Everybody has one

A couple of days ago I was told something to the effect that "Everybody has an opinion- but you don't hafta express it!"

Well, you are right. However, I rarely express my opinions unless I am exposed to other, offensive, opinions first. If I have to listen to everyone around me expressing pro-State/anti-liberty opinions all the time why should I be the one expected to remain silent?

In other words, if you don't want to hear my libertarian opinion, stop being a statist dickweed. That goes for things you take for granted, like "public" schools, "laws", cops, politicians... whatever statist subject you choose to talk about in a less-than honest fashion. If you are going to speak positively about theft, coercion, and violation of rights you should expect me to point out that your opinion is awful when you support (or ignore) evil and give you the ethical alternative.

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Uniform programming

If there were a computer programming "authority" to make sure your computer was programmed exactly the same as every other computer, but there was a limit to the total amount of programming that could be done, how would that work for you?

What if something unexpected cropped up that the central planners hadn't anticipated? How would new things be developed? Does one size really fit all?

And why do people think standardized "education", mandated by government for its schools, is any better?

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Magical thinking

"Magical thinking" disgusts me.

From religion to statism to those silly products that use magnetism or holograms to "react positively with your body's natural frequencies and energy" for some supposed miraculous benefit.

Its all a scam that feeds on the desire of people to have a genie grant their wishes. It's all a rejection of reality. And some magical thinking isn't just a waste of time and money that harms no one but the foolish devotee: some of it kills others.

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Judge Kent's municipal court is now in session

Just kidding. But.... I was just fantasizing about how much fun it would be to be a judge here in this town.

Zombie judge is bound to die of advanced old age soon and will need a replacement. Considering the glowing report about him in the local paper, talking about, among other things, how he was there when John F. Kennedy became a "good politician", I doubt anyone would be successful in voting his decrepit rear out of office.

In these modern times a judge is supposed to know "the law", but that's ridiculous. No one can know all the "laws". A real judge should be able to look at a situation and determine who was harmed, and how much restitution is owed. Sometimes with the help of a jury.

I could do that. The city government wouldn't like me though.

First of all, I wouldn't accept a paycheck from the city since it would be stolen money. The other government parasites might not like me making them look bad by comparison. I don't anticipate the job taking up much of my time, anyway, so I could do that for free.

Second of all, no "fines" would be placed against anyone in my courtroom. Only the injured party- an individual who was harmed- would get any restitution. Running a stop sign or "speeding" that harms no one has no victim to recompense. I might scold a person brought before me for such things, depending on the circumstances, but his actions didn't hurt the town so the town is due no money. And, as should be obvious, accidents are NOT "crimes". I would arbitrate in case of an accident as a part of my job, but wouldn't demand a monopoly.

I would also scold any law enforcement officer who brought such trivial victimless "crimes" before me and warn him to not do so again. Right in front of his victim. Just before I ordered him to pay restitution, for wasted time and wages, to the person he brought before me. He should also probably pay me restitution as well, but it wouldn't be right for me to impose it to my personal benefit. Oh well.

So, no, I don't see myself becoming a judge anytime soon. I'd be a good one, though. I'm sure there will be a popular write-in campaign to make me the Farwell, Texas municipal judge as soon as the zombie is gone. Right?

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Guest commentary: Angela Kissell

Note: I am doing this as a favor to a friend; the opinions expressed therein are hers. This was to be a Letter to the Editor of the Clovis News Journal, but was rejected because she had previously written a very different LTE on the same subject. I don't do this often (in fact, I don't think I have ever done this), but this needs to get some local exposure and I am glad to give her a forum for that. KM

I have had my eyes opened.

Monday night at the affordable housing town hall meeting, Ms. Brumfield proudly declared that "for every one dollar sent to Washington DC, New Mexico receives TWO back." As if taking money from other states, shifting money from the pockets of hard working individuals in one area to another area is a great thing. The term for that is "wealth redistribution."

Back to affordable housing. I would like to point out that the affordable housing idea grew in places like California and in the East Coast states (think Maryland). If this ordinance passes, we will match up with those states, not to mention places within the state like Santa Fe, NM. In my opinion, those states and town are NOT known for fiscal or moral conservative values. I used to believe Clovis was a fairly conservative town. I believe that no longer.

An interesting fact: the name of the group that supports the affordable housing ordinance is "Clovis People for Progress." Progress is the root word of progressive. Progressivism is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform through governmental action. This is the aim of the AH plan and ordinance, to use government (local, state and federal) to "fix" a housing "problem" in this city.

After last night's meeting, after hearing the city council members, mayor, MFA representative, some city staffers and a few Main Street business owners state their support for this AH ordinance, and pairing that with some other things that have happened in the town, such as the sudden purchase of the golf course, I had an epiphany. In Clovis politics, there are 3 groups: the apathetic, the progressives, and those fighting the progressives and their progressive agenda to spend us into oblivion.

Fight on, Clovisites!!

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The internet- polarizing or not?

Is the internet a polarizing force?

I have seen where a lot of people claim that the internet has caused people to seek out- "self select"- only those voices who they agree with and exclude opposing views. This, supposedly, causes "us" to be less likely to experience differing points of view and makes confirmation bias almost unnecessary because we hear nothing but what we want to hear. I seriously doubt this.

I don't know about you, but for me the internet has exposed me to points of view radically opposed to my own (both past and present) that I would have never heard had I never gotten online.

I have also noticed that people who I have known for years who are online a fair amount have had a greater change in their overall attitudes on different issues than those who hate the internet (or avoid it for whatever reason). I don't think this is a coincidence.

Every controversial idea I espouse meets with opposition at some point, and I am constantly disagreeing with someone on some site. In "real life" I never debated politics or religion even when I was thinking the other person was completely off their rocker- preferring just to stay silent for the sake of peace. How many times did others do the same for me? On the internet, for good or bad, this doesn't happen. If you claim "liberty is better than slavery" someone is bound to vigorously type "BS!".

I'm not sure where all these people are who have managed to find corners of the internet that only feed their already dearly-held convictions, to the exclusion of everything else, but that isn't my experience. Not by a long shot.

It makes me suspect the agenda of those who make the claim that "the internet is polarizing society".

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Visit Scenic (and free) Libertopia

Don't forget to visit Libertopia from time to time. And don't worry- nothing actually happened to me.

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Kids and Cops

I spend a lot of time just sitting and observing while my daughter plays with other kids. These are never kids we know, but just kids who happen to be wherever we happen to be.

I have noticed something interesting, and even hopeful. The majority of the kids view cops as the bad guys. I have never seen any kids playing "cops and robbers"; rather they just play until the bully of the group says "I'm a cop!" and starts attacking the other kids. I have told my daughter she doesn't have to accept this kind of behavior.

I have also heard what the kids say if a cop car drives past, and none of it is positive. Lest you think I contribute to this in any way, I assure you I don't say a word.

There is a change in perception occurring in this country and LEOs have no one to blame but themselves and their own out-of-control abusive (and frequently murderous) behavior. Even kids are catching on to the reality.

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Can an anarchist obey counterfeit "laws"?

Is an anarchist not an anarchist if he obeys a counterfeit "law" because there's a gun at his head? Yes he is still an anarchist because he lacks a particular belief, the belief in The State as a legitimate thing, in his mind.

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Parenting

I think a lot of parents would be better parents if they would realize one simple fact: Most things kids get in trouble for isn't really wrong, it just pisses off the parent.

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Kiddie Porn: crime scene photos?

This is just a question that popped into my mind today. It bothers me and will continue to do so until I write it out, so here you go:

Since looking at child pornography is a crime, shouldn't looking at other crime photos also be a crime? I mean, both are photographic records of a crime. Right? I also know of people who get excited by looking at other crime photos, just as a pedophile gets excited by looking at the photos of his particular type of crime scene. Personally, I think both are very sick.

Obviously I don't think looking at any photograph can be a real wrong act, although producing them could very well be.

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Cleaning up after themselves- Statists "can't"

How many times have you heard a kid say something like "I can't, daddy. It's too heavy" when it is time to pick up the toys? Probably pretty often. The amusing thing is that it is only "too heavy" when it is time to put it back; not when it was being dragged out.

Reminds me of statists with libertarian ideas. It wasn't "too hard" to make the mess by applying statist methods, but the thought of cleaning it up by doing the unpleasant things (such as respecting liberty) that are required is just "too hard" now. Or "too scary". Statists seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid liberty. So be it. I will leave them to their disaster.

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Easier to change self than state

Easier to change self than state (My CNJ column from June 9, 2011. As written, not as published.)

You can see anything more clearly after taking a step back from it than you can while you are in the middle of it.

If you want the truth about a cult, you ask someone who was once a part of it, but who got out. You can't get a very accurate version of the truth from someone who still is involved. They are too close to, and too invested in, the issue. I think the same goes for the political process. I was once involved and active, but then I took a breath and stepped back and I saw the futility of everything I had worked for. I had been acting on a string of false premises that were actually adding to the problem.

If I really believed a rain dance could make it rain here, I'd gladly do one and ignore the sideways glances of my more normal neighbors. In the same way, if I still believed taking political action could bring liberty back to America, I'd be the most politically active man on Earth. However both beliefs are just that: beliefs. Neither has any basis in objective reality.

When considering politics, too many people ask the wrong questions and make the wrong assumptions. They ask what government can do about an issue instead of asking if government should do anything, and instead of questioning whether previous government actions created the problem in the first place.

The State has a lot of practice at creating a problem, then pretending to be the only possible solution. The economy and crime are two salient examples of this destructive tactic.

If political action is inherently unlikely to produce liberty, what other course of action is available to you? If you value liberty you must start with yourself. Make yourself free, and respect the liberty of all those around you, even those you don't like. This is much more powerful than electing representatives and expecting them to protect your liberty. You must take responsibility for yourself and for those whom you are consensually bound to be responsible for.

So, step back, re-examine your assumptions, and consider if your time and energy could be better spent changing the one person you truly have the power to change rather than begging someone else to make the changes you want.

Taxpayers shouldn't foot hotel bill

Taxpayers shouldn't foot hotel bill (My CNJ column from June 2, 2011. As written, not as published.)

I think it is a noble thing to want to save the Hotel Clovis building from decay or destruction. Personally, I love to see historic buildings preserved and put back to use.

I'm somewhat less enthusiastic over the plan to use it for subsidized housing. If you own the building I think it is yours to use as you see fit as long as you harm no other person, however I believe subsidized housing is harmful to everyone.

Where some people go astray is when they demand that others pay, through taxation, "public funds", or other government coercion, for their own pet projects. Other people do not value the same things you do and it is not very nice to force them to pay for that which you think is important. If I believed in doing that I might demand a huge tax-funded "living history" site, complete with tipis, bison, and gunfights, somewhere around town. It might become a tourist attraction and I'd probably want to live there. But I know it is wrong to get what I want that way, even if 51% of the voters agreed with me.

A majority of 100%, minus one individual, has no real right to force the lone holdout to finance or participate in their project if he'd rather not. As long as he is allowed to opt out, losing neither his time nor his money in the process, he has no authority to stand in the way of the voluntarily organized and financed project he opposes, either.

If something really should be done, there will be volunteers to do it, or a market for it to be done "for profit". A fund drive for the Hotel Clovis building might be the proper way to put your money where your mouth is. I'll even pledge the first dollar. The campaign to "Keep Cannon" got the community organized and energized; why not devote the same energy to the campaign to "Save the Hotel"? If it doesn't gain momentum, perhaps the desire is not really there. If that is the case, a private group could still be organized to purchase the hotel with their own money and save it in their own way. Once again, I'm willing to help.

To those who want to save the hotel, I ask: What is stopping you? My follow-up question is: Why do you let that stop you?

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Missing person! (Found safe)

William R. Stone, possibly between KC area Missouri and Redfield/Des Moines area, Iowa.

And get the latest HERE

Update: He is safe. Good to know!

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"Would you like brains with that?"

Yes, Unfortunate Truth #1 is "People are idiots". But it's still amusing (sometimes) to see it in action.

I was at the mall and saw, at the generic food vendor, their nacho setup. The chips were in a "warming bin". The light bulb responsible for keeping the chips warm had been replaced with a compact fluorescent bulb! Ha ha!

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Poking gods makes one unpopular

I have to admit, I am tired of being unpopular. But I'm going to tread into that territory once again. Just because it is important to get some things out there even when it will make people angry. And this will.

To be popular I would have to either shut up or lie. Or I can continue to speak out and be unpopular (or as my cousin recently said, be "a dickhead".)

From my interactions with Christians I know that people don't like it when you expose their god as imaginary or as a fraud. (And, as far as the "God of the Bible" goes, he has been completely disproved*. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something out in the Universe that, because of technology or evolution, the word "god" might seem to be the only description available, but it won't be the "God of the Bible", and that is absolutely certain. Sorry.)

Which brings me to today's main point: The State is today's most popular god. I will repeat that: Statism, the belief in the legitimacy of The State, what most people mean when they say "government", is nothing but a religion where The State is the god. A person can believe in the god of The State alone, or in conjunction with supernatural god(s), or neither.

A little explanation is in order. People who worship, or at least believe in, a supernatural god have their own concept of that god in their mind that really doesn't mesh very well with anyone else's concept of god. The only reason they don't notice this fact is that they haven't examined it too closely (or in the right way) and they only see the god they personally imagine (or interpret through writings they read) and they assume that's the god everyone they worship with sees as well. If they could actually get inside the head of the person sitting in the pew next to them they'd be shocked at the god that person is worshiping- and vice versa. The reason I know this is that I asked a lot of people over a long period of time to describe "God" in detail to me. And I kept digging deeper into their concept. Beyond the most superficial description there was no similarity from one person to the next, even when they believed they worshiped the same god in the same church. Even the descriptions, personality traits, and characteristics of the "Biblical God" are completely different in the New Testament than in the Old Testament. But people try not to notice. It is as if many different objects- rocks, turtles, watermelons, books, ice cubes, televisions, and pillows- are painted the same color and given the same surface texture and said to be the same thing.

The statist's god is the opposite. The god of The State comes in many forms that are all much more similar than they are different, except on the surface. Unlike supernatural gods, with the god of The State only the minor details differ. Like how the people who control the State are selected or take power. The deeper you dig, the more identical the States are. They all share the characteristics of supporting themselves through theft, a monopoly of "legalized" force, and very few people questioning the legitimacy of this god, even when they oppose the particular form they happen to dislike. In this case it is like taking a bunch of watermelons and painting them differently, or gluing a bunch of different things to the surface and claiming that they are all completely different from one another. More than believe in any particular version of a supernatural god. Tragically, most people still believe some form of State is inevitable and necessary.

Even worse than opposing the god of State, in the eyes of the Believers, is exposing it as a fraud. And it IS a fraud. It is imaginary insofar as it doesn't exist as a monolithic real thing; it is made up of individual people who have the same flaws as those the State Worshipers pretend The State will protect us from. It is a fraud because it doesn't protect any innocent person from anything, it simply takes the place of the freelance thief and aggressor and claims its actions are good, where the same actions would be bad if you or I committed them without working for The State. So we must be protected from those bad guys by others doing the same thing? Ridiculous!

What got me thinking on this was a comment I made on an "atheist's" video, which caused her to comment back to me "you're an idiot". Among other things. It comes down to the fact that I simply got her to expose the fact that she still believes in a god, but her god is The State. I pity her for that.

* Before someone starts harping on the common belief that "you can't prove a negative"- yes you can. I can prove that my hip pocket does not contain a 25-ton, fluorescent orange, living, breathing, flying Tyrannosaurus rex. But suppose I made the claim that such a creature was in my hip pocket. You could prove that my hip pocket doesn't contain that creature in spite of my claims, probably without even coming to me and examining the inside of my pocket. You can use logic, and the laws of the Universe, to disprove my preposterous claim. You can prove a negative.

Added: I have modified somewhat my contention that The State is analogous to god. Read my newer thoughts here.

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Driver's Licenses for "Illegal" Humans

Driver's licenses for "illegal [sic] immigrants" is a non-issue that won't go away because inconsistent (and unethical) people keep focusing on the wrong question.

Recently I commented on a letter to the editor about that very issue. Nothing I haven't said before, and still true.

Here is my comment:

There is no one, no not even YOU, who can get through a day without violating several "laws". It is estimated that we each commit an average of 3 federal felonies every day. Usually without even knowing it. With the millions of laws on the books, federal, state, and local- as well as all the ordinances that are not actual laws but are imposed upon us as though they were, there is no telling just how "illegal" you and I truly are. We are all "illegal" in some (and probably many) ways. To single out people who migrate from land illegitimately claimed by one government to land illegitimately claimed by another, without getting permission from those governments, as "worse illegals" than other people is hypocritical.

Don't steal from anyone; don't attack anyone; don't damage private property- and I don't care where you were born. You are less a danger to me than people born next door who send The State after others and who live off of government (stolen) money.

Then to clarify, I added:

And, just in case anyone gets the idea I think independent migrants should be forced to have drivers licenses, think again: http://blog.kentforliberty​.com/2011/06/no-more-drive​rs-licenses-for-illegals.h​tml Driving is a basic human right, not a government-granted privilege.

And then replied to another comment equating not getting a "driver's license" with stealing and lying:

If there is stealing and lying going on it is not being committed by the people who don't have "driver's licenses", but by those who claim to have the authority to demand such. No one has an obligation to obey an unethical or immoral order.

It really does matter. When anyone's rights are violated for the pretense of "law" it harms me, too. Why can't the statists get that inside their miniscule skulls?

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Nancy Grace and a verdict she hates

I am a deeply flawed human being. I am thrilled that Nancy Grace is infuriated.

In Libertopia, there is the Case of the dead little girl.

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The State: A "Lose/Lose Propostion"

The State is a lose/lose proposition. Plus, the more powerful the government, the worse the situation for all.

The regular people lose immediately by being stolen from to pay for the government and its projects. They lose when their liberties are violated along with their "inalienable" rights. They lose when they are killed for breaking some counterfeit "law".

And eventually those in government, and those Useful Idiots who have supported and advocated a powerful government, lose when the "chickens", which they have so carefully bred and raised, come home to roost. It may even be a law of the Universe.

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