Personal responsibility better than government

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 22, 2024)

Have you unhitched your wagon from the dying mule of government? If not, why not? It's not helping you, in spite of the claims of its public relations team, but is holding you back. You could be better without it getting in your way and siphoning off the labor of your hands to benefit itself. More liberty, more wealth, more health, more self-respect.

For many people,. talk of the end of political government is crazy. Their ancestors thought any talk of ending slavery-- excuse me, other forms of slavery-- was also crazy. They have a hard time seeing how the world will function without this great evil continuing to devour individual liberty.

One of the favorite go-to excuses of statists against the ethical move of abolishing this cult is the "power vacuum". If you don't have a state it will supposedly leave one of these.

Are you leaving a "power vacuum"? No. You are returning the power to where it has always belonged— to each individual who has the natural human right to run his or her own life.

It's a useful lie if people keep accepting it.

Even in the worst case scenario of this age of political government continuing a few more decades, being ready to take care of yourself in the absence of government will only help you. Not just when government implodes, but today.

The only thing keeping government going is the superstitious belief in it held by too many people. As it fails, over and over again, this belief will start to erode. It can only lie about its failures a certain number of times before the lies stop working. When people stop believing in something which was never real to begin with it stops having any effect on the real world. We are closer to this situation than you might think.

Whether you believe I'm right or wrong doesn't change the reality-- you need to arrange your life in such a way that you don't get dragged under if government collapses next month or next year. If it doesn't, there's no harm to you, but if it does, you'll be better off.

Don't depend on government being there and don't work for it! There are so many ethical options out there which don't depend on robbing people and calling it "taxes", and which don't require pretending to have a right to run the lives of others. Try some of those.

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Too many rules = no rules

I’m not a fan of arbitrary rules for the sake of having rules. Too many rules will make life unpleasant, even if (as some claim) they make life orderly and safer. The trade-off isn’t worth it.

I understand some rules-- those that match with ethical behavior like “don’t murder”. Rules that depart from this are worse than annoying. They are harmful because they are cheapening the real rules. When every move you make is subject to rules, I can see why some people choose to break all the rules, including the ones that matter.

I knew a teenage boy like this. Some people would say he's the problem (and he may well be headed that way), but the root problem is that there are just too many rules that make no sense. He can't see the difference between the rules that make sense and those that don't. His parents don't seem to have explained it as he grew up. I tried to help him get it. I'm not sure if it took root, and he has now moved away, so I may never know.

Too many rules is the same as no rules at all. In practice, anyway.

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Prohibition addiction

I've seen a lot of people get really angry over Ross Ulbricht's pardon. Usually justified by "He was a drug dealer and people DIED!" Or, "Children were trafficked on his site!"

Prohibition is a powerfully addictive drug. Statists are highly susceptible to this addiction, and can't even see when it is destroying their ability to reason. They like prohibition. They demand prohibition. And they don't care who is killed for getting in the way.

Drug abuse is stupid; prohibition is evil.

The truth is, Ross allegedly ran a website that promised commerce with enhanced anonymity. Yes, people doing things prohibited by government are going to use such a site. So will those who recognize that government has no business looking into their business, regardless of how mainstream and ethical their business may be. Government is the enemy.

People try to justify Ross' caging by saying "He knew what would happen".

The CEO of Ford sells vehicles that he knows will be used in crimes. There's no question about it. They are designed to be very useful to criminals. Should he be locked up for two life sentences plus 40 years because of it? No, that's ridiculous.

Every CEO of any company that offers email or other electronic communication services, like cell phones, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that those services will be used in the commission of crimes. People will be victimized by users of the service through the use of the service. Should those providers of valuable services be locked away and the key thrown into the ocean? No. Only someone evil would try.

And caging Ross was just as absurd. Freeing him was unambiguously right. If someone is on the other side, it's not "just an opinion" because someone's life was on the line; they are siding with evil in this case.

It's possible that other CEOs get a pass because they offer a backdoor for government criminals to access to violate their customers. Perhaps this was partly government's way of punishing Ross for not doing so.

The right thing to do, beyond freeing individual political prisoners, is to get rid of the illegal rules government uses as justification for taking them prisoner in the first place. This would obviously destroy government. I'm OK with that.

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Which is it?

Statists are either not smart or they are not honest. (Although, to be fair, some may just be drunk.) 

I say this because they either don’t understand liberty or they work hard to pretend they don’t understand liberty.

It’s often impossible to tell which.

Whatever their malfunction may be, I can guarantee you that you and I understand their arguments and positions better than they understand ours. I've seen this demonstrated more times than I can count. I'm sure you have too, unless you've totally avoided "social" media.

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He really did it!

I didn't think Trump would do it. I hoped I was wrong. I was wrong! I'm glad I was wrong. I'd love to be wrong like this more often.

Ross Ulbricht has been freed!

Now, everyone in a cage for any victimless acts needs to be freed as well.

Matt Hoover for one.

If someone is sitting in a cage, or has a "record" for drug or gun "offenses", they are a political prisoner. Just like the "J6" prisoners. All political prisoners should be free and their "records" cleared. Immediately. Unconditionally. Anyone who delays their release afterward should be treated like the criminal they are.

The agencies responsible for persecuting them, such as the ATF and DEA, should be disbanded and their illegal "duties" not be transferred to anyone else, but abolished entirely.

But, I'm not going to discount Ross being freed. One good thing is one good thing.

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Unhinged people are dangerous

There’s a lot of mental illness masquerading as political opinions out there.

I browse Instagram, mostly for the cat accounts I follow. The level of doom felt by some of the people running the accounts over the past few days is astounding. Worse than after the s/election didn't go as they expected and hoped.

These people are not OK. They seriously believe Trump is out to get them and might be under their bed right now. No, the reality is the US feral government is inside all their devices, and has been for decades. But this is different to them. 

It's far beyond anything I saw when Biden became president. 

They are coming unhinged. And unhinged people are dangerous.

Of course, most of them have been brainwashed to believe Trump is "literally Hitler", and that he's going to ... what? If you don't realize America is already a police state (it could get worse), then I don't know what to tell you.

Trump will do some bad things. He will do some good things. We'd all be better off if no president did anything.

If we could survive 4 years of Biden, we can survive 4 more years of Trump. If anything apocalyptic happens, it would probably be beyond the control of any president. That doesn't mean a president can't make any problem worse by trying to "fix" it with authoritarianism. Trump did that with Covid, and then Biden took that as a challenge and doubled down. Or, whoever was running the show did, anyway.

If you believe you need to be governed and need a president, you're halfway nuts already. It doesn't take a lot to push you over the line and trigger an "episode". And Trump is uniquely able-- through the mechanism of myriad hoaxes perpetrated by his fervent opposition-- to push them over that line.

There's nothing they could do that would surprise me. Or so I think. The next few years are likely to be very interesting. Probably not in a good way.

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Is there any hope?

As long as statists are the majority, humans are probably doomed.

Unless the rest of us are exceptionally powerful in some way.

The debate over TikTok drew me into "conversations" with many government-supremacists, and exposed me to their beliefs about a great many things-- guns, governments, censorship, spyware, propaganda, rights, etc. 

Maybe it also exposed them to mine, but from the interactions, I don't think my words were cracking their shells. If anything, maybe some seeds were planted, but I'll never know.

I was told that by criticizing one government it was clear I am a tool of a competing government, no matter how clearly I stated that all political government is evil. All of them are the enemy, but the one that has more power over your daily life is the greater threat to you. This is true for anyone in any place on the planet.

I got called a communist, a Chinese spy, an idiot, and other things.
They (seemingly willfully) misunderstood what I said.
I was treated to government narratives about anti-gun cases that I know to be untrue, just because they thought it supported their side in some way.
I saw elaborate straw men being constructed and artfully burned.
I didn't see logic or rationality.

It doesn't give me a lot of hope for the species. 

Maybe we'll be lucky and they'll all kill each other off and some of the rest of us will survive to try again without the superstitious belief in "authority" that has crippled humanity for all these thousands of years. It's unlikely, but probably the only hope.

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Penny jury made the right decision

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 15, 2024)

The Daniel Penny trial had me worried. I don't trust juries to do the right thing anymore; too often they simply rubber-stamp whatever the state-- meaning any political government-- wants. Most jurors seem to believe, "If the defendant isn't guilty, why is he on trial?"

The state is usually on the wrong side, especially when self-defense is the issue.

Penny stepped up to protect his fellow subway passengers in New York City from a mentally ill person who was making threats. For his act of compassion, government decided to treat him as a criminal.

The prosecutor tried to make the trial about race. He failed to trick smart observers. Only racists see race as a factor in the unfortunate event. Only racists call for riots and revenge because of the verdict. Penny's heroism helped people of every race.

This isn't a triumph of justice, though. Daniel Penny was harmed by the justice system, even though the harm has been mitigated by the jury coming to the right verdict. The police, prosecutor, and judge owe him restitution, which he'll never see.

Recently, I read about a Clovis woman who was acquitted of a murder charge. She's probably been harmed for the rest of her life by being dragged through the process. Those who charged her need to be held accountable, too.

Compare what Penny did with the actions of the man who shot and killed the CEO of United Healthcare.

In one case, a man saw a dangerous situation and did what was needed to protect his fellow passengers, and many condemned him for his selfless actions. In the other case, a man plotted to murder a specific individual, carried out his plan, then ran and hid, and many of the same people who condemned Daniel Penny laughed off the murder as something the victim deserved.

We've all had our problems with health insurance-- especially since the rise of "ObamaCare". I understand the frustration and helplessness, and the callousness demonstrated by insurers who demand deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket payments, and still refuse to cover some essential expenses. I wouldn't trust anyone who believes that's justification for murder to be on a jury.

When juries do the right thing, they benefit us all. When they go along with what the state wants, they are often worse than useless. I'm glad the Daniel Penny jury didn't hand New York City the verdict it sought.

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Once more, with FEELING

Most people are statists because most people just aren't very smart.

Recently I made some comments that drew the wrath of "normal people".

One comment was saying I would not turn in an "illegal alien" for any amount of money, in one I was explaining why permanent DST is harmful, and in the other I was pointing out that government has no "authority" to ban TikTok (or any other web platform) and that the Bill of Rights prohibits them from doing so.

I get people having different opinions, but when they do I wish they could articulate reasons. They can't. 

They can only tell me how they feel about a topic. They can call me names, say "that's the most stupid thing I've ever read", tell me what government is getting away with and how this excuses it, go off on tangents that are unrelated to the topic (like that I have no friends or money), and attack a straw man of their own creation, but they can't give good, consistent and reasonable explanations of why or how I'm wrong. Because they have none available. 

They can't think, they can only feel. And I hurt their feelings. So they attack.

If you're going to communicate with "normal people", you're going to have to ditch reason and embrace feelings. I don't know if it's worth it. It is something to consider, though.

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Tariffs and other dumb behaviors

Threatening to impose tariffs is like threatening to blow up your own house, with your family inside, to make your neighbor do what you want. 

I guess you could call it "negotiating", but it's still kind of dumb and/or evil.

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The Triangle of Archation

We live in a world where the authoritarians of the right fight the authoritarians of the left and the nihilists (mostly of the left), the authoritarians of the left fight the authoritarians of the right and occasionally fight the nihilists (but their hearts aren't in it), and the nihilists just seem to want everyone dead. 

Caught in between them are you and me.

How delightful.

It's hard for any of those sides to understand that someone can be outside their weird triangle. They'll either want to say you are really on their side, or they'll assign you to one of the opposition sides that you don't belong with.

But here we are, just wanting to exercise our liberty without violating anyone's life, liberty, or property. Sometimes forced to defend ourselves or others from someone in that Triangle of Archation.

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Using government

Sometimes government is worse than other times. But it's always your enemy-- IF liberty and human rights are among your values.

If you just want to play politics, I can see why you might not always think government (The State) is your enemy. It's that "pragmatism" thing that I hate so much.

Yes, government can often be used to get what you want. It's not worth it. It's never ethical. 

Evil methods are often pragmatic-- they'll do things for you and help you accomplish things. What do you give up in the process? Pretty much everything good.

There's always an alternative. Sometimes it's hard to find, but it's worth the effort.

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Counting on the bad guys to do the right thing

Some "gun people" are hanging their hopes on Congress (and/or the Supreme Courtjesters) doing the right thing.

They won't. Sorry to disappoint you and I'd LOVE to be wrong. But I'm not.

Sure, I'd like to see this thing they call "national carry reciprocity" be a thing. No one has the "right" to violate natural human rights, and governments (including state and local governments) have no rights whatsoever. Something without rights can't have the "right" or the imaginary political authority to violate yours. Rights are individual, not collective.

Since the version of the bill I read says that if you're a resident of a state with "constitutional carry", and thus don't need a permit to carry in your home state, you wouldn't need one anywhere. Not that this would make a shred of difference to how I live my life, but I suppose it might be nice.

You know the political criminals in New York, California, and New Jersey (among others) will continue doing the crimes they do, no matter how much "more illegal" it becomes. Because there are no real, immediate, and painful consequences. And there never will be as long as most people believe in the legitimacy of the state.

There's also a bill introduced to abolish the NFA. I want that one even more, since that illegal act forms the foundation of all legislative and bureaucratic anti-gun crime. But ignorant cowards will sabotage that one by claiming liberty is "too dangerous" to be allowed. It won't get anywhere.

I remind you that your rights don't depend on the acceptance of your enemy. They are yours to claim and to exercise regardless of the opinions of political criminals in rule-making clubs. Liberty is your birthright as a human. Act like it. Stop counting on the bad guys to do the right thing.

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The Power is, and always will be, yours

Transferring your Power to government is always the wrong move.

People who believe in The State are guilty of this, and they impose it on you as well so they don't look as weak and stupid by comparison. They call for things like "making crime illegal again", "border control", "government efficiency", etc.-- pretending these are the "adult" positions. They aren't. 

They are trying to impose a State "fix" to a problem caused by the State. You can't solve problems caused by too much government with more government. Especially not with "more efficient" government. That's the path to destruction.

Those who grow tired of living with the consequences of crime, and with criminals emboldened by being protected from their victims by government, call for "making crime illegal again". What a stupid thing to say. 

This is a way of transferring your Power-- your obligation-- to defend yourself, others, and property from violators to someone neither able nor inclined to defend any of these things from freelance criminals unless it cuts into their own crime scheme too much. Transferring your Power and responsibility to government like a foolish child might want to do.

You have the natural human right to defend yourself from anyone committing crime whether their crime is illegal or not. Nothing can change this, although doing what you have a right to do will always carry some risk from The State. There's nothing so quickly punished as showing government to be unnecessary and harmful.

"Border control" is more of the same, but worse. Not only does it transfer your Power to defend your property from trespassers to The State, but it denies you have any property rights at all. It transfers your property to The State, denies you the ability to act on your responsibility to defend your property, then pretends the State should control everyone's property (and property that belongs to no one). It's state communism. If that's what you want, be honest about it and stop making excuses.

None of that garbage would even look necessary (or smart) if people would stop letting government take away their Power and stop pretending these things are not individual responsibilities. You can't really transfer your responsibilities to The State. It's going to fail every time because The State isn't a real thing-- it's a superstition. A superstition can't carry out your responsibilities on your behalf; neither can people acting on that superstitious belief, no matter how strongly they believe. Their incentives are messed up.

Government is never on your side. It subjugates you in order to steal your Power and it denies your responsibilities. It instead substitutes artificial "responsibilities" like obeying its orders.

Pretending otherwise doesn't do anything good for anyone.

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Real crimes need individual victims

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 8, 2024)

President Biden was right to pardon his son, Hunter, after his conviction on gun and drug charges. Where President Biden went wrong was when he then failed to pardon everyone else who has been convicted on similar charges. People are sitting in prison today for the same acts. All such charges are bogus, regardless of who is facing them.

Everyone entangled in the justice system because of similar charges is a political prisoner. America is apparently trying to beat the old Soviet Union in the number of political prisoners.

Real crimes require a real, individual victim. The state and society are not capable of being victimized. If there is no individual victim, there is no crime.

If you use a gun to rob or murder an innocent person, you've committed a crime.

If you ignore a criminal federal agency's unconstitutional rules concerning purchasing, owning, or carrying a firearm, you haven't harmed anyone and have not committed a crime. No matter what government employees may claim.

You may still be kidnapped or killed by legislation enforcers for breaking their rules; like Little Rock, Arkansas airport executive Bryan Malinowski, recently killed by armed government agents. The enforcers are the criminals, not their victims. The criminals wore badges.

The same goes for those convicted of ignoring drug prohibition. Regardless of police state fearmongering, it's rare for anyone to force another to abuse drugs-- which would be a real crime. It's nearly always a choice.

If someone drugs your food or drink, this is an actual crime. As is misrepresenting a product you sell. If someone sells you a product you want to buy, and it kills you because you abuse it, that's on you. If there's a crime at all, it's a crime against yourself. Punishing the victims is cruel and unethical.

Crooked prosecutors will use drug or weapon charges to imprison someone when it's easier than finding a real crime. If they can't convict someone of a real crime, they should let them go. Even in the Twenty-first Century, it's still better for a hundred (or more) guilty people to go free than to imprison even one innocent person. Jailing one innocent person is inexcusable.

If Hunter Biden committed any real crimes by violating someone's life, liberty, or property, he owes restitution. That's between him and his victim; government has no part in it. The same as with any other crime committed by anyone.

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Politickey Bear

When you mix anything with politics, the original thing-- even if it was well-intentioned-- is destroyed and you are left with only politics.

Smokey Bear is responsible for more devastating wildfires than DEI and AGCC ("climate change") combined.

Humans, even when they try, aren't good at clearing out the underbrush and combustible detritus that collects in most dry-ish ecosystems. That takes nature and natural frequent fires. Let the stuff burn out frequently and the fires can't get hot enough to get through the bark and kill mature trees.

Let that stuff build up because you are "preventing forest fires/wildfires" and when a fire does occur-- and it will-- the fire will burn hotter and longer and mature trees will burn and create more heat and more will be destroyed.

It's understood science. Smokey Bear's message is mostly anti-science and anti-nature. Yes, it sounds nice and helpful, but it's not. I want to like him and his message, but I can't. I see the damage this campaign has done and continues to do,

Even controlled burns are better than nothing, but are usually carried out when it's already too late.

Nature is as subject to being ruined when mixed with politics as everything else. Cities, too. Politics ruins everything it touches. Will the residents (and former residents) of Los Angeles learn? I doubt it. Once people have their minds destroyed by politics, they rarely get them back.

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Don't make deals with government

Government never keeps its end of any agreement. Not if breaking it is more convenient for its purposes.

It has broken the Constitution, treaties with the natives, and deals with other governments. It broke the deal that got the gullible to agree to the "income tax" and to "social security". 

Government lies.

Don't ever make an agreement with government, unless you have a good plan to use it against government. But I warn you: you aren't as crooked, evil, and sneaky as government. Not even close.

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The "conservative" misunderstanding

A "conservative" made the following claim: "Our constitution (unique in the world) specifies what our government is allowed to do. Everything else is forbidden unless our government receives the consent of the governed (that’s us)."

Really? "forbidden unless our government receives the consent of the governed"? Where does the Constitution say that? 

Ignoring the disgusting "our government" brainwasher's phrase, if that were true, then America truly is a democracy, and might (through superior numbers) makes "right". Anything is on the table as long as enough people consent to allow government to do it. Ban religion? Confiscate guns? Establish a new slave trade? Sure, if enough of the "governed" consent, the Constitution would allow it. 

There would be nothing that's automatically beyond the power of the state if it can fool enough people to beg for it. Or make it look as though people are begging for it.

This is why "conservatives" are not on the side of liberty. They rarely understand it.

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Who needs Mondays anyway?

Another person has weighed in on why they want to impose Government Wrong Time permanently: "I want daylight when I come home from work."

OK.

That is the most common "reason" given.

I want a lot of things, too.

I want to live well into the 22nd Century, so let's just "spring forward" the calendar to the year 2099. That makes exactly as much sense, since numbering years is a human construct, anyway. Just like clock settings.

Or, let's eliminate Mondays from the week since they seem to be unpopular with most people and lasagna-eating cats. Six days seems like enough to call "a week". 

Then let's make a year officially 50 weeks, to keep things nice and neat. "Summer" will slide around the year so that people who want snow in July won't have to go to the Southern Hemisphere or climb K2-- just wait a few years. Seasons, and what we call them, are a human construct, too. Right?

I don't care. You do you. But don't try to force me to go along with dumb things. That's when I care. And calling me "legitimately retarded" doesn't have the desired effect. 

DST advocates say they could re-set their personal clocks (why, though?) but their employer wouldn't re-set the business clocks without government telling them to. Thus they are cheated out of the "extra hour of daylight". That's dumb. Sorry, but it just is. 

If, as almost all DST advocates claim, "everyone" prefers DST, it should be easy to convince businesses to open and close an hour earlier. Either just during the summer, or all year long. If "everyone" wants this, managers will be thrilled you gave them the idea. No need to fake the clock setting.

I've found about 75% of the people with a strong opinion on the matter have the two settings mixed up anyway, thinking we are now on DST rather than on Standard Time. Which complicates reasonable discussion.

(I've been sick with a nasty cold since New Year's Eve. It's wearing me down and my tolerance for BS is exceptionally low.)

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The Big Divide

The biggest divide between myself and many self-proclaimed libertarians is over borders and "immigration".

I completely understand their concerns and their point, and I even sympathize somewhat, but you don't solve a problem created by government with a bigger, more powerful government. It's just not going to happen. Not ever.

Yes, I agree with them that "you can't have an open border and a welfare state". It's irrelevant. It's not my fault that they can't entertain the idea of abolishing the welfare state- which is the right thing to do regardless. Letting government decide where people can live is wrong, just like letting government redistribute confiscated property (to anyone) is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. Nor do two rights make a wrong. The right thing is to take those powers away from the state entirely.

Yes, I agree that some newcomers are committing crimes-- just like some who were born here. The solution is to stop making defense a crime! It's true: I condone violence when that violence is defensive. I can't even comprehend any other position.

I don't want governments bringing "immigrants" or refugees here. I also don't want it to keep them out. I don't want it giving anyone handouts, or shielding them from the consequences of violating someone's life, liberty, or property. 

I do support forcing government to stop creating new refugees. I know, that's too radical a position.

The idea that the "country" is yours to control is a communist idea. If you like communism, just admit it and stop making bad excuses. Your property rights end at your property lines, and you don't have any ownership of someone else's property or of any "public" [sic] property. To insist this means I'm OK with leaving my doors unlocked and letting anyone move into my house is a way to admit you don't understand property rights at all. One is mine; the other is not.

This is entirely a government-created and a government-exacerbated problem. One that government uses to trick you into allowing it to have more power to smash your liberty. Stop siding with more government just because you hate "immigrants", "illegal" or not, more than you hate the state.

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