Dreaming of riches

The weird dreams I sometimes have... the ones I can mention in nice company (or even among outlaws like myself), I mean.

A few days ago I dreamed Bitcoin was at $2077 and someone donated 20 of them to me.  Of course, in my dream, my mathematical abilities were on par with my waking mathematical ability, and I figured it totaled million$.

Yes, in the past I have also dreamed of cash, precious metals, and other treasures falling into my lap, so this is just a new version of the same old dream.

But, speaking of Bitcoin... I really am amused at the people having conniptions over other people choosing to use Bitcoin.  Personally, I will use FRNs, silver, gold, Bitcoin, or trade goods to get what I want or need.  And I have used each and every one of those forms of "money" at various times.  I won't accept payment I don't want, and I would never expect anyone else to, either.

I don't totally understand how Bitcoins are mined or created, because that involves math and programming- 2 things I am not great at and don't have the ambition (or time) to really practice.  But, I am not an expert on gold mining and refining and minting, either.  That doesn't make me scared of gold.  Yes, I wish I had bought a bunch of gold when it was really cheap, but I'm not going to insult people who own gold simply because they have more than I do.

I was highly amused when the story broke where the expert was calling Bitcoin a "Ponzi scheme".  By making that association he is lending a lot of undeserved legitimacy to actual Ponzi schemes (even the "participate at gunpoint" Ponzi scheme called "Social Security").

I never started accepting Bitcoin in order to get rich.  Or even to profit from having them.  I did it to have another monetary option available to myself.  It has worked and I am satisfied with that option.

If you don't like Bitcoin, I have a link on the side that will allow you to get rid of the ones you might have.

.

Never confuse theft with charity

Never confuse theft with charity

 (My Clovis News Journal column for November 1, 2013 -in the Portales News-Tribune this time)

I'm as far from being a Republican as I am from being a Democrat: as far as east is from west. But when I see misguided criticisms and flawed comparisons aimed at the wrong target, I feel the need to address it.

Recently I witnessed someone scolding Republicans for their "opposition to socialism", as demonstrated by their use of the ObamaCare boondoggle for political theatrics. "Opposed to socialism"? Republicans are enthusiastic socialists in most everything they advocate- but their favorite programs differ from those of the Democrats, therein dwells the friction.

This particular Democrat was claiming that Jesus was a socialist, as evidenced by his handing out free medical care, food, and other such necessities, therefore Republicans shouldn't be so hostile to socialism. But there's a gaping hole in this comparison, overlooked by the commenter.

Socialists' "generosity" comes through giving away things that didn't belong to them to begin with, and were not voluntarily given to be handed out. In other words, socialists steal from others and then feel superior when they distribute the stolen property. Never confuse theft with charity. You can't be generous with other people's money, time, or labor, but only with your own. When you try to do so, you are just a common thief.

Any way you look at it, that's not nice.

If theft was one of the virtues advocated by Jesus, I must have missed that part.

Anytime you take something that doesn't belong to you, against the wishes of its rightful owner, you are stealing. Even if you promise to use that property for good. Even if you say the victim of your theft is getting some necessity in return. Even if you make the claim that the person has implicitly consented through some non-voluntary "social contract". It doesn't matter if your uses for that property are "progressive" or "conservative". Once again, it comes down to the difference between sharing and being robbed.

Go ahead and advocate whatever policies or programs you like, but don't pretend those you look up to would have supported whichever Big Government welfare program you happen to love, in an attempt to make your position seem moral.

That applies to those who would claim he would have supported the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs, the War on Terror, torture, immigration control, government schools, police checkpoints, NSA spying, or anti-gun laws. In this case you are clearly misrepresenting everything he stood for. What was that about "bearing false witness"?

.

Nice cops

Everytime I speak the truth about cops, someone will object and tell me "there are good cops!"

No.  There are not.

As I saw someone say a while back- and I wish I could remember where I saw it and who said it- there are "nice cops", but no "good cops".

A "nice cop" is one who treats you in a non-cop manner.  Who holds the door for women, stops to help a stranded traveler, gives a thirsty dog a drink.  Things any of us would do if we are decent people.  He is nice because of who he is, and what he is doing at the moment, not because of what his job might be.

But, that same "nice cop", as soon as he enforces ONE counterfeit "law" is no longer a good person.  He is being a cop.  He might still do "nice" things while on the job, but the overwhelming majority of that "job" is inflicting evil upon people.

Most bad guys can't spend all their time being evil.  It's too much work and would cripple their ability to live among friends and family- if they could even keep friends and family.  They have to be nice to those around them most of the time, no matter what they do when they target those they consider to be "other" or "less-human".  Because of this fact, you can have nice mobsters, nice muggers, and nice rapists, but none of them can be "good".

And neither can any cop.  The "job" eliminates that possibility completely.

.

Don't add what you don't need

A week or so ago an online friend (you know who you are) was relating a conversation he had with someone else- trying to explain that refrigeration systems don't "make cold", they remove heat, and then he mentioned that this is similar to what liberty is.

It isn't so much "something" as a lack of something: liberty is the lack of tyranny, or coercion, or whatever you want to call it.

Why on earth would anyone want "Life, now with added tyranny!"?

.

Can't blame a thug for trying

You can have opposing sides in an encounter both be right- even if one is otherwise wrong.

An extreme example: imagine you lived during or just before WWII in Germany, and you happened to be present as Hitler was issuing orders to kill some innocent person.  You would have been right to shoot Hitler, if you'd gotten the chance at that moment, and he would have been right to violently defend himself from your attempt.  I would hope you came out victorious, but I wouldn't blame Hitler for shooting you in self defense.  It would be silly to fault a person for that.

No one is obligated to just sit there and be killed.  No one can "lose" a right, such as the right to defend yourself.  Not even by violating the same right in others.

It seems odd to me when that's what I think people are advocating.  It's why "resisting arrest" is such a stupid concept for a "crime".  It's why I would like to see the next death row inmate who is being lead to his execution lash out and kill a few of the prison employees before being shot to death in the hallway.  If you're going to die, die like a man.

Sure, I always prefer the bad guy to be the one who loses, and if I'm involved in a violent attack I'd probably rather my attacker let me shoot him without fighting back, but I could never blame him for trying.

.

Protect the dead- eat the living?

Watching Firefly, as I often do, I am constantly coming across wise things I hadn't caught before.  Or, stupid statist things that I hadn't gotten the significance of on earlier viewings.

One jumped out at me recently, when the Alliance goon said, in reference to the crew of Serenity: "Lowlife vultures, picking the flesh off the dead." As opposed to what?  Lowlife thieves who eat the living with taxes and regulations, that's what.

The dead don't care if you take their stuff- they can't own anything.  Funny that The State would supposedly find this more horrific than stealing from living owners- but you know they do.

.

Ah-sheh'heh

That means "Thank you" in Navaho.

Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing my posts and CNJ columns.  Thank you for your support- financial, emotional, and intellectual.

Just Thank you.

.

Leaving a mark

Humans want to know (or at least feel) they have left some mark on the world that will outlive them.

I am happy to know I've made my mark.

I know my Time's Up flag will outlive me.  Most people who use the design don't even know I designed it- and that's IF they have ever heard of me.  It has taken on a life of its own.  That's strangely satisfying.

Government meddling not helping

Government meddling not helping

(My Clovis News Journal column for October 25, 2013.)

When judging whether you should do more of something, or even continue to do it at all, a necessary step is to look at the results your actions have produced so far.

After over a century of government schooling, usually erroneously called "public education", illiteracy is at crisis levels in America. Another century of letting government control education and today's texting generation may be literacy's "good old days" by comparison.

After a century or so of ever-escalating anti-gun "laws", the least dangerous places are still those areas which have avoided the most restrictive, or what the anti-gun activists would call "common sense", regulations. The most restrictive locations keep getting less safe.

Because of strife between the "races", government imposed "laws" which violated the right of association, particularly that policy which was called "Affirmative Action", and caused the strife between the races to begin heating up again. For decades now, about the only racial problems that have existed are those directly created by government intervention.

President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty", and imposed policies that made poverty practically hereditary and almost impossible for those being "helped" to ever escape. Poverty is winning that war.

After several decades of drug prohibition, approximately the same percentage of people are addicted to the forbidden substances as were addicted before the prohibition began, and the laws are driving the drugs to grow ever more dangerous and cheaper.

Here in the midst of the post-9/11 security mania, Americans are less free at home and less safe when venturing out into the rest of the world. And there have never been more people around the world willing to kill or die to strike a blow at the US government, which they mistake for Americans.

After handing control of the money supply over to the Federal Reserve a hundred years ago the US dollar has lost 95% or more of it's value. "Inflation" isn't normal; it is the consequence of the Federal Reserve's accelerating counterfeiting operation which floods the economy with more and more dollars every year- each of which makes the dollar in your hand worth just a little bit less.

How is all that "help" working for you?

Of course, when proposing to interfere, you also need to examine whether your plans will violate the rightful liberty of any person, or violate their property rights in any way, no matter how seemingly minor. If it will you shouldn't ever do it.

It leaves me wondering, how can anyone imagine that socializing medical care will have an effect opposite to that of state intervention in every other area?
.

Who is less trustworthy?

In a conversation with my newspaper editor last week, concerning my column, he mentioned that he also doesn't trust cops, but that doesn't mean he trusts the people who sue the cops- particularly when they wait a year or more to file the suit.

Well, I don't necessarily automatically trust anyone, but I know cops lie as a matter of course.  It's a required part of holding the "job".

Sure, a guy who sues the cops and wants to be paid millions of "tax" dollars also has an incentive to lie.

No one gets my trust automatically.  And who is it more important for me, personally, to be wary of?  Who can do me the most damage, with the least chance of me being able to fight back effectively?  It's not the guy suing the cops, even if the cops are- in this case- "innocent".

.

Knock out the aggressors

That new excuse for aggression, the "knockout game", does seem to show a need for more people being armed at all times, but I wonder how much a gun would really help.

If the attack comes with "no warning", as is claimed, how will you have time to pull your gun?

By all means carry a gun with you everywhere you go, but that's not enough.  You also need to be aware of your surroundings every moment of every day.  Make it a habit.

If the predators can't get within striking range, they can't punch you.  But if they do manage to catch you off guard, and if they fail to knock you unconscious with the first punch, maybe you can end their consciousness forever before they succeed.

.

Be careful what you ask for

It cracks me up when statists complain about the ideas of liberty being spread on the internet, because, in their minds, the State "gave us the internet", so we should be grateful and never put a disparaging word about "government" online.

Except that they're wrong about this, too.

Government didn't create the internet.  Some government goons told some techies what they wanted in a robust communications tool, and those people created the internet.  Much to the consternation of every government thug since the day they realized what had sprung into being was something they didn't control.

And, the internet wasn't even useful until it escaped into the wild.  If government employees were still keeping it only for themselves, it would be nothing more than a filing cabinet full of dead roaches.

.

The blind leading the blind?

Politics is not a case of "the blind leading the blind" (as I have heard claimed).  It's much worse than that.  It's an example of the blind "leading" the one with absolutely perfect vision.

You can see your own path- you don't need to be dragged where you don't want to go, right off a cliff, by someone who is clueless and stupid.

.

A good start

.

Liberty Lines, Nov. 21, 2013

Published in the Farwell TX/ Texico NM State Line Tribune

(This was in response to a column by the newspaper's owner- click on the picture to read it- which suggested that the presence of a Libertarian candidate ensured the victory of the Democrat in the VA governor's race.  I was asked to weigh in on the matter from a libertarian perspective.)

First of all, I am what you would call a "small 'l' libertarian" as opposed to a "Big 'L' Libertarian". It's the difference between being a philosophical libertarian and being a political libertarian (a member of the Libertarian Party). They can be the same, but often aren't.

The Libertarian Party is a political party supposedly based upon the principles of libertarianism- but they often fall short due to their desire to win elections- or to at least play the game. They soft peddle and avoid topics they think would hurt them, and because of that can't even get the support of many libertarians. I used to be a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party, but dropped out because of the LP's refusal to stick to the principles.

When they lose an election, both Republicans and Democrats think Libertarians took votes from them. Both are probably correct to a degree, depending on the particular election, but I think in most cases the people who end up voting for the Libertarian candidate simply wouldn't have voted at all if there hadn't been a Libertarian on the ballot. There is a simple solution- become more libertarian rather than constantly whining that libertarians should vote for candidates they find repugnant.

Most Libertarians, and practically all libertarians, see no reason to prefer the Republican candidate over the Democrat, or vice versa. Most see them both as simply different branches of the same political party, rather than seeing the superficial differences they emphasize having any actual value at all. If you are being chased by a hungry tiger, why would you care what color the stripes on his tail are? Both Democrats and Republicans believe it's their "right" to control what you do with your own life and property, and will use deadly force to enforce compliance. The only difference is in which parts of your life and property they choose to interfere with. That's no choice.

One big part of libertarian (and principled Libertarian) thinking is that a vote for the lesser of two evils just keeps resulting in more evil. If the choice is between two people who shouldn't be holding office, then to vote for either one is endorsing someone you don't want under the belief that "you have to vote for someone". No, you don't. It's better to not participate than to throw your support behind someone you know is dangerous to individual liberty. If you vote you are implicitly agreeing to go along with the result even if "your side" loses. In other words, if you vote you have no right to complain about the results. Yes, I know the voters usually turn that upside down, but think about it: If you play chess by the rules, how can you complain if you lose? Especially if you keep agreeing to play chess with a known cheat, or with someone who keeps changing the rules mid-game to favor himself. In that case the only winning move is to refuse to be drawn in. Go play something else instead.

.

Filthy Little Liars- and Their Slimy Lawyer

You may have seen this story.  Some school girls spread the rumor their teacher was a molesting pervert.  He sued and won.

But to me, that's far from the most important part of the story.  The most horrifying thing I got from this story was that the girls' families and at least one slimy lawyer didn't care whether or not the teacher was guilty, they wanted him to lose the case anyway so that real molesters wouldn't get away with it in the future.  

The lawyer, Lee J. Danforth, was actually quoted as saying:

"If this trial prevents one little girl or one mother or father from reporting suspected abuse, then this is profoundly sad for our society."

My response is; Yep, and the fault for that doesn't lie with the jury or the teacher, but with the filthy little liars.

How can he be so devoid of ethics that he thinks it's OK for an innocent person to be harmed?  

Once again, this is why I don't think I could convict anyone if I were a juror.  Not anymore.  I don't want The State's goons to win even when they are after a bad guy.  It empowers them and gives them the illusion of legitimacy.

.

Shutdown shows little is “essential”

Shutdown shows little is “essential”

(My Clovis News Journal column for October 18, 2013)

What have you learned from the "government shut down"?

I've learned that I wouldn't have noticed it at all if I didn't see people commenting about it. Personally, I probably wouldn't notice or care if the federal government really shut down for good and took the state and local governments with it into the dustbin of history. I expect that if I did notice, it would be like noticing a cool, refreshing breeze bringing a spring shower, or the way you can suddenly realize a nagging headache has gone away.

This is because I know what government purports to provide, and I know the market can provide those things better, when they are needed at all. I am also prepared to do without those things that are unlikely to ever be replaced. I welcome liberty.

However, I realize I am not typical.

I also learned that those who control the federal government are very vindictive, and organized the "shut down" to precisely target those who actually still support them.

I learned that "essential" doesn't mean what politicians think it means. Isn't it funny that it seems to be only the non-essential government functions which hurt "the people" when taken away? If the IRS (apparently considered essential, judging by the fact they weren't included in the "shut down") went away no one but those employees and their families would even notice, much less be hurt.

Park rangers are "non-essential" according to those who orchestrated the "shut down", at least in their normal capacity. It seems odd to me that armed guards to keep people out of parks, and terrorize those evil vacationers who dare visit or take photos of their own National Park property without an official welcome, are apparently essential- even though that job didn't exist until the government "shut down". Isn't making up numerous new jobs the opposite of "shutting down"?

It seems the only people out of a job because of the "shut down" are those who will be missed by the most people. It's almost as if the administration intentionally decided to use Americans as pawns, and cause them the most possible pain, to coerce them into putting pressure on congress to negotiate with a terrorist... I mean, to give the president everything he wants.

To prevent this ever happening again I would suggest the best course of action is for everyone to choose a private sector job, but even that doesn't guarantee job security, as demonstrated by the recent closure of Portales' Sunland Peanuts. And government had nothing to do with that. Oh, wait...

.

Bill Buppert's latest

Read this: The President as Police Commissioner: Cops and Collectivism by Bill Buppert

Best quote... "There is no such thing as a good cop..."

Absolutely right.  As I recently saw someone say, there are no good cops- nice cops, but no good ones.

I sure do wish more people would see that fact.

.

What's worse than flying monkeys?

Cops.  Not only are they cowards and a lot of other pathetic things, but they are also "compliance monkeys".

If you don't comply with their often unreasonable (to the point of absurdity) demands- faster than is humanly possible- they will act with potentially lethal force.  This is not the behavior of reasonable people, but of sociopaths.

Most traffic "laws" have nothing to do with safety- but with compliance.  And with stealing money for The State, of course.  But that's just one example in a galaxy of "laws" and other bureaucratic nonsense.

.

Teasing the dragon at the door (Updated)

I am writing a newspaper column that may not get past the publisher this week.  I can't really afford to have one rejected, but this is something that really needs to be said.  And I've got to at least try to get it beyond "the choir" who visits here.

It concerns the rapist cops of Deming, New Mexico.

I have edited out all the references to disembowelment* and such, but it is probably still too strongly worded to be published.  I keep trying, but how gently can one say what needs to be said?

And considering how badly the last column stirred up the citizens, they may not be willing to have another controversial column from the likes of me for a few weeks.

Either way, you'll be able to read it (I just may whine for donations to cover my lost pay if it's rejected).  I guess you'll find out Friday.

Update: It passed, but some things are getting edited out, and an awful lot of "allegedly" is being added, to protect the newspaper's hiney from the same kind of violation the cops are accused of committing.  You can read it this friday.  In a month (December 24, 2013 to be exact) you can read my original version right on this blog.  Stay tuned.

*In lieu of restitution...
.