Anonymoids

Anonymoids- I think that's a good name for those who act like a*holes from behind their veil of anonymity.

I don't run into that much here- I realize most of my anonymous commenters are simply either protecting their privacy, avoiding setting up a Blogger profile (which amounts to the same thing), or are hilarious spammers.  None of which are generally hostile (even when they disagree with me).

But on other, popular, blogs I see lots of anonymoids.  I even have my own anonymoid fanboy on one blog where I occasionally comment.  He rarely lets a comment go by without suggesting that he is shocked I haven't yet gone on a killing spree before offing myself.  I've taken to just giving him a virtual pat on the head like a yapping puppy any time he responds to me, which seems to have taken away some of his enthusiasm.  Poor little guy!

I think if you attract the attention of anonymoids, especially of the rabid statist variety, it just shows you are probably doing something right.  Think of them as an award on your wall.  Their hostility and stupidity just makes you look better.

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Pardon my constuction mess

Excuse the mess that is my blog right now.

I had promised myself I would redesign the blog after the New Year to fix an annoying problem my old template was giving me.

So, today I did.

In the process I lost all my links to other blogs.  Grrr.

Give me time.  I'll fix that.

Thank you for your patience.

(Do you like it, or not?)

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Nostalgia and the future

You can't go back again.

I spent the past couple of days working very hard (harder than it should be due to balky computers) uploading some home movies from 10 to 13 years ago so that they can be preserved.  I hope.

Originally they were on VHS-C tape, then transferred to DVD, and now they are digital and "hidden" away on Youtube.

This means I have gotten a massive dose of the nostalgia drug in my system.  I am not foolish enough to believe I can ever get those times back again, but I do believe I can find a way to create more memories worth feeling nostalgic over 13 years from now, with a mix of "old" and "new" friends.

But, as these things usually do, it got me to thinking.

I have said before that liberty lovers don't seek a return to some imaginary golden past- if you are like me you recognize that all eras have their good and bad points, and only liberty lets you pick those which work for you.

I think liberty can give you and me a future better than any past or present has ever been, and I intend to keep working toward it- sometimes by not working at it at all.  If you know what I mean.

I'll end with a clip that you might enjoy from one of the home movies.

Freedom, liberty are messy, like life

Freedom, liberty are messy, like life

(My Clovis News Journal column for December 6, 2013.  A huge amount was edited out this week, said to be "repetitive", which I sometimes find necessary to hammer a point home... but in this case I don't see that what was removed was repetitive at all.  Oh well.)

How is it that more things are illegal today than a year ago, and why has this been the trend for a couple hundred years? It's because there is an imbalance in how "laws" are imposed and eliminated. The scales of legislation are tipped in the wrong direction.

Even if only one out of every hundred proposed liberty violating "laws" is passed, liberty still shrinks, gradually, but inexorably. Because those "laws" almost never go away. Even when they seem to get abolished, in truth another "law" was probably passed to counter the first "law", rather than the first "law" being struck from the books.

But the biggest culprit is all the new "laws" that get proposed to pander to the folks crying "There ought to be a law" over every little thing that upsets their delicate sensibilities.

Of course, not every one of those bad "laws"- and they are all bad "laws"- gets passed the first time it is dreamed up. However, every time one of those "laws" fails to come to life it keeps getting proposed repeatedly until it eventually becomes "law". The political climate is always in flux, and even the most ridiculous or draconian "law" will eventually find a time and place to take root. The proposed "laws" never die and a "no" is never allowed to be final. "Laws" are held to be sacred, and liberty is an inconvenience to be sacrificed on a whim.

This leads to the condition I call "law pollution", where "laws" come to cover the world like so many "tumblebags" and burrito wrappers drifting against every fence and wall. Where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

That needs to change.

It is never valid to impose a "law" that violates individual liberty or property- no matter how many people want that "law", but pretending for a moment that it was sometimes OK, a "law" that would violate liberty or property should get, at most, one chance to be passed. After that, it should never be permitted to be proposed again. Not by changing the wording, not by tacking it onto another bill, and not by bureaucratic backdoor rule-making.

One shot at violating liberty, and then it's done. Forever.

And that's if you ignore the clear fact that it is very wrong to propose, pass, enforce, or obey that kind of "law" regardless.

Freedom, like life, is messy. Only the dead are predictable and stable. If the liberty of your neighbor scares you, that is your malfunction, not his. You are the one who needs to adapt. No new "laws".
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Adventures with "borders"

Two discussions on Facebook (one and two) really illustrated to me the fuzzy thinking of the anti-immigration people.

Those who claim to revere the Constitution are willing to stand in line behind the anti-gun wackjobs to flush it right down the toilet in pursuit of their religion of "borderism".  Or try to read things into it that aren't really there, or stretch the things that are there completely out of shape, in order to reconcile their conflicting beliefs.

More and more I see it as evidence that such a person just really doesn't like "Hispanics" (because that's who they almost always have an issue with), and say their objection is only toward those who don't "go through the legal process" because they haven't yet figured out how to "send back" the others.  They are probably still "working on it".  Maybe I'm being unfair?

Me, I'm not concerned with where a person was born, or what color their skin is, or what language they speak, or which State (or it's employees) claims them.  Or, rejects them, as the case may be.  I only care whether or not a person initiates force or theft, and that they respect private property.

Which brings us back to the "borderists".  They always, eventually, fall back on that tired and silly argument that "illegal aliens" are trespassing on US property, which they then claim is identical to someone just walking into your house.  And they try to connect imaginary dots between individually keeping invaders out of your house and enforcers "protecting the borders".  And they almost always use the statist words of desperation: "don't call the cops to protect your property, then" to those who point out the inconsistency.

In other words, the borderists are fully willing to violate the private property of everyone in order to assert the claim of a State over all land inside its "borders".  How nasty of them.  And how inconsistent.  Their claim invalidates itself before it even gets out of their brain, and they don't see that.

I'm not saying here whether "allowing" open borders is a good thing or not.  I don't want aggressive individuals, thieves, and trespassers living near me regardless of where they were born, or whose permission they have received to be here.  But, really, until I need to use self defense against them, it is none of my business.  I have the absolute right to defend myself and my property from violators of any sort, and anyone who seeks to violate that human right is making themselves my enemy.

I also know it is wrong for any third party to control where people choose to travel or settle down, or to demand a fee for giving permission.

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Government acronyms- it's always opposite day!

Puppeticians are such clowns.  Look at the acronyms they dream up for their stupid and evil rules, for example, the "PATRIOT Act" or the equally Orwellian and anti-safety "SAFE Act" that NY is imposing on compliant gun owners.

I expect to see, someday soon, something like the "LIFE Act", which would stand for something as nasty and anti-life as the "Legalize Immediately Fatal Enemas Act".

And, yet, the mainstream media would see nothing ironic about that rule's name, either.  Not as long as their lover, The State, said it was a good thing.  It would be swallowed without question, and anyone pointing out the ridiculousness of the acronym would be called all sorts of names (or simply ignored).

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(If anyone would like to help out financially, I could really use $28 before this evening so my phone can stay activated. I have some other expenses coming in the next couple of days, but the phone is the most critical to life and limb.  UPDATE: I got what I need, but I'll not complain if anyone else wants to pitch in.  Thanks!)

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Let me count the ways (to be an outlaw)

I keep seeing the claim that as of January 1, 2014, 40,000 new laws suddenly came into being.

Is this accurate?  Does it matter?

Even one new law would have been bad enough.  Every "law" ever written needs to go away.  Declining to repeal all the bad counterfeit "laws" (arbitrary rules) is just as big a failure as passing new "laws".

I suppose there is a good side: 40,000 new opportunities to be an outlaw.

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Controversy is more popular than fluff

I have noticed a sad fact of life: controversial topics in my CNJ columns get a much better response than weak and gentle topics.  And those are the ones the paper hesitates to publish.

When I write about not protecting cops from their rightful consequences, the newspaper is reluctant, but I get lots of comments and "likes" and "shares".  When I write something happy that steps on no evil-doer's toes, the column barely gets noticed.

There's a place for the fluff- simple, happy topics that almost no one could object to- but without the hard stuff- exposing those who are using coercion and theft to control what their neighbors do, especially those hiding behind a "government" position- a newspaper is missing its main purpose.  Newspapers should routinely oppose tyrants (and wanna-be tyrants) and nannies, and only occasionally, after exhausting every other possibility, speak well of them or support them in any way.

What happened to the days when newspapers were supposed to be "hard hitting"?  To have an edge that cut through the local "Good Ol' Boys Club" of puppeticians and those who pulled their strings?

I guess the need to keep advertisers happy- many of whom are connected to the corrupt local politicians and enforcers- has won out over uncomfortable truth in today's tight news market.

And that's a tragedy.

The independent internet is now filling that void, but a rogue local newspaper that stuck to uncompromising libertarian principles would be a nice thing to subscribe to, and to advertise in.

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Easy enough for a 6 year-old to do it?

It's been interesting teaching a 6 year old about her property rights.  Perhaps I make it harder than it really is, since kids seem to automatically understand the concept of "mine".  

I always remind my daughter that her stuff is hers, but since we all have to live in this space together, she needs to respect the rest of us too by keeping her stuff under control.  And, until she is willing to do her own laundry and put all her clean clothes away, vacuum her floor, and feed and clean up after her turtle, that includes keeping her room neat enough I can walk through it without injury.

 And I tell her she controls how others use her stuff, too.  She is never forced to "share", but is free to do so if she wants, and is reminded that not sharing goes both ways.

Which leads to interesting circumstances, especially where one neighborhood collectivist-in-training is concerned.  He came to the door with his (nice, polite, and enjoyable) sister a few days ago and decided to claim a candy bar he saw.  His justification: "But I want it!"  He didn't get it.  He has also gotten chased out of the yard (by me) for refusing to respect my daughter's property and then becoming belligerent when called on it.  

He is also the subject of lessons in self defense I have been giving my daughter: "Don't hit him for calling you names, only to stop him from hitting or pushing you or someone else."

I don't want my daughter growing up to think it's OK to violate the property of others, nor to excuse those who claim a "right" to violate hers.  She'll have to decide for herself someday where to draw her line in the sand.  But, as of now, I stand behind her decisions regarding defending her own property, I make sure she respects the property of others, and I do my best to respect her property and admit when I overstep my bounds.

It actually works pretty well.  Now, if she would just clean and feed her turtle...

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Working holidays should be choice

Working holidays should be choice

(My Clovis News Journal column for November 29, 2013)

To shop, or not to shop. That was the question.

Did you go shopping for early "Black Friday" specials on Thanksgiving Day? If so, what brought you to the stores? The deals or something else? Perhaps your family is unbearable and you'd prefer the company of strangers. Or perhaps they would prefer you find something to keep you out of their hair for a few hours. Or, maybe your family, like mine, sometimes finds another day to be more convenient for the celebration, leaving the official holiday open.

Many people got very upset over stores being open this year. What bothers me about stores deciding to open on Thanksgiving Day isn't that management chooses to open; it's that the employees of those stores usually didn't sign up for this and have other, more important, obligations to fulfill.

Sure, they knew they would have to work according to their boss' wishes, rather than their own preferences, when they accepted the job, but take a job with the knowledge that it is going to be closed on certain days, and when the boss changes his mind, you might not be happy. For good reason.

A business owner should be free to decide how to run the business and when to be open- although that isn't usually the case anymore, anyway. Plus, in a free society there would be plenty of jobs available, and stiff competition for workers, so people would never feel trapped in a job where they feel exploited.

But America is not a free society; it is a society burdened with crony corporatism- "fascism" is the proper term. The arrangement they have entered into with the State allows "bad actors" to escape the consequences of their actions.

In the past, when I wasn't able to be with friends or family, I have chosen to work on holidays. It was better than sitting around feeling lonely. My preference would be to see stores offer employees the same opportunity to choose- or close for the holiday. I doubt anyone would need a fully staffed store on a major holiday, and letting people sign up to voluntarily work that day- perhaps with a financial incentive- would be enough to get things done.

Personally, I probably wouldn't choose to go shopping on either Christmas or Thanksgiving; I have better things to do. If I didn't, I still doubt I would go shopping because I don't want to encourage stores to force employees to work major holidays against their will. I hope people will consider where their choices lead.

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Happy New Year 2014

Happy 2014, folks.

It has been a year since I made my computer "standing room, only".  I think that was a very positive thing.  My lack of resolutions otherwise has gone about as expected.  Almost everything is just as it was a year ago.  I'm not sure I can take that being the case a year from now.

I have some wishes for the coming year, but no concrete ideas of how to make those wishes reality. Nor any way of knowing if those wishes are even a good idea, or whether they would end up ruining what is good in my life.  Not sure if I need to find a way to tolerate the intolerable, or smash it.

I'm not really feeling very positive about the coming year this morning, for a few different reasons.  I'm not sure how to fix those areas I feel need to be fixed.  As is often the case, I think I may be backed into a corner where anything I do- or don't do- may cause disaster.

I apologize for the downer post.  I did enjoy last night (no drinking involved), except for the one glaring shortcoming.

May my outlook improve soon, and I hope you are in a better place, mentally, than I am today.

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Year end stuff

Humor:  The ObamaCare website is fixed- go sign up now. (It's safe)

Truth: Don't Become a Libertarian.

Survival skills: An alternative weapon- the Bolas

If you celebrate, please survive to celebrate again.  If you don't celebrate, please celebrate somehow anyway.  2013 was an "interesting year".  I wonder what's in store and what I'll be saying about 2014 a year from now.

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Personality type pondering

I don't know for certain what value there is in knowing what "personality type" you are.  Everyone is an individual, after all.  You may decide there is no value in it for you at all.  However, I have learned a few things that help me understand how I approach the world, and the ways my approach is lacking, by applying the knowledge gained by taking the tests and reading about the results.

I am an "INTP".  Also known as the "rational architect".  As usual, I am a rare type of critter.

Mostly, my personality type has served me well.  I really enjoy thinking and plotting- um, "planning".  I can hardly imagine being some other way, although I do feel the past several years have allowed me to stretch my boundaries a little.  And shown me where I need to change.

I need a little more of whatever trait it is that would help me make money.  All my life that has been the toughest thing for me.  If I enjoy it and I'm good at it, it's practically guaranteed to not be popular enough to lead to financial success (and by "success" I don't mean "get rich", I mean "allows me to make enough to eat and pay some basic bills").

My other difficulty has been maintaining intimate relationships.  I'm not "cold", I'm just difficult and different.  (And the lack of money has always been a stumbling block in that area, too.)  I'm hoping I am softening up where I need to and becoming more approachable and "relatable" now.

Understanding the INTP traits has allowed me to see how I interact with others in all aspects of life, and shows where I need to focus some attention and put forth some effort.  I am trying to accentuate the positive traits and minimize the negative ones.

I also wonder if it might be part of the reason I have always been drawn to "rules, not Rulers".  After all, one of those pages above states "Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. "  You've got that right.  Expertise impresses me, position is meaningless without it.  And, if your expertise is in coercing the innocent, you don't "impress me" in a good way- but you do make an impression.  You expose yourself as someone to watch when TSHTF, in case self defense (and defense of the innocent) becomes a more critical necessity.

But, then, I also feel pity for those cursed with a personality type (along with other traits they may have no control over) which draws them toward coercive "jobs".  What if that were me?

(Writing this post, and doing what I always do when I write, amused me this time as I struggled to make certain each and every word was just the exact word I meant to use.  Just as the INTP profile says "rational architects" are wont to do.  Which is also why the editing of my newspaper columns gives me heartburn.)

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Be careful what you ask for- or how you ask, anyway

My dad got an e-reader for Christmas.  He's the least technologically capable person I know.  I'm not that much better, but I was setting it up so that he could use it.  He saw that it had voice recognition capabilities and wanted to try it out.

I got everything ready and handed it to him.

We discuss Bitcoin a fair amount so when he tried his first search he said "search Bitcoin".

He immediately got thousands of results for "Best porn".

My twisted sense of humor will forever be amused that whatever else happens that will always be his very first "search".

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Fix your roof and insulate your walls

My favorite desert hermit posted a really good blog that I think you'd enjoy.  One wise point he makes is this:

The only person who is actively doing destructive things to me is me, and I’m welcome to stop. Hating on the great omnipotent “they” – and calling that a struggle for freedom – has never gotten me anywhere. It’s like bitching about the weather: Great fun, but not as useful as fixing my own roof and insulating my own walls. The weather itself won’t change just to suit me.

Read the rest of it here: My own kind of freedom: I try not to bother being “anti.”

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Cops and robbers

Cops and robbers.  Why do people act as though they are opposites?  Like the Dallas Cowboys and some other football team (I can't think of others at the moment), you are talking about different, interchangeable teams playing the same sport.  You may cheer for one and boo the other, but pretending you are talking about something as different as a football team and a bakery is ignoring reality.

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(Too hard on cops?)

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Merry Christmas

See you tomorrow.

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Remove perks that enable Police

Remove perks that enable Police

My Clovis News Journal column for November 22, 2013.

This one was heavily edited, with a lot of "allegedly" added by the newspaper. And some other things I will point out.

After you read my column at the link above, please come back and read this post, then read the column as I originally wrote it at the bottom.

I disagree most vigorously with the addition of the words "alleged" and "allegedly" in the editing of my column.  I completely understand that the editor needs to protect the interests of the newspaper, so I didn't fight him on that.

The word "allegedly" has a place when it is one person's word against another's- one who denies the accusation.  After all, you and I weren't (usually) there to see what happened- we are taking someone's word for it, and everyone has an agenda.  People want to win their lawsuits, or keep their job, or make the other guy look bad, or whatever.  So, since the facts aren't known for certain, the word "allegedly" makes that point clear.

But, nowhere are the facts of these cases I am writing about in dispute.  Neither the cops, nor their gang's official spokescritters, nor either hospital's staff, dispute that the events happened as described in the lawsuits- the only dispute is that the cops and copsuckers and other "authority" worshipers see the acts as justified and "allowed by law" in pursuit of the stupid and evil War on Politically Incorrect Drugs.  That is total BS, and anyone with any morals or ethics knows it.  Rape is rape, and wearing a badge while you rape doesn't change that fact.  Nor does raping in pursuit of some goal you hallucinate to be "noble".

The newspaper also has to appease the local puppeticians and cops by bending over backwards when discussing even non-local cops and puppeticians in order to look "fair" to these people- to the point of being unfair to those of us who aren't gang members- and I also understand that.  The newspaper needs to keep access to these people, or they'll be shut out and denied access to news releases and whatnot.  That would damage their ability to function as a newspaper.  However, over time this appeasement creates other problems, by not exposing corruption as thoroughly as it deserves to be exposed.  Trying to appear "fair" to a known bad guy makes one lose credibility in the eyes of those who are observing from the side.

These cops really did do what they are accused of- they don't even deny it.  So let's not tiptoe around the facts- let's call them what they know they are: rapists.

At the end of the "30 day exclusivity" I will post the column as I originally wrote it, below.  Come back then and compare the two versions.

Here it is, as originally written, with parenthetical comments and an important link added:

The recently publicized examples of assault by police officers, while supposedly looking for drugs, are much more than "simple assault"; they are acts of aggressive penetration. If you or I did anything similar we would rightfully be called rapists.

Is bodily penetration becoming a weapon of choice in the stupid and evil War on Politically Incorrect Drugs? Texas police began this tactic a few years ago with their road-side syringe assaults to steal blood from drivers- penetrating the body of those they wished to incriminate.

Now New Mexico cops have overshadowed their Texas brethren, getting caught in multiple acts of medically assisted gang rape against drivers who weren't yet sufficiently terrorized, and justified by the 21st Century equivalent of the witch trial: a false "alert" by a drug-sniffing dog- a scam as scientifically invalid as "polygraph tests" and astrology. (The newspaper objected to this characterization, and edited it out, saying that dogs can be trained to sniff out all sorts of substances- yes, they can, but that's not the point. Dogs want to please their handlers and learn how to do so by "alerting" falsely. Also, a dog's alert is only as good as the word of its handler- if he lies to justify a rape, the dog can't come back and testify against him. And, we all know cops lie. If using dogs to find "drugs" were scientific, it wouldn't result in so many false positives. It's a scam.)

No individual involved in these rapes should ever again have any "authority" over anyone. I would never hire them, nor knowingly do business with anyone who did.

I salute the hospital whose staff wisely recognized that compliance with the police demand was wrong, and refused.

The medical staff at the other hospital, who assisted in these rapes in violation of their medical oaths, should all lose their "licenses" and be fired.

Each attacker needs to be paying the victims out of his own pocket for the rest of his life. There is no excuse for letting them get away with this, nor for forcing the "taxpayers" to pay the restitution.

Leo, the "drug dog" who alerted on command for his handler (and whose certification expired years ago, by the way- "according to media reports" the newspaper adds), needs to be retired and rescued from being employed in this vulgar manner.

It's not enough to make these rapists face justice; it's long past time to end that which makes their crimes possible. Abolishing prohibition, which has become the excuse for just about any violation of individual rights you can imagine, is essential. It was never an ethical endeavor, but has become downright vile. It's not a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater- that's not bathwater, it's sewage, and those lumps are not a baby.

Next, dismantle the domestic US police state. Return cops to their only legitimate position- one of servitude- and remove all the perks and "officer safety" protection which has emboldened them over the past several decades. Or end the disastrous experiment in policing, altogether.

The people who will say I am going too far are the same ones who call for freelance rapists to be castrated or executed. I am reasonable by comparison. (The newspaper thought this last paragraph was confusing and deleted it.)
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Where do you want to be?

There is a continuum from good to bad when you talk about how to attempt to live among other humans- what people call "politics".

To me, when keeping the discussion limited to where I currently find myself living, it goes something like this: anarchy to minarchy to the Articles of Confederation to "local government" to the "states" to the Constitution to whatever it is the individuals in America stagger under now.  Of course, there can always be something worse.

Your particular manner of arranging them from good to bad may differ from mine, but I'll bet you do still have a preferred order.

I'd be happy for any move toward the good and away from the bad, but I won't be satisfied anywhere along the continuum except anarchy.  How much liberty is enough for you?

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Cops are a cult

Someone shared with me a very good blog post which he had written, wherein he makes the observation that cops are a cult.  His analysis is spot on.

Read it here:  On Cops as a Cult, by Dreamwanderer

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