Wouldn't see the truth if he stepped right in a big steaming heap of it

I just got this email a while back:

Dear Mr. Obama:

I’m planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me.

We’re planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we’ll need your help to make a few arrangements.

We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.

I’m sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, the President of Mexico , that I’m on my way over?

Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking Government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. Please print all Mexican Government forms in English.

4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.

5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.

7. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver’s license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico, but I don’t plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won’t make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my housetop, put U.S. flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start.

13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.

14. I want to receive free food stamps.

15. Naturally, I’ll expect free rent subsidies.

16. I’ll need income tax credits so that although I don’t pay Mexican taxes, I’ll receive money from the government.

17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Government pays $4,500.00 to help me buy a new car.

18. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I’ll get a monthly income in retirement.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all of his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that the President of Mexico won’t mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

Do you see how stupid this looks when you put it in writing???

Yes, it surely does look stupid, but not for the reason the original author may have thought. Obviously he wouldn't see the truth, no matter how plainly it presented itself.

Being an obvious State worshiper (as long as it's a flavor he likes) he'd never see how all those complaints go away when you eliminate the fundamental problem: The State.

No government ("public") kinderprisons; no welfare; no government "licenses", bureaucraps, or paperwork; no "taxation". If these things- or the way they are administered- are really upsetting you, eliminate the fundamental problem.

Yeah, the solution really is that simple, yet getting people to demand it- and expect- it is the hardest job there is.

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More "good cops"- or at least normal ones

Another reason to oppose "laws" forbidding "texting and driving".

Those "laws" are used as a pretext to demand access to your cell phone, and cops have been caught stealing and sharing nude selfies from women's phones.

Sure, you could say you shouldn't take "those kind of pictures", but it's your body and your phone. And besides, where's the fun in that?

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Time to stop hiding, take control

Time to stop hiding, take control

(My Clovis News Journal column for October 3, 2014)

Most people are more libertarian they they'll admit.

After all, they buy things from the store rather than steal. They ask instead of demand. They try to avoid resorting to violence as long as they are given any choice. And most people are in favor of self defense when faced with someone who refuses to live by the same rules.

For that matter, most people actually live in a condition of anarchy in their daily lives. No one tells them who they are allowed to fall in love with, what they will eat, where they must shop, whether they are allowed to use the bathroom, where they can work, or what to think or believe. Regardless of what you have been told, that is anarchy: living without being ruled by someone else. It isn't the same as "chaos", which isn't necessarily the horror you've been let to believe, either.

Anarchy, what some call "voluntaryism", is liberty. It means doing whatever doesn't violate anyone else's equal and identical rights. It means recognizing that since humans are flawed, the worst possible thing anyone could do is to put some of these flawed people in charge of everyone else. Such a system attracts those who want power over others, but fear facing the consequences of wielding it without belonging to a large and powerful gang.

It shouldn't surprise you to realize you've been indoctrinated against anarchy by government schools and other institutions which depend on you fearing liberty. People who want to have power to control you need you to believe their control is better than the alternative of you controlling, and being responsible for, your own life. If they can keep you fearful, you'll allow them to do things to you which you'd never otherwise permit.

They also depend on pitting you against your neighbors. If they can get you to beg someone else to control your neighbor, through limiting his choices of what to do with his own body or his own property, they gain power. And never forget they are encouraging your neighbor to seek protection from you, too. It's a sad and silly circle I refuse to be a part of.

Since you do just fine without being ruled in almost all of your daily life, what makes you believe you need to be ruled in any of it? Almost no one believes they need to be ruled; it's those "others" who need to be controlled. What makes you fear others and feel so inadequate when facing them that you want to hide behind someone else's skirt? It's time to stop hiding and take the wheel. You'll be glad you did.

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Government employees pay zero "taxes"

It was suggested I blog about the fact that no "government" employee ever pays "taxes".

I thought I had written about that before- and I had.

Perpetual motion and "taxation"

Recently I again ran into the erroneous belief that government employees pay "taxes". This is a myth that just keeps on walking around, undead and looking for brains to munch. 

The fact of the matter: Government employees pay no taxes. Ever. Zero. Period. 

The pretense that they do is the financial equivalent of a perpetual motion device that keeps the economically ignorant among us (more) content with the status quo. 

All government employee pay comes from government-confiscated "taxes", and all the "taxes" they pay go "back" to government. (The money never actually left the government's bloody hands in the first place.) Plus some money is always lost in the shuffle between parties. The lost money is equivalent to the waste heat in a mechanical system. 

Put another way: If I paid you $100 dollars, but then demanded you pay a "tax" of 20% back to me, did I just give you $100 or did I give you only $80? Contrast it with this scenario: If I paid you $100 but you immediately paid a third party $20, I have actually, in fact, paid you $100 even if you passed some of it along to someone else. There is a difference.

It's an important fact to understand, so I hope you don't mind my posting it again.

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Religion vs Rightful Liberty

My political/social opinions on religion pretty much begin and end with whether that religion- put into practice- violates Rightful Liberty.

All religions may have good points and bad points- I'm not familiar with all religions, or everything any of them teach in every instance. I suppose if there were no positives, no one would have ever began following it. I could be wrong.

The ancient texts may advocate horrendous things that the modern followers mostly ignore. In that case, the religion is worse than it's modern followers.

Or, the ancient texts may show a path of rightful liberty and neighborliness the modern followers ignore in order to push an agenda they prefer. In that case the modern followers are worse than their religion.

Both circumstances can even happen simultaneously in the same religion, depending on what part is being focused on.

Or, a religion can be vile, and it's modern followers may follow the vile precepts to the letter while adding their own abominations to it. I think we can all see this happening quite a bit today.

In all my readings of the Bible, I never remember even one instance of Jesus saying "There ought to be a law."

Nor "Vote ye, therefore, for the lesser of two evils so that the laws of the world can be changed in order to bring Heaven on Earth."

Didn't happen, and goes against everything else he is quoted as saying.

If, as a Christian, you try to enshrine your religion as "law", you spit on your religion and on Rightful Liberty.

If, as a Muslim, you try to enforce your religion as "law", you may be following the rules of your religion, but you are still trampling Rightful Liberty- which trumps any religion. Sorry.

In both cases, I will defy you.

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Vanishing statists

Months ago I had someone "friend" me on Facebook. A "conservative" statist, I would guess, from the things I read on his page.

He added me and then warned me that libertarians and anarchists always ended up running away and "unfriending" him when they couldn't counter his arguments or get past his logic.

I accepted the challenge without comment.

After he responded to one or two things I wrote in the first week or so, he has slipped off into the sunset of silence. He's still on my "friend list", but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him in any comments. I wonder what happened to his self-assurance?

Then again, I tend to wonder if the guy is a sort of troll, making "conservative" statists look ridiculous by the things he promotes. It's possible.

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"I would shoot somebody!"

Very often, when the subject of guns comes up with someone I am just meeting, they will make the comment that they "could never carry a gun", because they would "get mad and shoot someone".

That's disturbing to know.

If someone doesn't trust themselves with a gun, how can I trust them? At all?

Could part of their problem be that they don't demand responsibility of themselves, but feel it's OK to go through life like a spoiled child who could strike out anytime they get offended? Maybe a gun would force them to grow up; to take control of their impulses.

I do know it had that effect on me.

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Good job, PA State Police!

Your overwrought, expensive, and childish vendetta has done something I have been trying to do for years: shown some diehard statists that the only ones you truly "protect and serve" are your own gang members. 

I call that a "win"!

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Happy Halloween!

For your Halloween reading pleasure (?), here are two of my creepy stories from the past:

Melissa's Ghost (With help from Claire Wolfe)

The Werewolf

The Ghoul of Oasis

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After these messages...

If anyone has been considering making a donation to me, this would be a nice time. It's been a while since I asked. Clickable donation buttons to the right.

Or, you can help me out in other ways.

Thanks!

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Which package would you subscribe to?

When you sign up for cable TV service, or a satellite dish TV service, you can choose between a few "packages" they offer. You pay a set price for a lot of channels you don't want in order to get the few you do want.

That's exactly like "taxes" and The State.

You may be under the belief that you want government to tax everyone so you can have roads and "safetyness". But you can't choose to only pay for those items; you must also pay for the salaries of congressvermin, and for welfare (but I repeat myself). You pay for blatant violations of your right to own and to carry weapons to be committed against you, and for government kinderprisons. You are forced to pay for a lot of crap you don't want- and which you may even despise- to get the few things you do want.

How does this make sense to anyone?

If each of us were allowed to pay for only those things we want, I wouldn't waste my breath speaking out against "taxation"... but then it wouldn't BE "taxation", since it would be completely voluntary.

And, even if I want to pay for a particular service, I want options. I may want to buy the service from someone else who gives me more of what I want and less of what I don't. I can choose to opt out altogether. In the case of TV, that means I don't get to watch their offerings, but that's a "price" I willingly pay if I don't think the money spent is worth what I get in return.

Which illustrates a huge difference between The State and TV subscriptions: the consensual nature of the cable and satellite TV providers' services.

I haven't had TV in years (I do have Netflix streaming), and no cable company has shown up at my door to force me to choose a package they, or their satellite competitors, offer. Try refusing to pay your subscription fees for The State and see if they are as consensual as TV providers.

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Selling reminder

Just a reminder- I still have some things for sale on eBay, and also I'm still selling patches.

"Believing in" Liberty

As much as we don't like to face it, our beliefs come first and our reasons we use to justify our beliefs follow. The smarter a person is, the better they are at finding justifications for what they already believe.

Long ago, I was a statist. Sure, I didn't trust or want much government standing in my way, but I "knew" government of some sort was necessary. And, even though I really didn't spend much time thinking about it, I could have found lots of ways to justify my beliefs- and would have even argued that the reasons I found were why I believed the way I did, rather than the other way around.

But, those subconscious reasons kept coming up against hard facts and cold reality.

At some point I did start actually thinking about it- oops.

Finally my beliefs began to change. A process that is still ongoing. (Funny, though, it has always moved in the same direction all my life- toward fewer and fewer exceptions justifying external control of others and toward a deeper respect for Rightful Liberty.)

Now I believe liberty is the only reasonable way to approach life. And I am very good at finding reasons I would say cause me to hold that belief.

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Many confused about libertarians

Many confused about libertarians

(My Clovis News Journal column for September 26, 2014.)

Very often, in the national media, I see items which show just how confused most people are over what is "libertarian" and what isn't. Liberals confuse libertarians for conservatives; especially of the "Tea Party" variety. Conservatives confuse libertarians for liberals. No one seems to understand why those are both wrong.

It even happens locally. Recently, during some admittedly heated discussion over a local event which attracted negative international attention, someone took issue with what I consider a case of "calling a spade a spade". He thought my behavior was not very libertarian, which he mischaracterized as "do no harm".

Now libertarians are confused for doctors, too? Although only libertarianism can really heal any sick society, "do no harm" isn't a part of libertarianism.

Perhaps he was confused by our adherence to the Zero Aggression Principle, which shows our recognition of having no right to initiate force, in person or by proxy, against any other human being.

Anything less only provides refuge for the bad guys.

Libertarians fully support doing harm, through the use of physical force, to those who are caught in the act of violating any person or property. It's called "self defense" and can cause real damage to the aggressor. Personally, I am against using physical force against someone who is only caught after the fact, seeing this as vengeance rather than self defense. Vengeance is the opposite of justice, which is why government "justice systems" are so fond of it- when wielded through "official channels", at least.

Libertarians also support exposing people caught committing aggression or theft to social pressure to change their ways through shunning and ostracism. This means advertising their wrongdoing publicly, so others know and can decide whether or not to associate and do business with them. This can be seen as "calling names" by supporters of the aggressor or thief, who would rather the incident be swept under the rug and ignored.

If publicity can be considered "doing harm", so be it. Thieves and aggressors choose their path, and their complaints about what happens as a consequence don't break my heart.

On the other hand, self defense and public exposure of anti-social behavior isn't really the causing of "harm"; but the repairing of harm. Sure, from the perspective of the bad guy and his supporters, this might be harmful, but from the perspective of the rest of the individuals in society, it is what is needed to make up for harm done, and to prevent future harm by alerting everyone around to the probable danger of dealing with someone who has shown a willingness to violate person and property in the past. It's justice.

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Everywhere, yet nowhere

The state is pervasive. Everyone seems to be wrapped up in its tentacles in some way.

Either they have a government job or their job depends on government contracts, their kid is enslaved by the military, they depend on welfare, or they feel loyal to the local government kinderprison.

And the sick people like it that way.

This entanglement makes it harder for them to face the harsh reality.

And, yet, The State only exists in the minds of those addicted to obsessing over it- either loving it or hating it.

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Pride in shameful things

I just had a horrifying realization!

Some people- maybe most people- have some sort of psychological need to feel proud of "their" government!

Why would anyone be that pathetic?

Do they also need to feel proud of the other robbers and molesters who surround them?

Yeah, I know: Stockholm Syndrome and all that. But still... it's just bizarre!

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Old, made up, "news" is good news to Prohibitionists

A couple of weeks ago, the local weekly paper, in the column written by the owner/publisher, was gleefully reporting the newest anti-marijuana study by Professor Wayne Hall. The paper's owner has long had a bee in his bonnet about marijuana, believing it to be a good thing to prohibit, and apparently, cage and kill people over. This "news" was exactly the sort he loves to find and pass along.

The thing is, this professor's "findings" are exactly the same sort of things the prohibitionists have been saying for decades.

And, the professor doesn't seem to understand that correlation is not causation, which means he isn't doing science, but only propping up propaganda.

His assertion "it could double the risk of severe psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia" seems to ignore the fact that people with psychiatric disorders are more likely to self-medicate, with whatever they can find, to relieve their discomfort. Even I can figure this out.

According to Hall, "those who try to stop taking the drug can often suffer anxiety, lower appetite, depression and insomnia, and less than half of people who stop taking it can stay off it for six months". And, he says "The important point I am trying to make is that people can get into difficulties with cannabis use, particularly if they get into daily use over a long period."

OK. Anything you get into a habit of doing on a daily basis can get in the way of life, and can be extremely hard to stop doing.

And, there was more bad "science" of the same kind all through his findings. Almost everything he "discovered" as a researcher working as an advisor to a Big Government group (the World Health Organization of the United Nations) is what prohibitionists want to be discovered.

And, guess what: even if everything he claims were absolutely true, it STILL wouldn't invent a right to tell other people what they are allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or otherwise consume. It's totally irrelevant. That "right" doesn't exist, can't exist, and can't be invented. It doesn't matter if it's Nanny Bloomypants trying to forbid you from enjoying salt or a super-sized soft drink, or some dogwhistle trying to kill you so you can't inject heroin. No one has that right, so no one can delegate that nonexistent right. To attempt to do so is evil.

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Good post by K on living your Rightful Liberty

Sometimes, someone else's blog post will speak to me in such a way that I just keep returning to it and reading it again and again. This is one such post: Rightful Liberty: Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock

I can't even tell you for certain why it struck such a chord in me. Maybe because it's sort of how I live. Anyway, after reading it for the fifth time or so, I decided I needed to share it.

Enjoy!

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"Revisionist history"

One accusation that has always bewildered me is when someone gets upset and cries "Revisionist history!"

It's as if new information- if it chips away at the official story- is automatically bad.

That's the height of stupidity.

It's like refusing to accept the news that you were adopted. Or that you were born, the product of sex, if you had always been told the stork brought you.

History isn't the same as what really happened. Sometimes it's similar, but it is filtered by those relating the tales, and is often more what they want you to know than how it really went. And, there is a ridiculous focus on States and politicians and other nasty characters, while mostly ignoring the main important things of what normal people did in their normal boring lives. "Boring"- that's the problem.

Disasters, death, and disease are exciting, and nothing can bring those things about like States and bad guys acting on "behalf" of States, so they get the attention, while being extreme cases rather than normal. I mean, how many times has a president actually come into your life and affected you, personally? Me, never. Yet presidents are considered history, while the people who actually affected me (and you and everyone else, except for a tiny sample of people in the world), for good or bad, are ignored.

And, since those bad guys and people who think like them are the ones who relate the tales of the past to the new generation, they don't like it when new information leaks out showing they have cherry picked- or lied about- things that happened in the past.

Especially when it disrupts the narrative they want to push on you.

So, they need you to think that the new information is somehow revising history- by which I guess they mean "changing" the past- rather than what it is actually doing: wiping away lies and misconceptions that protect some people's "legacy" at the expense of others.

And, often, at the expense of the present and future. After all, if you don't understand where you came from, it is often hard to see where you are going.

History- the story of what happened in the past- will never (without a scope that peers through time without disrupting anything) be known with 100% accuracy, but new information will keep coming to light, and shouldn't be tossed aside simply because it doesn't fit with what you wish to believe. History will always need to keep being revised unless you love ignorance.

Of course, I have noticed the same people get upset and think that because the process of science discovers new things that sometimes modify what was previously believed to be the facts, science is unreliable and based upon whims because it doesn't remain chiseled in stone, like religion does.

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Flint and steel kits for sale

Sven from Hunchback Ironworks has forged some nice fire strikers as a collaborative venture for the two of us, which I have put into "strike-a-light" kits to sell.

I'm going to offer them here, to give regular readers the first shot, before I list them on Dullhawk.com.

All kits come in a tin. The tins can be burned or sanded to remove the paint, for a more primitive look, if you care about that. All, that is, except for kit #5- for reasons which will be apparent.

The kits all include a small piece of flint, some char cloth to catch the spark and make a coal, and a little juniper bark tinder to make the coal become a flame. The rest is up to you.

As of now, I have 5 kits to sell. (UPDATE: I now have only kit #5 available)

• Kit #5

Kit #5 is another special kit. The striker was too large to fit inside an Altoids tin, so it got an International Coffee tin. This one comes with a plastic lid. I made cardboard partitions to keep things inside #5 organized, and to keep the char cloth a little safer- it's fragile stuff. This kit also comes with a few extra pieces of char cloth. Kit #5 costs $25.00

• Kit #1 (Sold)

This is a special kit. The striker has been polished and etched. It says "LIBERTY" on one side, and "STRIKES BACK" on the other. Kit #1 costs $25.00

• Kit #2 (sold)

Kit #2 costs $20.00

• Kit #3 (sold)

Kit #3 costs $20.00

• Kit #4 (sold)

Kit #4 costs $20.00

As a freebie, and to help those who buy the kits, here is a video I made explaining how to make more char cloth when you use up the bit that comes in the kit, and also some hints on preparing tinder.

All kits are offered on a first come, first served, basis (email me, don't rely on commenting here to get the message to me). If this goes over well, there will be more next month. And, of course, you can also contact Hunchback Ironworks directly if there's something else you need forged. Tell Sven I sent you!

And, get your preps in order.

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