Keep an eye out for brass cases in .32-40 Win for me. New or once-fired, preferably.
The preloaded cartridges have become a luxury, and the cases aren't a lot better, but I’d like to have a few more for my old rifle. Both are about as rare as an honest politician.
If you find some (brass, not the politician), let me know where, and I’ll take a look. Everyone is out of stock now, and have been out of stock every time I’ve looked for quite a while.
Your help is appreciated.
The other category of objectors are those who fear what might happen without government.
They are clinging to government, based on fear and "what ifs". Demonstrating both an overactive imagination with regard to dangers and a lack of imagination with regard to solutions.
A problem with government lies with those who refuse to call a spade a spade, and who continue to excuse people with government jobs.
Almost everyone already follows the libertarian principle that they have no right to attack the innocent and no right to steal, vandalize, or trespass on the property of others (i.e., to archate). The problem occurs because they carve out large exceptions for people calling themselves government. Whether it is theft being called "taxation", or property violations called "codes", wrong acts are imagined to gain a veil of legitimacy if done by certain people under certain conditions.
But nothing can change a wrong act into a right one.
If they believe they need a gang of people, paid by theft- they'll call the gang "police" and the theft "taxation"- to protect the people from thieves, they aren't thinking too clearly. There are many more examples besides this obvious one. But to be scared of what freelance thieves might do in the absence of the official thieves is to live in denial.
The recent events in France and elsewhere in the "western world" are not an immigration problem. Those aren't migrants out there burning, rioting, raping, and murdering.
Those are low-IQ criminals intentionally imported- trafficked- by criminal governments; both the sending and the receiving governments. The sending governments are not sending their best. Then, the receiving governments forbid the locals, the victims, to do anything to effectively defend themselves and their property from these imported criminals.
To what purpose? There are a few hypotheses about that.
I suspect that since governments depend on fear, they will do almost anything to create fear. If it requires a plague of chaos and crime- riots, rapes, arson, and murders- to create the fear they need, that's what they'll encourage.
Fearful people often clamor to be governed for "safety". Even though it's government creating the problem, most people can't see this.
In this way, the population might accept the imposition of a police state and even more taxation to handle the problem.
Other hypotheses involve socialist governments importing new v*ters who'll keep choosing or demanding more government, more handouts, and more anti-liberty rules in every election. This also empowers the Rulers.
Whatever the reason, you can guarantee it benefits government, and not the people.
On a tangential note: Historic government buildings- especially beautiful ones- shouldn't be destroyed. They should be exorcised of government, then repurposed as a Museum of Government; a monument to educate visitors about our species' worst (or second-worst) mistake.
Their job is to protect the rights of the people, and to die if necessary to do so.
Somehow they've decided their "job" is to shake us down for money, to make us sit down and be quiet and not annoy them, and to do whatever it takes to keep us from having guns. And to murder us if that's what it takes.
Because of this, and more, it's past time to abolish the police.
Authority- expertise. Not dependent on external factors. Voluntary; tends to lead.
(Political) Authority- entitled, thieving bully with immunity, immunity which can be canceled once a different political faction gains power. Coercive- tends to shove.
See also: The Most Dangerous Superstition and Problems with "authority"
This doesn't mean you'll automatically be happy if you reject politics; there are many factors. Sometimes life just stinks, and people using politics against you will usually make things worse. Making politics central to your life isn't going to make anything better. It's a form of self-harm, and it spreads like a contagious cancer to those around you.
Even when politics is a part of nature- such as when wolves fight each other for dominance or over food- it isn't something we should copy. They don't know any better. They also sometimes eat their young. We can do better than that. Only humans- some humans- believe it's a good idea to allow politics to be central in their lives. It isn't.
I would rather not be one of those who makes everything political. It doesn't have to be. Only thieves, murderers, politicians, and other criminals live by politics.
Politics is what you use when you have nothing worthwhile to contribute. No skills, no goods, no wisdom. Falling back on politics- using force to coerce others to support you while you steal, kidnap, and otherwise violate their natural human rights and try to destroy their liberty- is an admission that you can't make it in the world unless you can use theft, violence, or threats of violence against others. If you use politics, you're cheating, and you've already failed as a human.
You can choose to trade or find other mutually consensual ways to interact with others, or you can be political. There's no third option.
The weather doesn't care about your politics. Neither does your dog- unless you treat it politically by arbitrarily kicking it. Politics is completely meaningless to everything and everyone other than those you target with your toxic political ideas. And all political ideas are toxic.
To those who claim everything humans do is political, I say you've been doing it wrong. You've been a parasite on society rather than a benefit.
And yet, political people honor other political people with statues and by naming roads and buildings after them. They act as though they are the heart of society; as though the rest of us couldn't survive without their presence. Humanity survives in spite of politics and those who employ it, not because of it.
I'm in favor of showing society how irrelevant and useless politicians and their ilk really are.
There's another man in my neighborhood who also feeds the stray cats- some of the same cats I feed, but he has a few regulars who never come to my house. He often has 6 to 10 of them at feeding time. (Maybe it's because he offers raw chicken.)
We've had several conversations about the strays over the years; worrying when a sickness ravages the neighborhood cats, wiping out some of the cats we have tried to save. Wondering what happened to a regular, discussing the new kittens, or reporting a death the other may not know of. I've seen him chasing off dogs (dogs who won't stay home) who come into his yard to attack the cats.
He's had to defend himself from threats by the local cop, who threatened to "fine" him for feeding cats, saying this made the cats his pets, and no one is "allowed" to have more than 3 cats in town, blah blah, blah. He asked if the birds were also his pets since he has a bird feeder. The cop seems to have left him alone since then.
Anyway...
I appreciate him caring for animals who have no one else to count on.
Besides him, I notice other people making the world a nicer place just by doing what they do.
I love the delivery drivers I see frequently in the neighborhood. They'll often wave as they drive by.
I love the cashiers I encounter again and again, doing a job which isn't glamorous and doesn't pay enough, but who still manage to do a job that is essential while being pleasant to the customers. (The unpleasant ones are a conversation for another day.) I look forward to seeing the familiar faces, even though I don't really know them.
Anyone who comes to my attention, doing things that make the world a little better with their contributions, without stepping on the life, liberty, or property of others in the process, can elicit the same feeling in me.
No government mandate was required to get these people to do helpful things. In some cases, they are doing it in exchange for a paycheck, but often people do nice things that only cost them. And a paycheck doesn't ensure good service, anyway.
Maybe it's silly and sentimental to feel this kind of connection with those who probably don't feel the same about me. If so, I'll embrace it anyway.
How many other ways can I explain that to be libertarian (and thus, to be ethical) is to accept the primary human responsibility to not violate the life, liberty, or property of any other person, without exception?
How many times can I explain that calling a violation a "law" and saying it's your job doesn't excuse doing those things?
I got added to some communist's X list of "Nazis", and called "entitled" because I refuted (effectively, it seems) his argument that "land tax", which he differentiates from "property taxes" (yeah, I don't know... communism, I guess), isn't theft, extortion, or a ransom, because you "owe" everyone for any land you occupy. He made many bad arguments for his position. Then he got mad.
Angering bad people feels like a badge of honor. It makes me happy, and I want to do more of it. Yes, it's a personality flaw.
It's hard to communicate with those who believe in the imaginary right to govern others. They believe humans are flawed, but politicians are somehow exempt from this. Or that when these deeply flawed humans join together, their individual flaws cancel out.
It doesn't work that way. When people join together to do something they have no right to do in the first place, their flaws compound and expand-- there's safety in numbers. That's why flash mobs of looters who descend on a store face little risk. Those who seek to govern others enjoy the same protection. They are still looters, but they use "laws" rather than bricks.
It's hard to really communicate with people who see a significant difference between the two; those who believe that governing others is a legitimate human endeavor, rather than just another category of crime. We don't really even speak the same language. I say "theft" or "extortion"; they say "tax" or "fine".
People make their own lives harder by being political. Politics makes people stupid, and it makes life much harder than it needs to be.
When one of the members of the group They Might Be Giants scolded me years ago for saying he should stop making everything political, telling me, "Everything is political", it made me see him, and his band, as stupid. As part of the problem. I had been a fan for years, but with one tweet he exposed himself for what he really was. It wasn't a flattering revelation.
Because the only way "everything is political" is if you make it that way. And only a stupid person would do so.
He was unnecessarily complicating his life, just to earn points by peacocking his irrational political beliefs. He was sabotaging his own life with politics. Making life harder for himself, his bandmate, and for everyone in society. Smart people wouldn't do that.
Life is already hard enough; it's even harder if you make it political.
They can use all kinds of pretty words to hide it.
They can come up with all manner of excuses to justify it.
They can list all the things they are afraid would happen without it.
They can even recite history to find irrelevant events to rationalize it.
If you want a way to violate others, but you don't want to look like the bad guy, I hate to break it to you, but advocating for a government to do it for you isn't the way. There is no way. If you violate others, you are in the wrong. Every time. Regardless of your chosen method. And government is the most dishonest of the bunch.
If a rule doesn't do this, or actually makes things worse, either because of the rule itself or how it is enforced, then a change is necessary. Either change how the rule is enforced so it doesn't make things worse, or eliminate the rule entirely.
I'm not opposed to rules. I'm opposed to bad rules. Harmful ones. Stupid ones. Punitive ones. Rules that make life worse.
And I'm opposed to anyone who enforces such rules.
When I point out that inflation is strictly caused by government counterfeiting money, they'll say "Yeah, but even if it didn't, greedy people would still raise their prices." You see what's wrong with that, right?
It keeps playing out the same, no matter the topic.
No matter what evidence they are presented with, they always have a "yeah, but" ready. It doesn't matter how delusional the excuse is, as long as they keep believing it.
And, at their foundation, they still all come back to fear.
They are afraid of living without being governed.
They are afraid of what will happen if other people aren't governed.
They are afraid of what will happen if "those people" get control of the government.
They never consider that the main problem is people, like them, who believe government is necessary, or even good.
They just can't let go. They can't admit it was a scam and has proven to be a complete failure in doing the minimum used to justify it, over and over, throughout ALL of human history, no matter how it is designed or run.
