Are "peace officers" a good idea?

No. And I'm not even talking about the reavers. I'm saying it is a bad idea to have anyone set apart, with a badge and "authority".

Yes, I know that the original idea was that a "peace officer" had no authority that wasn't held by any individual in the general population, but was supposed to be someone paid in order to free his time to devote to "keeping the peace". How has that worked out?

Even the notion of "policing" is a bad thing. It's my job to "police" my own sphere. No one can do that for me better than I can- all anyone else could do is interfere. There is no need for a "special" class to do it, and when established that "special class" will inevitably evolve into the abomination we suffer under now.

Because, if I am "policing" my own life, and I go beyond the limits of protecting myself and my property (or the self and property of someone else), I am responsible for my actions and will be held accountable. Reavers are almost invariably found (by their own gang) to be acting "within department guidelines"- even when guilty of the most obvious acts of evil.

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Freedom from religion

Regardless of what some "conservatives" claim, freedom of religion does- at least in some circumstances- mean freedom from religion.

It doesn't matter what the Constitution has to say on the matter, either. All the First Amendment says is that the government is prohibited from setting up an "official American Church" or from stopping anyone from worshiping however they see fit.

But don't get scared. It doesn't mean you have to shut up about your religion just because it annoys some people. It doesn't mean you have to stop practicing your religion.

What freedom of/from religion does mean, is that if you are in a position where you have power over someone else, rightly or wrongly, and that power is due to your government "job", you need to keep your religion in your pants, and keep your pants zipped. Until you are "off the clock", anyway. You have no authority to be preaching at people you are trying to coerce while they are paying you with money you had stolen from them on your behalf.

It means that what you believe on your own time is your business, but trying to pass or enforce "laws" based upon your religious beliefs- Sharia Law- is outside of what you have a right to do. It means using stolen money to promote your religious beliefs- any religious beliefs- is wrong.

Freedom of religion equals, in many cases, freedom from religion. Whether you like it or not. And believe me, even those who claim otherwise usually demand to be free of having other religions' ideas forced upon them- they just don't want to stop doing the forcing themselves. At least, that's what I have observed.

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State not necessary for good life

State not necessary for good life

(My Clovis News Journal column for April 13, 2012.)

Many of my favorite things to do in and around Clovis are at government-owned locations. Which is kind of sad.

I really enjoy the zoo, the library, Goodwin Lake Trails, and Oasis State Park, just to name a few things off the top of my head. And, since I pay for them whether I use them or not, above and beyond any applicable entrance fees, I might as well take advantage of them.

I just see how much better those good things could be if they were voluntarily-financed and freed from the shackles of government. In some cases I can see improvements that could be implemented right away, and in other cases I see things that could make a big difference in the long-term. If, that is, innovations were encouraged, as is normally the case when something has a clear individual owner.

Of course, in our current situation government would still exert control over their daily operations through permits, licenses, red tape, taxation, and arbitrary regulations. That is the reality of the economic model known as "fascism"- where the business sphere is supposedly privately owned, but in practice The State dictates how business must be done; acting as the de facto owner.

Some people worry that if government doesn't provide something, no one will. I don't think that's ever the case except for those things no one really wants. Even if it were the case, I would do without something I enjoyed, without complaining, if it couldn't be voluntarily provided. At least people who don't enjoy the same things I do wouldn't be forced to subsidize my activities. There is nothing I want bad enough to force you to pay for it on my behalf.

Plus, if I decided I really wanted it, I would find a way to provide it. For example, ignoring the current regulatory climate for a moment, if I wanted a zoo and there wasn't one close enough, why couldn't I start my own? I could obtain the animals I like the best, or some I think people would gladly pay to come see, and design and create an attractive setting in which to house and view them. If I let the displays get filthy, or let the animals get sick, people wouldn't want to come spend money, and I would lose customers, so it would be in my best interest to keep things neat, clean, and healthy. No coercion involved.

Government is not necessary for a good life full of enriching activities. I pity those who have forgotten that beautiful fact.

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Serving leftovers

Do you ever read the old posts on this blog? Without me linking to them, I mean.

So many times anymore, something I think I should write about will occur to me and then I realize I have already written about that in the past. I could just re-post those, maybe with a bit of an update, but that seems dishonest.

Just today I was dwelling on something I read on another blog where people were saying they would use violence against someone who offended them. I was going to write something about how you are welcome to act on that which offends you, as long as you don't attack in person or through government, but then I realized I have written that same thing so many times. Is it worth writing again, linking to, or should I just move on to other issues?

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Avoid the personality cult

The case of the activist-turned-informant illustrates why you shouldn't get caught up in any one person. Not Ron Paul. Not Thomas Jefferson. Not Ayn Rand. Not Henry David Thoreau. Not anyone.

Weigh a person's words for yourself. See if what they are saying is true and whether it works for you. Don't worry so much about who said what. Don't even get too caught up in whether the person who said the words, lives by them. Who knows, they might be right in what they say, but they may not believe themselves. Or they may be weak. Or a self-deceiver.

You are smart enough to work things out for yourself. Other people can give you ideas and make you see things in news ways- perhaps get you to recognize connections you hadn't seen before- but ultimately you have to think for yourself and act on what you decide. Regardless of what anyone else may do.

Seriously, if I imagined that anyone was too wrapped up in what I write, I'd get really worried about them. I hope I give you ideas, but I am not anyone's paragon. And neither is anyone else.

That being said, I am probably my own worst critic and harshest judge.

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Accepting consequences of outlawry

You may or may not know about the recent uproar that came about when a respected liberty activist was found to be working as a police informant.

It makes me really sad.

Do you have an absolute human right to use, sell, and purchase any substances you want? Yes. But, as I have said many times, it may not be smart to do so in the current circumstances in which we find ourselves. You have to weigh the consequences and decide if it is worth it to you right now- in case you are caught.

We are ALL outlaws, so we had better accept that fact and start doing things to protect ourselves from the real bad guys- the ones with badges and government jobs. And remember that if you are doing something that the Rulers forbid, it is your responsibility and you shouldn't turn on other people if you get caught just to try to strike a deal with the bad guys. Well, maybe report the mayor or police chief for something, but not non-aggressive people.

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Drive throughs installed- cheap

A few evenings ago we were out in the front yard- I was watering our attempt at garden plants- when my daughter's mom ("Dm") said "That car just ran into that house!"

I looked up and the car was still moving forward- into the house. The back tires were still spinning, kicking up quite a cloud of dust. The car had gone right into the front door and was pushing the porch roof up and kinda over. Then the brake lights came on and the tires stopped spinning.

The car slowly backed out of the house, and I thought the porch roof was going to fall since it was lurching back and forth. A woman got out of the car and started yelling "Oh my god! Oh my god!" over and over. There was another car in front of the house and a couple of girls got out of it and kinda milled around.

"Dm" decided she needed to go over there and get into the middle of it. I stayed in the yard and looked through my spyglass. It seemed no one was injured, just upset.

I guess by the time she got there (just around the corner from us) the driver had sat down and wasn't talking anymore; just crying. She had run into her own house.

I think it was a case of putting the car into drive by accident, instead of reverse, then, when the car started forward, panicking and hitting the gas instead of the brakes. (One of my second wife's sisters did that and ran through the front of a convenience store.)

The cop and sheriff showed up almost immediately. The sheriff didn't stay too long. The cop talked to everyone there and put "caution" tape around the gaping hole where the front door and a window were kinda dangling in the rubble of what had been a wall. "Dm" said he told them they couldn't stay there until the house had been inspected to see if it was going to fall down. He tried to get "Dm" to say she thought drugs were involved, or that one of the woman's kids had been driving. Then he left.

No person was hurt, and the house is now under repair. What I couldn't help wondering is why the situation "needed" a cop, and who called them. The cop didn't actually help the situation in any way (do they ever?). At least he didn't arrest anyone.

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Time Magazine's breastfeeding cover

Yeah, like all of you, I've seen it. Seriously, I don't get the uproar. It's fairly obvious to me that two people who are old enough to consent to having their pictures on the cover of a magazine shouldn't have anyone else dictate their actions for them.

(I'm joking. Sorta. They're really claiming that large person who is attached at the boob is 3 years old? I am not sure I am falling for that.)

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"Does the 2nd Amendment..." No, it doesn't!

Being human gives you the right to own and to carry arms.

The Second Amendment makes it a serious crime for the US government, or any of its "subordinate" mobs, to violate or tamper with that right in any way.

Pro-gun folks get confused on that issue almost as much as the anti-human gun banners do.

I get tired of the polls that ask "Does the Second Amendment give you the right to own a gun?" Because the answer is obviously "no", but if you answer that way it looks like you are voting with the genocide fan club.

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North Carolina and gay marriage

Are you unhappy about the North Carolina marriage vote? I have a solution. Or at least a tactic.

If you are a North Carolina resident who is going to get married soon- whatever your gender or orientation, do so without asking the state's permission. Regardless if you are marrying a person of your own sex (or a couple of people of whatever sex). Just do it.

If you are a person who does not reside in NC but are planning to get married soon, travel to NC with a willing "officiator" and get married. Without the state's paperwork. Maybe with news cameras rolling.

Thumb your nose at the state by doing what it says, by vote, that you aren't allowed to do.

Just think if North Carolina became the gay marriage capitol (and otherwise unpapered marriage capitol) of the world as a result of this "law". Hehe.

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You do NOT have a right...

Since all legitimate rights are "negative rights", or, as some people put it "rights are imaginary"- what does that mean?

It means you do NOT have a right to:

• Take away someone's tools of self defense or tell them they can't defend themselves from attacks.

• Tell someone what substances they can introduce into their own body.

• Take a person's property from him without his consent.

• Forbid a couple (or more) from forming a family unit based upon mutual consent.

• Rule a person, or otherwise dictate his non-coercive, non-deceptive behavior.

All "positive rights" would violate one or more of these ethical guidelines. And, even if rights don't really exist, the list is still accurate and binding.

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Feds deserve blame for gas prices

Feds deserve blame for gas prices

(My Clovis News Journal column for April 6, 2012)

Let me take a wild-eyed guess: You are unhappy about the rising price of gasoline. I'll make another guess: You are blaming the wrong people.

Most people place the blame on oil companies and ignore the reality. Without government interference, prices would be much lower than they are. How much lower? We will never know until we make separation of business and state an enforced reality.

People get upset over claims that BigOilCo pays no taxes. By this I assume they mean corporate income taxes or some-such thing. The truth is that no company ever pays any taxes; their customers do. If an oil company "pays" taxes, the extra expense will be added to the cost of production and you will pay all those taxes at the pump and when you buy your food, water, clothes, electricity, and everything else. The added expense has to be passed along or the company will cease to be. That's just basic economics, which means it is beyond the thinking capacity of government.

At each step of the way, before the gasoline gets in your tank, taxes are rolled in as a cost of doing business. This is in addition to the regulations of every sort which also increase the price. All that red tape is expensive and you ultimately pay for it.

Then governments stick it to you, personally, at the point of sale by adding even more taxes on top of everything else they have collected so far.

Then there are also the problems that official and covert government intervention causes in the countries where much of the oil is being produced. Meddling, threatening, and otherwise making enemies of those who should be trading partners; not subjects of the growing Empire, being told how to run their own countries.

On top of all this is the protection of the fuel monopoly. Nothing so far discovered works as well as petroleum for fueling vehicles. Nothing. And, yes, I have owned an electric car. Stifling innovation, through more regulations and red tape, in the development of new technology that might make internal combustion obsolete, or actually efficient, prevents real solutions from being found and implemented.

The final 800-pound gorilla in the room is the misnamed phenomenon of "Inflation". Inflation is not the price of gasoline rising; it is the value of a dollar falling. An ounce of silver still buys about the same amount of gasoline it did back when the US dollar was backed by by something of value and our "silver" coins were really silver. The counterfeiting operation at the Federal Reserve has stolen the value of your labor by replacing your money with empty promises. It takes more of these counterfeit "dollars" to buy a gallon of fuel.

Let's blame the real bad guys, not their other victims.

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The sum of my experiences...

I am a sum of my past.

Throughout my life I have gone through phases, and although sometimes those phases may seem, to an observer, to have ended, they have all left their mark. They have each been incorporated into the me that now exists.

I was thinking about this as I was out throwing my tomahawk. I have not been to a mountainman rendezvous in several years. I don't wear buckskin clothes exclusively anymore. I don't even wear my mountainman hat very often. Yet the skills and experiences from that part of my life are just as strong in me and just as important a part as they ever were. And, often, still just as useful. They changed the way I look at the world completely and I can never go back. Someday, I may even get back into the lifestyle again.

Every other phase I have lived has left the same indelible mark on my life. They have made me who I am. Each time was another case of "taking the red pill".

If I ever decide to stop speaking out- educating?- about liberty I expect the same results. The things I have learned by digesting my own thoughts, and the thoughts I have had shared with me by others, mean I can never go back to the way I was before. And for that, I'm glad.

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Attempted crimes- no victim?

(From a discussion on facebook.)

Is an attempted "crime" a victimless crime? I don't believe it is. And I, of course, mean actual aggression, coercion, theft, or other violations of life, liberty, and property- not the ridiculous things The State seeks to forbid that have nothing to do with those real wrong things.

In order to attempt an initiation of force or theft, even if you fail to complete your intention, you have to have a target- a "victim"- in mind. That falls under threatening to initiate force, or violating property rights. Anyone on the receiving end of your intention to do them harm would not be wrong to use force to stop you from completing your intended action. How much force? How much will it take? How much adrenaline did your threat release in your intended victim, and how can you be sure "momentum" won't take them further than you think is "appropriate" under the circumstances?

But, as in the case discussed on the facebook thread linked above, the victim can't be imaginary or "society". That's like punching shadows. You may have an intention of doing someone harm, but there is no one there to be harmed.

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Government and the free market

Somewhere I came across something that mentioned "government" and "the free market" in the same thought. If ever two things don't belong together, that's it.

There is nothing any government can do to contribute to free markets or to liberty of any kind. All governments can do is destroy them. Anything and everything they do has that effect. Either by design or through unintended consequences.

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Divergence

This guy was my next door neighbor all during my teenage years. We had a lot of adventures together. Now he seems to be promoting a one-sided view of America that could lead to a theocracy.

Because, lets face it, a religious outlook was a part of the founders' basis for the America they established, but so was a rational view that wanted to make certain that America wouldn't become a theocracy or allow religion to be controlled by The State or The State to be controlled by any particular religion.

My vision for a free society would have room for him to worship in any way he believes is right. Would his America, "returned to God", have any room for me?

It's funny to me that 2 people who had so much in common at one time could diverge so widely.

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More than one kind of bad guy

I just had a flash of insight: statists don't realize there's more than one kind of bad guy. And that they are not justified, by the existence of one type of bad guy, in becoming another type of bad guy on order to get him.

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A statist problem, or an imaginary one

Once again the internet predators hereabouts are pretending to be kids and trying to entrap people into seeking sex.

And, once again, I am just about the only one (with one exception) who thinks this is a bad thing. No victim = no crime. It really is that simple.

Anyway, as I was responding to the coercion/theft fan club, one thing suddenly occurred to me, and I'll copy the relevant part of my comment here:

I've known several libertarians whose daughters had unlimited internet access from the time they were toddlers and could figure out how to operate a computer and not one fell victim to an online sexual predator. This seems to be strictly a statist/non-libertarian problem (if it really is a problem at all). Maybe some people need to better educate their kids about the real world instead of advocating doing evil things "for the children".

So, there you have it. Am I imagining this or have I hit on something?

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(The guy who has been entrapped is an army recruiter. And, if you know me, you know I have zero love for the military or those who entrap young people into signing up, so I could have just laughed that turnabout is fair play. But I don't operate that way. Wrong is wrong.)

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"Guilt-by-association" is not fair, but...

I understand that people look at me, see my appearance and/or behavior, and make judgments. Those judgments may not be "fair", but they will be made. Even less "fair" is when the judgments made about me are applied to other people who are not me, or when judgments made about other people who are like me in some way, but who aren't me, are applied to me. Maybe because they also have long hair, or wear a hat, or call themselves a libertarian.

Because I don't want people judging me for things I didn't do, but that were done by someone who is seen as similar to me in some way, I cringe when people who are bound to be associated with me are seen doing something I would be ashamed of doing.

If this happens I am likely to loudly condemn the one taking the "bad" action in order to make it known I do not approve and I am not "like" that person. It's why I hate it when a statist tries to claim the label "libertarian" without having any qualities of libertarian in them. It's also why I address those who try to condemn libertarians without having any clue what "libertarian" means. If you're going to pre-judge me, at least get your facts straight.

If I am silent, then when people prejudge me for things other people- whom they associate with me in some way- do, then I shouldn't be surprised. To then whine about "prejudice" or "discrimination" is stupid. It is in your power to fight it, but not if you don't address the cause. And that root "cause" is almost never really about what you believe it is about. It's not about skin color, "culture", the way you dress, or things like that- no, it's about actions, responsibility, and consequences.

A vast majority of the people I see, with my own eyes, doing things that bother me in this town, are of a particular "ethnic group". Noticing this is not racism. Most of the people in that ethnic group are not doing those things, and I see bad things that people of other ethnic groups do and I don't cut them any slack, either. But, the majority of the property damage, theft, and aggression that I see or hear about in this area (not to mention littering, and most violations of counterfeit "laws", which I don't even count as being bad at all) is done by a small number of individuals, and it just so happens that most of those individuals belong to the same ethnic group.

If you don't like people thinking poorly of your ethnic group- or whatever group you may be included in by people who don't know you- then you really should do something to set yourself apart. Or, even try to fix the problem if it is within your power to do so. I certainly try to when it's my "guilt-by-association" cropping up. Because it may not be right, and it certainly isn't "fair", but it is reality. It will happen, so deal with it.

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Thousands of innocents dead

Assuming for a moment that the government story about the "9/11" attacks are true... is it worse to kill 3000 presumably innocent people in one day, or 3000 presumably innocent people over the course of a year or two? Or many times that number over a longer stretch of time? Just as the US government has been doing and continues to do in all the middle east countries that are being punished for "9/11". Who's the terrorist? I keep forgetting, and I can't tell them apart based on their behavior and the outcome.

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