Merry Christmas!

Being better at thinking

Not only do most people seem to be stuck in binary ways of thinking, but they also aren't even very good at that.

Being against "vaccine" mandates doesn't mean you hate vaccines. Those are completely different, unrelated, issues.

Being against police doesn't mean you like crime.

Being against political government doesn't mean you want chaos.

Being against democracy doesn't mean you support autocracy.

See the jumbled "thinking" involved in all these thinking mistakes?

That's not even the end of it.

Being opposed to something doesn't mean you're afraid of it. I'm against "vaccine" dictates, police, political government, and democracy, but I'm not afraid of those things. Nor am I afraid of Covid, crime, chaos, or autocracy.

People who are driven by fear see fear where it doesn't exist. Maybe it helps them feel better about themselves. I feel sorry for them, but I can't arrange my life to comfort them.

And, just because I say "Merry Christmas" doesn't mean I'm against every other Winter Solstice celebration. There's room for all of them. The more, the... well... merrier!

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I'd prefer Dr. Frankenstein

I really dislike Fauci. 

I have had a negative reaction to Dr. A. "SciencePersonified" Fauci (full first name: Anti) from the beginning. Something about his face and his eyes and voice and mannerisms, but also because I don't like what he says. If he said things I agree with, maybe my reaction to him would be more positive. 

We'll never know.

He just doesn't seem trustworthy to me. 

Of course, trustworthiness is subjective. I couldn't trust him, but maybe you could. Your impression of him might be completely opposite of mine. If he doesn't seem repellent to you, do you agree with what he pushes? Or should I have reversed the order to ask "If you agree with what he pushes, does he not seem repellent to you?"

No president has had this negative of an effect on me. Not one. That makes Fauci special-- in a "class" with that harpy Hillary Clinton and that murderous David Chipman guy.

If Fauci said drinking clean water is essential to staying healthy, I'd keep drinking water. But then I already know this is true and his proclamation wouldn't make any difference. If he said new data shows I need to put a spoonful of sewage in my drinking water (or in my veins) to keep from getting sick, I would ignore him (and advise others to ignore him, too). His opinions don't sway me either way. 

No, I shouldn't let myself be influenced by how repellent I find a political criminal. Maybe he's right about everything and I'm a fool for discounting his advice. I'm willing to take the chance.

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Imagine being so blinded by your religious devotion to the Cult of Covid that you believe "vaccine hesitancy" is the same as being anti-science or a conspiracy theorist. I guess in their minds, rational people just accept anything they are told, without question or pause, by someone who chants "It's Science, Baby!". Nutjobs.

Daughter ramblings

I'm thankful my daughter still talks to me. I've seen families where that wasn't the case.

My daughter was just telling me a couple of days ago that Christmas isn't as exciting for her as it was when she was younger. I explained that as a little kid, you're very excited by what you get, but that as you get older, that excitement is replaced by excitement over what you give. If you want to feel Christmas excitement, give gifts you are excited to give. It made sense to her.

I hope she's able to appreciate the wisdom I offer. Haha.

At least she doesn't roll her eyes at me-- that I see. That doesn't mean we never have friction between us. 

I tried to immunize her years ago by warning her that hormonal changes were coming that would make her hate me for no real reason, but that I would love her through it all and we'd be OK in the end. Back then she said that she could never hate me... but that was then. Some days I think she almost crosses the line. The next few years might be interesting.

She's at the age (14) where every w0ke pronouncement sounds like truth, and actual truth is ugly and unwanted. Truth sounds mean, and social [sic] media and her friends tell her it is horrible and backward. 

She sometimes tries to sell me some w0ke; I don't buy it.

I just listen to her saying her piece. I agree when she's on the right path; I usually say nothing when she's off in the w0keweeds. Sometimes I try to say something much later to make her think a little more about what she had accepted as true, but that is crazy once you examine it outside the bubble.

Speaking of weed...

Yesterday we were picking up an item for someone else at a flea market on the New Mexico side of our territory. Just inside the door, the guy had a scraggly marijuana plant growing in a pot. I nudged my daughter and told her what it was. She said later she hadn't even seen the plant (I admit, her observational skills are normal), and wouldn't have known what it was until I told her.

We burned some gas and spent some money just hanging out together all day. We had some hours to kill and we didn't want to be home without something to keep our minds busy. Vet offices need waiting rooms.

The past few days both of us have been a bit anxious because Whiskers-- our one-eyed rescue kitten-- was going in for his hernia surgery. He came out of it in great spirits. He still has one issue, but we'll work on solving that.

The kitten is one bond between us, but we have a pretty good relationship beyond that-- at least so far. We can still talk about anything. I don't take it for granted!

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The other side isn't what's evil

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for November 17, 2021)

It's popular to paint the other political side as evil. The people probably aren't, but their ideas and actions may be. Remember-- you are "the other side" to them.

Evil isn't just whatever you don't like. That would be too easy. Evil is any action which violates someone who isn't currently violating the life, liberty, or property of another; an act which harms someone who doesn't deserve to be harmed at this moment.

Philip Zimbardo, who became famous for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, in his book The Lucifer Effect, defines evil like this: “Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others—or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf.”  I appreciate that he counts as evil the use of political "authority" to influence others to do evil.

People aren't evil, but they can commit evil. Some seem to prefer it. I think it's useful shorthand to refer to someone as "evil" when they consistently and repeatedly commit acts of evil, even if it's not exactly accurate.

So how can you tell if the "other side" is the evil side, or if your side is? Check to see which is violating the life, liberty, or property of another. Sometimes you'll discover both sides promote evil, but in different ways.

Do you support the use of government violence-- through enforcement of legislation-- to take people's money or other property?

Do you advocate the use of government violence to punish people for their choice to use substances you believe they shouldn't use?

Do you approve when government violence is used against those who defended themselves from attackers in a way you didn't like or used weapons you don't believe they should use?

Do you applaud the use of government violence to ignore private property rights and the right of association in favor of government borders?

Do you favor government violence forcing parents to have their children indoctrinated into beliefs which are useful for the state?

Can you see how all these political preferences harm the life, liberty, and property of people who aren't currently harming anyone else? Do you engage in mental gymnastics to try to justify any of these positions anyway? If you can't see this for what it is, you may think of the other side as "evil" while embracing your own brand of the stuff.

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"Law" enforcement is NOT the solution to crime. Not any more than amputation is the solution to a splinter-- or the possibility of getting a splinter. It only makes things worse, even though it might-- might-- reduce the appearance of crime if you wear blinders. In reality, it just shifts the direction most crime comes from slightly.

Carefully crafted failure

You can't be surprised that an idea fails when you've put artificial constraints on it to make sure it can't succeed. When you've planned things so it must fail.

Defunding the police-- as invariably done by city governments-- is one such idea.

If you defund (or abolish) the police-- without simultaneously encouraging the population to effectively defend their life, liberty, and property from all violators-- crime is going to increase. 

This failure doesn't mean police are essential. It means you rigged the outcome so it would look like they are. And the Blue Line Gang members still employed will be the ones targeting the people trying to defend life, liberty, and property to make it dangerous to do so.

Any mayor who doesn't ditch all anti-gun legislation and policies is sacrificing the population so The Gang will win. They didn't even try to solve anything, but did everything in their power to make things worse. This is because government can't allow the people to see that it is their biggest problem. "I want EVERYONE to remember WHY THEY NEED US!" 

To the lamppost with any such mayor.

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Government's job

Government's job is not to protect people. Its job (if political government were ever legitimate and actually had a job to do) is to protect the rights of people. Of individuals. Against all violators, including, especially, its employees.

There's a gigantic gap-- a planet-splitting chasm-- between those two things.

"Protecting people" means violating their rights when they have the right to do dangerous things-- which they do. It's the excuse of slavers and abusive parents.

Protecting your rights means you are going to be at greater risk. It's a matter of putting liberty before life.

That government almost always (I'm being unreasonably generous here) violates your rights, putting your safety-- or worse "public safety"-- first, means government isn't doing its ONE JOB. It simply isn't possible for government to do what its only justification for existing would demand. Toss it out. That's no baby, and that's not bathwater.

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Is it corruption?

Is the mafia corrupt?

You might wish it served to protect your property, widows, and orphans-- after all, that's what the mafia would claim it does-- but in reality, it steals your money, threatens you with violence, violates your rights, and murders people.

Corruption is something like rust, which isn't necessary, but damages and weakens the structure. Corruption isn't just that the true shape of the thing isn't to your liking. Rust on your blade is corruption; the sharp edge isn't.

You might believe the bad things the mafia does are signs of corruption, but those are really the things that make it the mafia rather than a social club. Without those unethical acts, it wouldn't be the mafia. You can't get rid of the things you might inaccurately call "corruption" without abolishing the mafia entirely.

Oh, wait, did I say "mafia"? I meant "government".

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I don't want to be a hero because to be a hero, bad things have to happen in your presence. But if bad things happen in my presence, I hope I can behave correctly.

You and I may be standing alone

"Conservatives"-- Right-Statists-- aren't the force against "health" mandates that they see themselves as. Or that Left-Statists see them as.

The "conservatives"/Republicans I know personally are all much more trusting of the Covid narrative than I am. In fact, there's not much difference that I can see between them and the "liberals" I know personally (two of whom are Maddow-loving California imports). At least, not in how they act or what they seem to believe about it.

Although I don't pay enough attention to the "news" to know for sure, I suspect the "news" is the reason. Where Covid is concerned, I'm assuming it's all fake and it's all designed to scare people. Scared people are easy to herd-- and even easier to stampede.

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If not, I'll keep trying.

U.S. Capitol belongs to people

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for November 10, 2021)

Pretending the January 6th demonstration was an insurrection is silly. An "insurrection" which didn't seek to topple any government, which was in support of the sitting president, and where the armed people were all on the other side? Nonsense.

On top of this, it infuriates me that anyone could be charged with a crime for entering a building which belongs to the people-- not to government-- and for protesting there. To treat this as a crime is injustice. Any government pursuing this sort of case against any individual has delegitimized itself beyond repair. It's done.

Did the demonstrators have a right to be protesting inside the building? Yes, they absolutely did. Would I have joined the protest? Not a chance.

The U.S. Capitol belongs to you. It doesn't belong to politicians or the Capitol Police. If anyone is trespassing, it is those congresscritters who are doing things the Constitution doesn't allow them to do. They are ignoring their clear Constitutional limits and doing the opposite of what the people they supposedly represent want them to do, within those limits. They are the ones who have no right to be on the Capitol grounds.

We can disagree over whether there's any point in protesting a criminal government. I don't believe there is, since I don't think any political government can be redeemed, but I'm not going to criticize those who hold out hope there may still be a slim chance. If you think it's time to protest, it's probably too late for a mere protest to fix anything.

To arrest the protestors was criminal, but the government's crimes went beyond that.

The monetary punishments levied against those who demonstrated are no different than any other violent mugging. It's especially telling when a fine and restitution are imposed separately. A fine is simply another tax-- more theft by government. And government can't be owed restitution because it isn't an individual; it has no rights that can be violated.

I don't know the Clovis doctor who was recently sentenced for entering the U.S.Capitol. I would probably disagree with him on most topics. I was not a Donald Trump supporter because I don't support politicians of any sort, ever. It doesn't matter. What he did wasn't a crime in any real sense. The crime was committed by those who sought to punish him and others like him. I'll always remember who these real criminals are.

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Lots of small earthquakes relieve geologic pressure and make big, damaging earthquakes less likely. It is said that fracking for oil causes lots of small earthquakes. So, wouldn't it make sense that fracking would reduce the chance of large damaging earthquakes? Frack California!

"But the dictionary says..."

If you want to understand why I don't automatically accept the dictionary definition of words, here's a new example.

The definition of "anti-vaxxer" was changed in the Merrian-Webster dictionary to include "opposes...regulations mandating vaccination". Combined with how the definition of "vaccine" was itself recently changed (at least by government) so it could include the Covid shots, this should break anyone's loyalty to "dictionary definitions".

Check out what I said about "mandatory vaccines" back in 2015, and see whether my opinion has changed since that time.

I have never been an anti-vaxxer. Not by my own definition nor by the definition that used to appear in dictionaries. But by this new definition...?

As I point out in my own Liberty Dictionary, dictionaries don't tell you what words really mean, but how they are used. 

Any dictionary that is authoritarian/government-supremacist in its bias is going to define words to be more useful to what "authorities" want you to think. That's why the dictionary definition of "anarchy" is so bad. Why the dictionary definitions of "freedom" and "liberty" are so incomplete or misleading. "The dictionary" doesn't exist-- every dictionary is going to slant things according to the authors' biases.

I'm not suggesting we go all Humpty-Dumpty, but that we realize the authors of dictionaries are also prone to do just that. They aren't immune.

Check the dictionary definition, then weigh it against what you know to be true. You may find they don't agree.

-- H/T to JP

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I've begun to suspect the correct formula is not "risk of the shot minus the risk from Covid" but is, instead, "risk of the shot plus the cost of compliance minus the risk from Covid". If you believe there is no cost to compliance, you are mistaken.

Some of the smartest things I've ever heard

I enjoyed this interview of Elon Musk where he completely bewildered the poor government-supremacist interviewer, especially with his comments toward the "infrastructure bill". Maybe you'd enjoy it, too.

He's not there yet, but he is close.

I still wish I could get a Cybertruck when they come to market.

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You can keep your exceptions

Recently, as if to illustrate a problem I've written about, I have gotten several comments and emails explaining why "X" is the exception. Why "X" is the one issue where other people's liberty can't be respected-- why they can't be trusted with it, but must be subject to control and enforcement imposed politically. And they all give perfectly reasonable-sounding reasons.

The thing is, everyone who has weighed in has a different specific exception. No two "X"s were the same.

Each specific exception hinges on the issue (or issues) they are most concerned about. The thing that worries them the most, or that they can imagine impacting them the most.

This is why you can't make exceptions. 

Liberty-- no exceptions.

You are responsible for you. Yes, many (maybe most) people are not responsible. It doesn't change this. 

You might not like having to watch your backtrail for those who aren't responsible. It's still your job to do so. Cops, bureaucrats, legislation, dictates/mandates, rules, law, etc. don't alter this one iota. It's still 100% your responsibility even if you're tired of it or feel inadequate to the task. 

You have the right to defend yourself from archation or credible threats to archate, but if you overreact you owe restitution. 

And there is no such thing as a "right" to proactively archate against them before they can archate against you-- and that includes through legislation and enforcement of legislation.

Once you start carving out exceptions, you have no basis to complain when others do the same for whatever "problem" bothers them the most. You'll have to fight among yourselves to see who violates whom the most righteously. Guns, Covid, vices, immigration, cars, Rock n' Roll, or dancing-- it's all on the table. Soon, what's left? You are only "free" to choose which hand your sex-monitoring chip is implanted in?

No thanks. That's not the world for me. I'll accept risk to avoid violating your liberty, even if you don't reciprocate and even if you don't want liberty, but only freedom. Your issues-- even if shared by the majority-- don't affect my principles.

-- Also published in The Libertarian Enterprise

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Politics is the pits

I dislike politics very much.

As has been pointed out, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. In violating you, to be precise.

I don't appreciate feeling like I need to pay attention to unscrupulous people who are plotting to use politics-- the political means; cheating-- against me. Yet, it is said to be unethical to use force to stop them. Just lay back and enjoy it, I guess.

They are literally scheming to rob me at gunpoint, to kidnap me if I try to prevent this robbery, and murder me if I resist effectively. Most people see nothing wrong with this situation. And that's just with regard to "taxation". They are plotting against me-- and against you-- from many directions besides that one. That's what politics is.

I understand that some people-- even libertarians-- like politics. They find it interesting. To each his own.

For me, it's a drudge. A dangerous drudge that threatens me. I just wish I could ignore the creeps safely.

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I can't care when evil losers die

I expect everyone here to disagree with me completely. That's fine.

"School shooters" are evil losers. Without exception. I don't care why they do it. I don't care if they claim they were bullied. I have no sympathy whatsoever. Especially when they use the bullying as their excuse to shoot people who weren't the ones bullying them.

However, if they target only those who are bullying them, I also have zero sympathy for their "victims". Bullies are evil losers, too. I don't care even a little about what happens to them.

Sometimes bad guys clash with bad guys and bad guys die. Ho hum.

Bullying has a price, but it is one that is rarely paid. That doesn't mean it is never paid.

Bullying is not that much different than murder, and bullying can include murder. Murderers are bullies. Murder is when the bullying becomes final. Bullying can be murder that takes decades to kill, or it can kill through suicide a lot faster. I'm in favor of bullies being stopped in the act, however that is accomplished. And I'll never care about them.

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