Dangerous followers

I don't need a president, so I don't support presidential candidates. However, from observation, I have a suspicion about the future based on how I expect the followers of those candidates to behave in case of a loss. Or a "win".

I believe a Trump win in the upcoming election would be safer for me, personally, than a Biden win. It's just based on feelings and I could well be wrong. I hope I'm not since I also believe Trump will win.

Notice I said I "believe" all the above, not "think" or know".

I believe if Trump wins, the "other side" will riot and do its best to destroy everything it can, as fast as it can. Since I am far from any big cities, with their largely disarmed populations (at least, among the less aggressive residents) I am not scared for my own safety if/when this happens. I also believe the riots will be quashed by armed suburbanites before they could reach me. And since I'm in a backwater, off any beaten path, it would be hard for them to get to me unless it was intentional.

I see in the anti-Trumpers a mob with a willingness to hurt and kill people they don't believe are fully on "their side". And I'm not.

On the other hand, I don't believe Trump supporters would burn cities if Kamala Harris, in the person of Joe Biden, wins. They'll probably be angry and claim it wasn't a legitimate election (as if that's even a thing). If Harris'/Biden's more radical supporters are able to influence them-- and they must believe they'll be able to-- I'll be personally harmed by the anti-gun legislation they'll push through-- more so than Trump's anti-gun legislation (as evil as it was) managed to hurt me. 

I don't see a willingness among Trump supporters to attack people who aren't loudly siding with the others and getting in their faces, so I don't believe they would be much of a threat to me. Even if they know I'm not on their side. I have sat through the Pledge to Holy Pole Quilt without participating, and although I got a few dirty looks, no one threatened me as I've seen (on video) happen to people who were ordered by an angry mob to raise a fist and declare "black lives matter". So, again, I feel safer with a Trump win than with a Biden win.

It could just be my bias speaking. I've spent more of my life around "conservatives", and even when they disagree with me it hasn't gone as badly as the few times I've disagreed with "progressives" to their faces. 

I don't believe I was the critical variable, even though I admit I usually feel more sympathy toward misguided "Right-Statists" than I do for equally misguided "Left-Statists".

I don't feel as strongly about the election this time around, since I haven't had decades of personal loathing for Joe Biden like I had for Hillary Clinton. And even then I didn't "prefer Trump" enough to v*te against Hillary.

Of course, if the "social unrest" gets bad enough, whoever the anointed ruler turns out to be, none of us will be immune. How much damage we'll sustain remains to be seen. Interesting times, fuels by politics (which makes people stupid).

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"Borders", human trafficking, "freebies", and other political misdeeds

Why would anyone conflate "open borders" with government intentionally importing hordes of people from other counties and giving them your stuff? Those aren't the same thing at all. 

But it's a useful strawman. And that explains why they "get confused" when the subject comes up. After all, if you can't lie about things you can't be political.

I'm not for "open borders"; I don't believe in government borders. There's a difference between those that goes over the heads of most people. 

I'm also opposed to government doing anything, including importing people from other countries (which is human trafficking for political gain) or giving anyone other people's property.

Once again we see government pretending to be the solution to problems which wouldn't exist without it causing them in the first place. And the political people either enthusiastically going along with it or enthusiastically opposing it while unknowingly legitimizing it. It's the most common thing in the world. 

I hope you don't fall for it.

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Keep your Utopia to yourself

How many of other people's "good ideas" do I want no part of? Most of them.

I'm not interested in a moneyless society or solving "inequality" even if this would boost me. I don't care to live anywhere that has no offensive speech or ideas. "Problematic" means interesting. I don't want to live in a shining city where everything is perfect-- by someone else's definition of "perfect".

Most people's Utopias sound like dystopias to me.

I would rather have messy liberty than a bubble-wrapped cage.

This may mean I'm ungovernable. Does it mean I'm defective? 

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Not everyone is political

To people who are political, standing up to them and their politics seems political. If you do so they'll claim this is evidence that you are political, just like they are.

That's the same faulty thinking that makes an irrational person believe that killing someone who intends to harm or kill you is murder.

Shooting an attacker is not murder. 

Opposing someone's aggressive politics-- without advocating the use of aggressive politics against them-- is not political. It's not the same-- the initiation of force (lacking consent) makes all the difference.

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The victim isn't to blame for the actions of the thug

Does it make sense to claim that the violent criminal isn't at fault if he kills you because you resisted his attack? That the fault is his victim's? The victim should have cooperated; to expect a violent criminal to not kill a resisting victim is unrealistic. Right?

I've seen people making this case-- often. At least in one specific type of encounter with a specific species of thug.

By this way of thinking, parents need to teach their daughters how to not resist rape. Just like they need to teach their sons how to not resist arrest. 

What? Do you actually imagine those aren't similar? You'd be wrong.

The rapists operate according to rules about how they expect their victims to behave during the encounter. Their victims don't really have any say in these rules or how they are imposed. 

Police have the same kind of rules, but they call theirs "legislation" or, even more dishonestly, "laws". Their rules are no more legitimate and are just as self-serving.

Thugs are what they do.

How about parents teach your sons and daughters how to not violate people's rights. How to not become aggressive gangsters. 

Where's the problem here? It's not how the victims react, it's in those who do the attacking and expect to face no resistance.

Yes, I realize if you resist, the police may murder you, and copsuckers everywhere will blame you. Blaming the victim is very popular. But it's wrong. It's insane. Cops are far worse than freelance kidnappers and rapists because they demand your compliance. At least with the freelance thugs, few people will blame you for fighting back and killing the vermin.

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To the BidenBots of Twitter

If you imagine my refusal to support your zombie means I support Trump, it shows how poorly your brains work; how pathetically binary and 2-dimensional your thinking is. 

I've despised Hillary Clinton almost beyond the human capacity to despise anyone, since the early 80s. 

Yet I still didn't take the opportunity to v*te against her by v*ting for Trump. 

Do you know how easy it would have been to justify v*ting for Trump to v*te against Hillary? Just in my own mind, anyway. Yet, I didn't.

How is that supporting Trump?

I don't support any candidates. Yours included. 

Biden would not be an improvement over Trump. You're ignoring his serious mental and ethical problems just because you are so hypnotized by "Orange Man bad". Criticize Trump on his real faults, but don't fall back on your list of imaginary things you believe he must be secretly thinking, or lies spread by the desperate national media.

Stating the truth about your candidate doesn't mean I support the candidate who's the biggest threat to him.

Politics makes people STUPID.

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Government's gifts

There is nothing government can offer me that I want. The price is always too high, especially when it's "free".

I don't want their handouts or their idea of "national security", or economic stability/central banking, or "law and order". Their idea of "peace" or "prosperity" isn't compatible with mine, and I don't want their version. I don't even want the government versions of "freedom" or "liberty"-- those are shoddy substitutes for the real thing.

Economically, government can't give me anything it didn't first steal from someone else. I'm opposed to theft, so why would I want to receive stolen property?

I have no problem with letting others take whatever government offers-- or pretends to offer-- as long as I'm not forced to pay for it or to participate in any way. As long as market alternatives aren't prevented for those things government does that I might still like if offered elsewhere.

Why is this reasonable compromise off-limits? Is it because political government is anti-reason? Yes. Yes, it is.

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Let's adapt to something positive

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for August 5, 2020)

Humans are adaptable. More so than any creature other than, possibly, cockroaches. It's our greatest strength. We have adapted to living almost everywhere on the planet, and soon, with the right technology-- an adaptation we've created-- off-planet, too.

We've adapted to a different diet than our ancestors ate. In some cases, we probably haven't adapted well enough yet, and our health can suffer the consequences, but we're getting there.

Not all adaptations are helpful. We have adapted to some things we should have resisted.

We've adapted to having our freedom and property rights trashed by the worst among us. Ironically, in the beginning they used the excuse of protecting our freedom and property rights as to why we should go along with what they were doing to us. They were lying.

We've adapted to the demand to hand our children over to the state to be indoctrinated during their most impressionable years. We are told this is for the purpose of educating them because we are incapable and too ignorant to educate them ourselves. If that's true, it's only because we were victims of the same indoctrination system in our youth. It's time to break the cycle.

We've adapted to tax burdens far beyond the levels which caused our ancestors to violently throw a government out of the country. Some people have adapted so well they want taxes to be even higher.

We recently adapted to stifling conditions imposed by governments using the excuse of Covid-19. Whether or not the restrictions were necessary, or even helpful in the slightest, most of us complied and adapted. Probably more than was healthy.

As bad as these things are on their own, it's more tragic to passively accept them. Most people have adapted so completely they don't even notice and accept it as "just how it is done". It doesn't have to be.

To adapt to certain conditions isn't anything to be proud of. You shouldn't tolerate having your natural human rights violated by anyone under any circumstances, but most of us do to some extent.

You are expected to adapt to even more restrictions with each new year. It's time to make a stand. If we lose this fight-- if we don't resist-- our grandchildren won't understand what they've lost.

Let's adapt to some positive things for a change, such as a life of liberty, including real property rights. The future can be great. It's up to us to make it so.

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Debating a commie-- Part 3.1: Fencing off the water

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In his lead-up to the hypothetical island scenario in Part 3, he used the example of someone who has fenced off a river on their property and you are on the other side of the fence dying of thirst.

I think this says more about him than about property rights. Or a right to live, or a right to water.

I pointed out that you can walk past the end of most fences. But, even if you can't, if I owned that property I would let you drink and fill your canteen. If you crossed the fence to do so without asking (maybe I'm not there but I have a video camera and I'm watching you) I'm not going to be angry. Please, drink! I'm not going to have an issue unless you damage the value of my property in some way, and crossing my property and drinking from the river so you don't die doesn't do so.

This makes me think communists are really horrible people and they imagine everyone else is as self-centered as they are.

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Debating a commie- Part 3: Kobayashi Maru Island

Part 1

Part 2

The commie wanted to put me in a hypothetical scenario to show that property ownership is a bad idea.

His hypothetical scenario was this: I am stranded with one other person on an island. He hoards all the coconuts-- the only food source on this island-- and says the price for one is a specific sexual favor. He says property rights would make this bad situation possible. He also wanted me to say whether or not this was a voluntary exchange.

I don't believe in the no-win scenario. There are always alternatives you can try, even if they don't work. I pointed out that it's an island, so there would be fish and other seafood, and you could eat the core of the coconut tree (a short-sighted solution, for sure). He says this isn't allowed. No other food is available.

I say "No deal". I also said that only the people involved could say whether the exchange was voluntary or not, and that I couldn't really say for myself since I am not in that situation and can't really imagine any real situation being so lacking in alternatives.

I have survival skills and can make fire without modern cheats. I can collect and make water safe to drink-- possibly even desalinate seawater using plastic debris. I can make shelters, tools, and weapons. Is this not worth a trade? His chances of survival go up if he cooperates and down if he refuses to.

Having me alive is to his benefit. Self-interest-- if he's not insane-- should encourage him to keep me alive.

But, what if he doesn't see it this way?

Finally, I know I have no right to violate his life, liberty, or property. But... if backed into a corner to the point that I was desperate enough to ignore my principles, I might just kill him in his sleep. I have no right to do so (if you imagine that intentionally starving someone to death isn't aggression), but I might anyway. Because I'm human and I'm flawed.

The commie kept trying to equate this to a "trolley scenario" and even though I posted a link to how I believe such a problem could be handled ethically, he ignored that reply completely, other than saying my solution would just be to tell them to get off the tracks.

I think I've done exceptionally well in avoiding violating my principles over the years. I've been in situations where many others would abandon any principles. I'm not perfect. I can imagine scenarios that would make me archate, but imagining them gives me time to work out alternatives. I hope.

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Debating a commie-- Part 2: Free food, water, and shelter

 

(Part one: Right to life)

The commie insisted that since food, water, and shelter are necessary for life, and life is a human right, those essentials must be free for everyone.

But they can't be.

"Free" doesn't just mean you don't use money to obtain them-- money is a placeholder for value, and that value is usually a proxy for some work that was done. "Free" would mean you get them without anyone working for them.

If you get food, someone had to work to, at least, collect it. It was probably also planted, harvested, processed, prepared, and distributed, or some combination thereof. All of that is work-- a cost. Whether you do the work or someone else does, it is never free.

Water must be collected and filtered, sterilized, stored, and distributed. That's work. If you've never had to work for drinking water even when water was all around you, you may not be aware of the work involved, but I have. I know.

Shelter-- housing-- must be built and maintained. Someone has to do work to make it. 

If you expect someone else to do the work to provide these essentials, and for you to get the benefit of their work without compensating them, you're advocating theft. Or slavery.

Food, water, and shelter are never free. Even if they don't cost any money. I know because I've done the work to provide them (in primitive form) for myself from scratch before. There is always work involved.

You do have a right to food, water, and shelter-- but this only means no one has the right to prevent you from doing the work to provide them for yourself using property you have a right to use through ownership or an agreement with the owner. It doesn't mean anyone else is obligated to provide them for you at their expense.

This also means no one has a right to forbid you from planting crops in your front yard, collecting rainwater that runs off your roof, or living in a brush hut on your own land. A government position can't create such a right because such a right is a lie.

Part 3: Kobayashi Maru Island

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Debating a commie- Part 1: Right to life

I recently got into an online debate/argument with a communist. Yes, a real self-described communist.

It began with a reply I made to someone who was claiming that since food, water, and shelter are essential for human life, those things were a human right and must be provided "free" for everyone. My response elicited a response from another commie who began by harping on the "right to life" thing.

I'll get into more of this in upcoming posts, but for now...

The right to life.

Yes, you have a right to your life.

The communist says this means your life must be guaranteed. Of course, sensible people know there is no guarantee.

He also claims this means you have a right to take whatever property-- even if it doesn't belong to you-- is necessary to stay alive. Need food? Steal it. Need water? Steal it. Need shelter? Steal it. You need it; it's yours to take. 

I'm not sure how this works for the person you took it from, since he is now going to need whatever you took. Does he steal a replacement from someone else, or take back the property you now possess? A "society" based on theft doesn't seem like much of a society to me. But then, I'm not a communist.

Your right to life means simply that no one can have the right to murder you-- to kill you for any reason other than in defense of life, liberty, or property.

It doesn't mean anyone other than you is obligated to work to keep you alive. And it does take work to obtain the necessary property to stay alive. More on that next time.

Part 2: Free food, water, and shelter
Part 3: Kobayashi Maru Island

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Statist wrongness

Right-Statists ("conservatives") are wrong when:

• they support police,
• they want government to regulate/control "immigration",
• they want government to ban abortion,

Left-Statists ("liberals"/"progressives" [sic]) are wrong when:

• they support Antifa,
• they want government to import people from other countries and give them stuff,
• they want government to use stolen money ("taxes") to pay for abortions,

That's just a tiny list; it could be expanded to the size of Wikipedia. 

They are both wrong on several things they agree on, such as the legitimacy of political government and ruling over other people. Or even things like v*ting, "Don't abolish Social Security" or the legitimacy of government schooling.

The wrongness comes from advocating archation or supporting those who commit it.

Now, maybe you think I'm being too hard on statists. If they'd keep their filthy state off my life I'd be happy to leave them to their statist consequences. But that goes against everything they are willing to do. They can't allow people to opt out, or it delegitimizes their "system". They can't have that. Their ideas are so great they have to force them on me. And on you. Are you going to sit quietly and take it?

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The penalty is always death

There used to be a really good essay (on a site I can no longer access) called "The penalty is always death". I searched the internet archives; even the archived version has now been removed.

That's a shame because I think it is a very important concept to understand. That, no matter how small and seemingly unimportant some legislation or policy is, the end result of enforcing it is always a death penalty. (I have pasted the entire essay at the bottom of this post, so please read it.)

The argument I see most often against this concept is that government rarely kills anyone over "small laws" because almost everyone gives up and complies before they get killed. As if that disproves the point. It doesn't.

It goes like this: You "break" a rule. Enforcers come to enforce it. You don't comply. They either escalate the violence or they go away. If they go away, then there's no more enforcing and you're OK. That makes the state look weak, so they don't usually do that. Instead, they continue to escalate the situation as long as you keep refusing to comply with their latest demand. This ends up with one of you dead (and they have hundreds or thousands more people and robots to keep sending at you even if you manage to kill every one of them for month after month) if it goes on long enough, unless they are able to overpower you to the point where you can't defend yourself from them anymore. If you continue to struggle, you'll probably still die one way or the other, especially if you've had to kill one or more of them to avoid being kidnapped up to that point.

A government that won't murder you as long as you comply quickly enough is a very low bar. And yet this is the most common argument I get for why government isn't a murderous gang: as long as you comply fast enough they'll let you live (in a cage...). 

Most thugs who don't have murder as their main objective will do the same for their victims. Yay. What angels they must be. We must support and praise them and protect them from too much criticism.

The penalty is always death

2 June 2008 by Mike Gogulski

One of the great triumphs of civilization touted by liberal-minded thinkers around the world these days is the abolition of the death penalty in most of the planet’s “more-civilized” countries, with some notable exceptions. Without question, it is an advancement that the State’s premeditated, long-calculated and coldly applied murder of helpless prisoners, separated mostly by gulfs of time, space and sometimes personal reform,  has come to be seen widely as an abomination which cannot be tolerated.

I would submit, though, that these thinkers celebrate too soon. The State’s ultimate penalty for real crime (initiations of force or fraud against people or their property) as well as all those non-crimes the State takes umbrage at is always death. This is the nature of the State; killing is the instrument by which it maintains itself.

To be sure, the State is mostly careful to not exercise the penalty too often. The system of compulsion and coercion, backed by the ultimate tool of death, is one which States have learned functions much better when the sword is cloaked in layers of misdirection and abstraction. The simple — and perhaps more honest — compulsion of the local tyrant demanding of his subjects, “Do it thus, or I shall kill you,” has been replaced with a long chain of escalation beginning with paper things like demands for compliance and citations, leading through more forceful papers such as summonses and warrants, but ultimately grounded upon the power of that barely-concealed blade.

If we accept the natural-rights view of self defense as given by libertarian theory, we can see that the penalty for every infraction is death.

Fail to pay your taxes? You will be killed.

Consume a proscribed substance? Death awaits you.

Neglect or ignore some trivial regulation? Murder is your fate.

“Oh come now,” they will cry, “the government doesn’t kill people for not paying their taxes!” In general this is true. In general people are compliant, whether out of worship or fear. But as situations escalate from non-compliance to the State’s demand for enforcement, be sure that the blade remains ready to plunge into the belly of the scofflaw.

I’m quite fond of hyperbolic examples. Let’s make one now.

Imagine that Bob is a fruit vendor. He sells apples, oranges and plums, and prices them by the piece. He advertises them at “12 for $3” or “20 for $5”, or at whatever price he determines he can sell them profitably.

One day a policeman comes around to Bob’s stand and tells him about a new law. The State has adopted a new numbering system, duodecimal, which uses base-12 instead of base-10 decimal notation. The State has passed a law saying that all transactions, offers, sales, etc., must be denoted in duodecimal.

The policeman informs Bob that his signage is out of order. “12 for $3” must be replaced by “10 for $3”, and “20 for $5” must be replaced by “18 for $5”. Because Bob is in violation of the law, the policeman issues Bob a citation ordering him to comply and imposing a fine for breaking the law.

Bob naturally looks at this as ridiculous. Everyone he sells fruit to understands decimal notation, and to change it would only create confusion. Further, Bob knows that he’s committed no crime, no offense against the person or property of another. Bob refuses the citation and tells the policeman to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

A few days later, Bob receives a letter saying that the fine has been imposed on him by a judge, that he has 30 days to pay it, and that he must comply with the new duodecimal law. As before, Bob ignores this letter and this judge, harming and having harmed no person or thing.

Thirty days pass, sixty days, ninety. Bob keeps on selling his decimal-denominated fruit during the day and going home to enjoy time with his family in the evening. One day another letter arrives stating that the judge has issued an order which says that if Bob does not comply with the first letter within 5 days, he will be in criminal contempt of court and subject to arrest and a term of imprisonment. Bob is disturbed, of course, by this threat against his person, but ignores it as he might ignore the taunts of a bully on the street.

A week later, a group of armed men wearing clown suits appear at Bob’s door and say they are there to arrest Bob and take him before the judge. Bob tells them he won’t go, as he’s done nothing wrong, but the uniformed thugs are insistent. He closes the door in their faces. They break down the door and enter Bob’s home, guns drawn against Bob and his family.

Bob then, in fear of his life and the life of his family, perhaps draws a pistol and tells the clowns to go away. Perhaps he attempts to flee. The clowns shoot him dead.

In the aftermath, the killing is sanctified among the State’s organized criminals as justifiable, since Bob failed to comply with lawful demands, threatened police officers and resisted arrest. The State’s worshipers and pawns fall all over themselves to praise the brave uniformed thugs and denounce Bob as having “had it coming.”

The penalty is always death.

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Tired of political drama over virus

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 29, 2020)

On the personal front, there are new developments in the continuing saga of the Greatly Feared Virus Pandemic of 2020. Two family members caught Covid-19 several weeks ago. They both apparently recovered, in spite of being in the age group most vulnerable. One even has additional risk factors but made it through and now feels fine.

After being tested he was told to take Tylenol and get help if he started having trouble breathing. When the hospital called a few days later to tell him he had tested positive they didn't change their instructions. This sounds to me like the medical professionals didn't take the virus too seriously, but as it turns out they didn't need to.

I was thoroughly exposed and apparently didn't catch it. I say "apparently" because we are warned by the politicized medical experts of hidden dangers from this sneaky virus. Those who recover are warned of lasting damage to major organs, and those without symptoms are warned they may have it and be contagious without knowing.

How convenient. Notice how this justifies-- in some people's minds-- the ongoing shut-downs and mask mandates. After all, if you can't know anything for certain, you'd better comply with everything suggested by our Glorious Leaders in their pronouncements from the cathedrals of government.

Or not.

Still, because I care about people, I was cautious about exposing others to my possible contagious condition. I don't want to be a Typhoid Mary. As I've said from the beginning, I can take something seriously without panicking over it.

This virus could still kill me. It's unlikely but possible. I could also be taken out by a meteor, but if that's the case no one in the region would be safe. This area might get a cool attraction out of my demise, though. It worked for Arizona with their meteor crater.

I joke, but I'm tired of the adolescent drama coming from political quarters. They made it personal when my family vacation got canceled by New Mexico's tyrannical governor and her forced shut-downs of almost everything. I don't blame the virus for this; I blame political overreactions and those using the virus as an excuse to see how hard they can push.

I need time in the mountains and on forest trails. This opportunity was stolen from me by the fear-mongering politicians. Is this safety fascism likely to earn them my thanks and loyalty? What do you think?

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Cops: Not extra rights, not fewer rights

I hate it when logic and consistency demand I defend cops from poorly thought-out criticisms.

Cops are not special. They don't have extra rights-- but they don't have fewer rights, either. Even if this doesn't always sit right with me.

If it is right for you, it is right for a cop. If it's wrong for one of you, it's wrong for both.

As I have pointed out before, "police officer" is a description of what someone does-- their actions-- not the human being himself/herself. "Cop" (or "police officer") in this sense is exactly like the term "looter" or "rapist"-- it is a description of the acts the person commits against his fellow humans in specific circumstances. A person who loots is a looter; a person who commits rape is a rapist; a person who commits acts of legislation enforcement is a cop. Regardless of what they do with the rest of their time. It's why there can be no such thing as a "good cop", a "good looter", or a "good rapist".

And it's why admitting you like or support cops is a really disturbing admission. Even if you imagine they make you "safer" in some way, or can't imagine how society could function without them.

A cop doesn't lose the right of self-defense for policing, just like a looter doesn't lose the right of self-defense for looting. Not even "in the act".

In each case, however, I hope the cop and rapist lose the fight if they are the ones archating-- are in the process of committing the acts that give them their label. They still have the right to defend themselves from their victims' self-defense attempts since rights can't go away, I just hope their intended victim prevails every time. And if they do survive I hope it is a short-lived victory. I never grieve a dead archator.

If the fight is archator vs archator, then whoever is the one defending himself from the aggressor at the moment is the one I hope wins. Even if I wouldn't like him in other circumstances.

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Being a good drone for your side

Good DemoCRAPublicans are expected to say the right things-- "right" according to their particular branch's ideology. Unfortunately, it's the same with good libertarians.

To be a "good libertarian" you've got to say the right things about woodchippers and "pedos", about commies and helicopters, about "gender", and about other things that aren't necessarily very libertarian-- that aren't about recognizing the absence of a "right to archate".

You've got to say the right things about shootings where the shooter may not be anyone to hold up as a hero... and some libertarians see this as relevant for some reason.

I don't always say the "right things", but I don't usually harp on the topics where I think others have gone off the rails because I don't enjoy infighting. I've said my piece and it is documented on this blog somewhere. If I change my mind I'll blog about that, too.

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Special birthday

Happy birthday to my youngest, who turned 13 today. Her birth was announced on this blog all those years ago. I can't believe she is now a teenager. She doesn't like her picture being taken these days, so no follow-up picture.

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Any donations coming in today will go directly to her.

Why statism?

Why would anyone be statist?

There are several reasons, and you'll find one or more of these traits at the core of every statist: Weakness, cowardice, laziness, greed, envy, hatred. Probably some others I didn't list.

Sure, you'll find those same flaws in libertarians as well, but the difference is while those traits are fundamental to statism, libertarians are likely to be unlibertarian when they display those traits. You could theoretically be libertarian without having a single one of those traits, but those traits are what makes a statist what they are. They are core characteristics of statism.

I can't imagine anyone basing their worldview on such negative traits.

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Shooting in self-defense

If you are being chased by people who are presenting a credible threat and you shoot and kill some of them, you didn't commit murder. You didn't do anything wrong.

If the reason they started chasing you is that you were standing guard over some property they wanted to destroy, you didn't even need to start to run before defending yourself from them.

If you are "arrested" for defending yourself in this manner, anyone involved with the kidnapping is siding with your attackers-- they are admitting they are bad guys.

If someone criticizes your act of self-defense by calling you a "white boy" with "white privilege" they are admitting they are vile racists. Those are purely racist terms. I don't know the guy who did the shooting. He may be a nasty character I would never get along with in person-- I've even heard he is pro-police! That's not relevant.

Of course, new information may come out and change my opinion, but as it stands this is how I see the Kenosha, Wisconsin riot shooting.

Even if he started it and was completely in the wrong, only a complete moron would continue to pursue him and threaten to use violence against an armed person. You're going to back him into a corner so that he believes he has no choice but to shoot you or die at your hands.

Play stupid games; win painful prizes.

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Police killings-- the only thing you need to consider

All killings committed by police can be evaluated by considering one thing: Was the person who the officer killed currently archating before the police approached him? If not, there was no reason for the police to approach him in the first place. If they chose to do so anyway and it escalated to the person being killed; it is murder.

If I walk up to a person on the street who isn't doing anything obviously wrong and I start molesting them and they shove me away, making me "fear for my life", and I then choke or shoot them, who is the bad guy? Not my victim. It's the same with cops. Badges don't create an exception.

Eric Garner was not archating. He was engaging in consensual trade with willing partners. Cops approached him using the excuse of "tax rules"; he resisted the kidnappers; they murdered him.

George Floyd was not archating. He supposedly passed a counterfeit bill (as most of us have probably unknowlingly done at least once). Cops approached, he refused to cooperate with the molesters; they murdered him.

I see this play out over and over. People criticize what happened after the police approached someone they should never have approached in the first place. They ignore the fact that cops shouldn't have approached the victim to begin with and focus on how the victim reacted to being molested and threatened by gang members. Then they excuse the gang for murdering someone they should have left alone.

I don't criticize police killings when the person who was killed is archating. But that's almost never the case in the killings that get the most publicity. Cops are scum. People who defend and support police are either weak, cowardly, or supportive of evil. Defund, dismantle, and disavow the gang.

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Placing the solutions off-limits

Found somewhere on the internet

"How can we solve this or that problem? Oh, and you're not allowed to change anything that matters! That would be crazy!"

How often do you see this kind of thing from statists? All the time? I do.

They'll ask how "we" can end government corruption, but only without ending political government.
How "we" can fix education, but only without ending government schooling.
How "we" can solve crime, without eliminating anti-defense legislation or ending prohibition.
How can "we" end police brutality without abolishing the police?

The solutions are obvious, but off-limits.

They don't want a solution; they want a pat on the head for being so concerned about the issue.

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Government should follow rules too

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 22, 2020)

People seem confused about what role-- if any-- government plays in our lives. This misunderstanding causes problems.

Government was never intended to be the master, but the servant. Your servant doesn't tell you what you are allowed to do, nor punish you for not obeying him. The servant isn't allowed to do things in secret with the master's money, nor to keep any job-related secrets from the master. Your servant is accountable to you; never the other way around.

If someone takes a government job, they either accept their subservient position in society, or they can take a job-- without such strings attached-- in the productive sector. Forgetting their place should result in immediate unemployment with no chance of ever holding another government job.

Government wrongly claims to have the right to track everyone, spy on everything we do, collect all our information, and punish us for doing things we have the natural human right to do, but which government forbids. Nothing can trump natural human rights, not even the opinions of the vocal majority legislated and enforced by government employees.

Police across the state object to a requirement to wear body cameras so they can be held accountable to their bosses-- the people of the community. If they can't do their job under this condition, they are free to find other jobs. No one is forcing them to be police.

Locally, people are begging government for permission to re-open their restaurants, when government never had the legitimate authority to shut businesses in the first place. This illustrates the danger of allowing the servant to require business licenses. It's none of their business who opens what kind of business, and nothing can make it their business. Not even if "this is how we've always done it", which isn't true anyway.

Local government is even pretending it should have the power to dictate whether someone will be allowed to use their own property as a subdivision.

This is crazy!

If we are to continue to fund government and give it our occasional obedience there must be rules for it to follow. Since the Constitution has been ignored for the past century and a half or so, what do you suggest be tried next?

Those who want to keep political government around are the ones responsible for keeping it out of the lives of everyone else. If you won't rein in your troublesome servant, his misbehavior is on your head.

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Libertarian "Buts" and "former libertarians"

I've written before about "libertarian, buts" and "former libertarians". I've always been skeptical of either claim. If you make exceptions you might be "libertarian-leaning", but I don't believe you are libertarian. And if you claim to be a "former libertarian" I have my doubts you ever understood the concept in the first place if you can be swayed to abandon it. I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they aren't being completely honest.

So many people seem to feel it's trendy or edgy to call themselves libertarian, but... they like to hang on to certain exceptions. This seems to explain "former libertarians" as well. They are fine with life, liberty, and property until they find an exception-- an excuse for archation-- they value more. They can even get creative in justifying their exceptions.

Someone may be a libertarian "but" they support police because they can't imagine having to take responsibility for defending their own rights and they imagine that's what cops do.

They may call themselves libertarian while demanding government schools be reopened.

They may have been a libertarian until they decided "Black Lives Matter" more than other lives, and are willing to use the political means to impose their belief on society through legislation.

Some may be libertarian, except that they lust to take part in whichever current witch hunt allows them to fantasize about revenge and murder (which they'll characterize as "justice").

Or maybe they were libertarian until they decided "climate change" was a big enough threat, with no way to handle it, so now they support governments dictating "climate policy".

Don't accept a "but". You're better than that.

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A life of public service

Those who work in the Market* have chosen a life of service.

Totally unlike those who work in government/politics, who have chosen a life of parasitism and thuggery.

Who are the true public servants and who are the public serpents? Common usage has it completely backwards.

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*I don't say "free market" because if it isn't free, it's not the Market.

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Expecting Trouble?

I never expect trouble. However, I also know trouble can show up anywhere at any time. It doesn't care if I expect it or not. Recognizing that the potential for trouble is always there isn't the same as expecting it. One is paranoid; the other is realistic.

If I see a rattlesnake or a cop, I know the potential for trouble is there, so I avoid them.

Actually, with the rattlesnake, I sometimes approach out of curiosity... I know their range and that they really aren't my enemy. I know what to expect from them. A rattlesnake isn't going to take flight and attack me from above, nor give a call that brings more snakes to the scene.

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Mutual trust and respect

You don't show mutual trust and respect by both being unarmed, but by both being armed and non-aggressive.

I found that the original Lost in Space series is on a streaming service and have been watching it again. On one episode the Robinsons encounter some aliens who don't speak and after some tense moments-- and some laser blasts exchanged-- come to realize they aren't enemies. The alien dad tosses his weapon aside to show he means no harm. John Robinson picks up the weapon and hands it back in one of the most astute demonstrations of trust and respect I can remember seeing on any screen.

The political aliens that infest our human societies could learn a lot from this.

First of all, we are not shooting at them. Often not even when it's justified. Therefore there's no reason for us to toss our weapons down to show that we mean no harm-- if we meant harm we would be attacking them. It would be up to them to disarm if anyone should.

Second, the way they could show their respect and trust is by not insisting we be disarmed, but by acknowledging that humans stay armed.

Fictional TV characters, and the aliens they encounter, are far more human than the political aliens who want to run our lives and disarm us so they feel safe.

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Who are your representatives?

Political representation is a myth.

Believing in political representation is a superstitious belief. Such a belief is as delusional as believing in astrology.

No one can really represent anyone but himself. However, if you have a one-on-one agreement with someone to represent you in a meeting you can't attend, it can sort of work a lot of the time.

But for one person to claim to represent hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other people with conflicting opinions?

That's utter balderdash (to put it gently)!

It's also useful balderdash for those who want you to comply-- against your own interests-- with their system of "representative government". It's useful because it seems to make most people complacent. To the point they'll defend it even when the superstitious nature of the belief is clearly demonstrated to them.

No one can represent me without my explicit consent, contingent upon them accurately representing me in every detail, without fail. No one has this consent and I doubt anyone ever could. Is your consent not worth just as much?

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Holster-Quest 2020

After my holster melt-down and my test and review of the Urban Carry G3, I was approached by a holster company that wanted to send me a holster to test and review.

I know I'm a difficult case. I'm not optimistic about success. But I'll never know until I try.

I don't know how long until it gets here, nor how long after that I will post the review. But I just thought I'd let you know there will be at least one more post about Holster-Quest 2020.

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It's only political if you make it political

To those who claim that "everything is political", I would say they are partly right. Everything can be political but only if you make it political. You can make anything political by getting government involved. But that's an awful thing to do to your fellow humans. Politicizing anything is also one of the fastest ways to lose credibility.

Pick anything you can think of. Then think of ways the government-supremacists have politicized it. I'll bet there's almost nothing you can think of that either hasn't been politicized or that someone hasn't attempted to politicize-- and attempting to politicize something could be argued to have politicized it even if the attempt didn't do what they hoped.

The only political problems are problems you create when you make something political.

Even water has been politicized in many places. When you can be molested by The State for catching rainwater as it runs off your roof, you are the victim of water being politicized. There are better ways to deal with water shortages-- even if you have to work to find them.

In the same way, "race" and sex have been politicized.
Science-- including medicine-- is ruined when politicized.
Education has been politicized so badly that most people can't understand the difference between education and schooling anymore.

When you politicize anything you pollute it-- you foul it up.

It doesn't need to be that way because nothing needs to be politicized. It's a nasty shame that this has been allowed to happen.

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Government makes crisis worse

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 15, 2020)

America is in crisis. Nearly everyone agrees on this point; they only disagree over what the crisis is.

Fewer still agree over what caused the crisis they can't agree on, so they can't agree on how to solve it.

Whatever the crisis is, and whether it was caused by a virus, police callousness, racism, inequality, or something else, governments love the excuse to crack down on liberty. This is often among their first responses-- regardless of what the crisis is, what caused the crisis, or how it might be solved. It's as though they don't even care about those trivial details.

A crisis is when your right to life, liberty, and property is most important. When things are going well, are more robust and stable, a small disruption probably won't cause ruin. When things are already on the edge, one little push in the wrong place, at the wrong time, can spell disaster. Deciding to treat liberty as if it's negotiable is a big jackbooted shove to civil society.

To respect the liberty of every human being is the civilized thing to do, even if some people aren't respecting the liberty of others. This is why self-defense remains an important human right.

No crisis justifies additional government power; instead, it's a time for less government meddling. Especially when the path forward is unclear.

The result of restricting liberty is to limit the number of individual solutions which can be tried. When there's disagreement, it's important to let people take different paths. If enough things are tried, someone will get it right. If you force everyone to follow the same path, the chances are nearly one hundred percent that the wrong path will be imposed.

This is why the Constitution doesn't allow itself, or human rights, to be suspended during any emergency and thus doesn't permit martial law. To pretend martial law is constitutional the Supreme Court was forced to concoct political "theories" to justify it. They made up, out of thin air, things the Constitution didn't say and which it was explicitly designed to prevent. It seems the Constitution has never stopped government from committing any action it really wanted to commit. Someone, somewhere, will rubber-stamp almost anything.

If the Constitution did permit the suspension of rights for the duration of an emergency, this would invalidate the document. That it doesn't, yet government goes ahead and does it anyway, invalidates government. Government "help" makes any crisis worse.

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Individual lives matter

Individual lives matter. All individual lives. (I'm not convinced collective "lives" have any reality.)

But some people choose to throw their life away by making self-defense against them necessary-- resulting in the loss of their life. If you force someone to kill you in defense you seem to be saying your life doesn't matter to you.

How can you force someone to defend themselves from you? By archating.

Violating life, liberty, or property is how you demonstrate that your life doesn't really matter to you.

In that case, even though your life might matter to your victim, you have forced them to choose between your life and theirs, and I hope they choose their own life every time in that case. After all, you've already told them what your life is worth to you.

It doesn't matter if you are a rapist committing a sexual attack, a mugger stealing a wallet at gunpoint, or a cop committing an act of legislation enforcement. Archating is as good as admitting your life doesn't matter to you. If it doesn't matter to you, why should it matter to your victim? And even if it does matter to your victim, why should they sacrifice the life they value for the one you apparently don't? I don't think they should.

Individual lives matter. Act like you believe it.

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"Prussian" indoctrination- the other side

In doing a little searching for "The Prussian model" of schooling for yesterday's post, I ran across an essay that claims to expose "The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education'"

It's important to get the other side, so I read it and I'll give you my thoughts here.

"There were laws on the books in Colonial America, for example, demanding children be educated"

Those "laws" were counterfeit. That they existed so long ago no more justifies similar counterfeit "laws" today than old slave "laws" could justify slavery today.

"There was free public education in the US too prior to Horace Mann’s introduction of the 'Prussian model' – the so-called 'charity schools.'"

As long as it is funded voluntarily (charity) and attendance isn't compulsory, it's not a problem. Charity is great. Theft-funding anything is evil. Compulsory attendance is slavery.

"There were other, competing models for arranging classrooms and instruction as well..."

OK. Your point is...?

"Textbook companies were already thriving before Horace Mann or the Committee of Ten came along to decide what should be part of the curriculum."

That's to be expected, and it's not a problem. Let parents choose the textbooks they want to buy if they want them. The problem arises in "one-size-fits-all" school "systems" where a local monopoly is created by government. Where children are taught from books they can't opt out of or choose an alternative to, and their parents (and the community) are robbed to buy the books whether or not they want them.

"One of the side-effects of the efforts of Mann and others to create a public education system, unmentioned by Khan, was the establishment of 'normal schools' where teachers were trained."

Was there no better way to train people to teach? And why is it assumed there need to be specialized teachers? If people are too stupid to teach their own kids-- to show them how to learn-- it means the school did a horrible job teaching the previous generation. You're not going to solve such a problem by imposing it on generation after generation.

"Another was the requirement that, in order to demonstrate accountability, schools maintain records on attendance, salaries, and other expenditures"

That's just standard practice for any business. I would expect any voluntarily funded school to do the same. Except that the records for attendance should be limited to the employees, not the customers.

"...control of public schools in the US have, unlike in Prussia, remained largely decentralized – in the hands of states and local districts rather than the federal government."

If it's under the control of any government, it's not decentralized. Yes, it could always be worse, but it can be better and less centralized, too.

"The standardization of public education into a 'factory model' ... was nowhere as smooth or coherent as Khan’s simple timeline would suggest."

The smoothness or lack thereof is a distraction, not a counterargument.

"Arguments over what public education should look like and what purpose public education should serve ... are not new."

"Public" education shouldn't exist, not in the way statists define "public". That gets rid of the argument and replaces it with choice-- with a market in education.

"For what it’s worth, Prussia was not highly industrialized when Frederick the Great formalized its education system in the late 1700s."

Which was probably the point. Maybe it's harder to become industrialized without a population of obedient drones.

OK. I'm tired of analyzing the nonsense and dishonesty in that essay. It proves nothing except that the writer is biased for government indoctrination. You know my bias since I've never tried to hide it. Decide for yourself which of us is more credible.

If you want to, you can read it all for yourself. That whole essay is just statist justification of government indoctrination day-prisons for children and youth. Death to kinderprison!

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Libertarians for theft and Big Government?

How can libertarians be seriously discussing how "best" to use "tax" money to fund government schooling or even any schooling? I don't think they can.

"Taxation" is theft.
Government schooling is not education. Even if it were education, government has no business getting involved in education and stolen money shouldn't be funding it.

Yet, over and over I see "serious", "credible", "libertarians" discussing how to direct government to spend that stolen money to fund schooling.

Recently some have been advocating tying the funds to individual "students" rather than to the schools.  I can see, in a world of false dichotomies, why that seems better. Yet we don't live in that world. Thieves do have the choice to stop stealing. Thugs do have the choice to stop advocating compulsory school and the "Prussian" indoctrination model.

Why does anyone who claims to value liberty gloss over those facts as if they aren't there? My suspicion is that they see this as necessary to try to be politically relevant-- I suspect this is the reason for a lot of inconsistency.

I can't take them seriously at that point. At least, not as libertarians, but only as threats to liberty.

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Hope and despair in nearly equal parts

I've been observing and listening to what people around me are saying concerning recent events. It's been interesting.

I've heard people say that they never thought tyranny in America was a possibility... until the pandemic. Now they see how easily it could happen.

Since the beginning of the pandemic I've heard the laughter at preppers be replaced by "show me how" and "I wish I had listened".

I've seen people who never cared about liberty suddenly start to pay attention.

I've seen more and more people getting their kids out of kinderprison.

This all gives me some hope.

On the other side of the coin, I've also seen people watching and waiting, anxiously, for that next "stimulus check" from Uncle Scam.

I've seen people calling the socialistic nihilists in big cities "anarchists" as if that's what they were.

I've seen people looking at events and stupidly saying "this is why we need police" and emphasizing how helpless and useless they are to take care of their own lives without a master to do it for them.

I've seen "libertarians" arguing for re-opening the government schools on schedule and/or using the stolen money to fund other forms of schooling.

My latest newspaper column offended another sort of person. The sort of person who doesn't want to see anything which might disturb his dreams.

He began his one-run-on sentence email by saying this is his home town (OK... I was born here too, but how is that relevant?) and he hasn't seen any higher prices (I have and so has the person I mentioned in the column and if you check gold, silver, and Bitcoin prices you can see them right now with your own eyes) and that to him, the dollar "hasn't lost anything".

I could show him charts, but the trick he plays is in the "to him". The dollar is still worth what it was-- to him-- because he believes it is. No evidence will convince him otherwise because he believes what he believes. I wonder if he has ever once in his whole life complained about a higher price for anything. Because that would falsify his claim.

He ended by saying "God is in control" and knows what's going on.

I probably shouldn't have replied, but I did.

I'm glad for you.
I'll tell the person who had started noticing higher prices in Clovis stores that you say she must be imagining it.
I'll also tell the gold and silver sellers that they have to sell their products to me at last month's prices because you say prices aren't going up. I wonder what they'll say.
God knowing what's going on doesn't mean God wouldn't let humans suffer for doing foolish things. Actions have consequences.

Am I wrong?

As always, there are reasons for both hope and despair. The shining examples, the mistakes in human skin, and the self-deluding.

On the economic side of things, my income keeps declining due to the effects of the government-caused Coronapanic, so if you'd care to sign up for a monthly subscription on any of the platforms I use I'd appreciate it. See below for your chance to chip in or email me for more options.

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