and so hordes of enforcers are sent forth to spend their time trying to catch and punish those who violate these nonsensical “laws” which are based upon nothing but the whims of The State.

This is what leads to all the abuses and tyranny. What gets me is that these verminous parasites operate openly all around us without shame and in safety.

Even these obvious things listed above aren’t what trigger my anger, though. No, it is the personal insults and lies.

Of all the verbal flatulence that rips from the mouths of cops and those who worship cops, the worst is that lie that they do what they do “for [my] own good”.

Don’t write tickets against other drivers for me, because it doesn’t help me; I don’t ask you to do it, and I know that traffic cops are the greatest danger to driver safety there is. People, including cops, can either drive well, or they can drive “legally”, but not both. Worrying about silly things like speed limits is a worse distraction than cell phones could ever be.

You do not enforce any “laws” for my own good. I can take care of myself and my family- at least from depredations of the freelance thieves and attackers. People will band together voluntarily and deal with those who commit actual wrongs. Enforcers are a greater danger to most people than freelance aggressors and thieves could ever be. Shooting freelance bad guys in self-defense is still generally acceptable; shooting midnight murder squad goons who happen to wear badges only brings an unending horde of their gang to finish the job of murdering you for daring to defend yourself or kidnapping you if you manage, against all odds, to survive the attack.

Then the cops try to create shame on my part by claiming to “put our life on the line for YOU.” What a filthy lie. If you are doing that, you are doing it without my permission. You need to immediately stop it and go away. You are not wanted and you are not needed. You don’t have my permission to do anything on my behalf. I did not ask for this “favor”. The price is too high.

The final insult is when they whine “Don’t you think that [sacrifice] would deem some type of respect?” of course not is my response, especially when I have asked you to go away.

If an intruder in your house is cleaning your toilet and you ask them to leave but they refuse, are they worthy of respect? If you try to kick them out and they (or their gang) kill you for rejecting their “help” are they heroes? Hardly. They are invaders and trespassers and thieves and murderers. Cops today are the worst threat to liberty; much more dangerous than any “terrorist”. They need to either change what they do and the way they do it, or they need to go away. If they don’t go away peacefully, they need to be eliminated forcefully, without initiating force, of course.

In this town, it may be dangerous to speak the truth about cops. The majority of people here are very “law and order”, even though they excuse their own illegal activities. I expect it is very possible that I will be targeted by the cops for speaking out against them. I may even be “set up”. It will only prove my point if that happens.

PS: Now go to the link and read the comments.
(Also, look at the reaction from the bad guys here.)



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Society can't be victim of crime

Society can't be victim of crime
(Originally published on 5-6-2011. As written, not as published.)

Often when the impact of increasing liberty is being discussed, especially with regard to things some people resist on moral grounds (such as ending the criminalization of prostitution, ending drug prohibition, ending the regulation of gambling, etc.), someone will claim that victimless crimes actually have a victim, and that victim is "society". So let's examine this assertion bit by bit.

What is a victim and what is society? A victim is someone who has been harmed against their will. An individual is harmed when they suffer actual physical or financial damage. Anything that doesn't harm any individual harms no one- by definition. Can society be harmed by an action that harms no specific individual? Let's see.

Merriam-Webster says "society" is "a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests". Society has no physical form so it can't be physically damaged; just like bullets wouldn't kill a ghost. No victimless crime harms society economically, since all money really belongs only to individuals. Unless there is fraud or theft involved, which financially harms an individual, there is only mutually-beneficial trade, even if some find it distasteful. The only way I see to really harm a group, beyond harming the individual members, is to cause the group to disband, perhaps to reform in a different way. But is that truly "harm"?

I don't think society can be harmed, but merely changed or altered. Of course, if you prefer the way society is now rather than how it might be after it has been changed, your opinion is that society has been harmed. This is just a matter of perspective; some individual would see just about any particular imaginable change as an improvement while someone could be found to resist any particular change. As long as people are allowed to opt out and no one is coerced into going along and paying for programs or policies they don't like, no one is harmed by the change.

This explains why The State's very existence causes change to be seen as harm since no one is allowed to opt out of the coercively-enforced majority rule. As one graphic example: without an institution claiming legitimacy- a "government"- and a system of coercion in place to be coopted to force you to obey Sharia Law, and forbid you from acting in self defense against those who want to force it upon you, how could it actually harm you?

Finally, some claim that society is a victim since "society" will have to pay for the harm some people do to themselves and to other individuals by their actions. This is a refutation of the socialism inherent in taxation and welfare rather than proof society is a victim. If anything in this example victimizes society it is taxation, collectivism, and welfare. End them and let people pay for their own care and pay restitution for any harm they cause others and the excuse evaporates.