Kent's "Hooligan Libertarian" Blog

Saturday, June 18, 2016

When good people do wrong

(Previously posted to Patreon)

There's a secret heartache I have been suffering. And I can't go into details because it isn't my place to do so.

What it comes down to is this: someone I care about very much apparently did something wrong- initiated force against a helpless innocent- and is paying the price for it. She lost her grip on reality, and is now in jail.

Knowing her as I do, I know this "isn't her". She has been through some extreme emotional strain and psychological torture- committed against her by one evil person- for the past few years, and she seems to have finally snapped.

And it kills me.

She knows better than to initiate force. Or she did.

I still don't believe in caging people. Not her, and not anyone else. It never helps the victim, and is nothing but institutionalized revenge. It prevents restitution and usually does nothing but cause the imprisoned person to go further in the wrong direction. I don't want that for anyone.

But, if she did what she is accused of doing (and it seems she did), she was wrong. She owes a debt to her victim. If I could, I would gladly pay it on her behalf, but I can't.

I can care about someone and still acknowledge when they do the wrong thing.

I wish it hadn't happened. I wish I had been able to help her before it happened (I did try to give emotional support). And I wish I could fix it now.

At this point, the only way I could help is if I were a really good lawyer. Not to "get her off", but to help find mutually agreeable restitution instead of a cage.

If you get any value from my labors, consider rewarding me with your financial support. This blog is in its 10th year now. If you believe I have contributed anything to the conversation regarding liberty during these ten years, and believe I have more to contribute, help me stay online.
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It's that time again

It's "Random Acts of Anarchy Day".

Go do something nice or helpful or useful, without getting a permit or license.

Have fun!

Thursday, June 16, 2016

What the Second Amendment is, and isn't

Remember- The Second Amendment doesn't apply to you, so it can't "give you a right" to do anything.

All it does is make it a serious crime for any "law" concerning guns to be passed or enforced. It is a clear prohibition on government weapons "laws". That's it. It does nothing else.

So, it only applies to lawmakers and law enforcers by making it illegal for them to prohibit or restrict weapons to you and me, in any way. Or for them to demand we pay for permits, background checks, or pay "taxes" on weapons, or not carry in certain places they control (they own no places). They have no say in who can buy, sell, own, or carry a weapon. If they try to anyway, they are criminals. And, they are not "Pro-gun" except in their own delusional heads (and quite possibly in the heads of the "leadership" of the anti-gun NRA).

Any government employee who tries to disarm you if you aren't currently attacking or threatening to attack innocent people (everyone has the right to intervene in this case) is a violent criminal, no matter his excuse. His safety does NOT trump yours. Not ever.

If he says he needs you to hand over your weapon "for your safety and mine" he is lying. He is a coward who knows he is committing a wrong, and doesn't want to face the consequences of his actions.

Government has zero legitimate say in weapon possession, and the Second Amendment makes that very clear- leaving no room for "debate".

Yes, the bad guys in government ignore this law and break it with impunity every day. They keep getting away with it... until the day they don't. Then they will be very surprised for a very short, quite painful, moment. Good riddance to bad trash.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Don't be fooled by appearances

When people first see me they are often fooled.

Some of the mistakes people have made as to what I am are even contradictory, but people see what they want to see.

I have been assumed to be a drug addict or dealer.
I have been assumed to be an undercover cop.
I have been assumed to hate gays- or to be gay.
It has been assumed that I am uneducated- a "hick".
I have been confused for a cowboy, and a hippie.
I have been assumed to be a religious fundamentalist.
A guy recently assumed I was an ex-Marine.

None of those are true about me.

I have also been wildly wrong about other people based on appearances or first impressions.

One of my best friends looked "snooty" to me the first time I met her. I was very wrong.

On the other hand, I have thought some people were smarter or nicer than they turned out to be- sometimes with tragic results. I'll leave out details.

There have been times I looked at someone and thought there couldn't be anything we had in common, and when I got to know them discovered just how much alike we were. Personally, I love when this happens because it always expands my horizons.

So, don't assume the person you encounter is going to hate or fear liberty based on how they dress or how they act. Until they demonstrate that they do. Give them a chance and the benefit of a doubt, just as you probably hope others do for you. They might just surprise you.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Laws sign of corrupt government

(My Clovis News Journal column for May 13, 2016)

People complain about government corruption, at least when they notice it interfering with their own life. They realize it's a problem, and usually believe something should be done about it. They are adept at pointing out this poisonous fruit without observing the diseased tree on which it grows.

With their continued support of that which creates the problem, they remind me of a morbidly obese person complaining about his weight and its effects on his health while continuing to overeat.

Sometime around the year 100 AD, Roman politician and historian Tacitus said "The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates".

Government dreams up laws. It's pretty much its defining trait. Laws are a sure sign of corruption, but people refuse to see the connection. Corruption is as natural to government as hairballs are to my cat.

Yet, people still judge legislators by how many of these nuggets of corruption they squeeze out while in office. People have gotten this suicidal notion into their heads that unless laws are being dreamed up and enacted, government isn't doing anything. That's as absurd as encouraging the exterminator to release termites and rats into your home.

Of the two ways to get rid of government corruption, the most obvious is to eliminate the State. If you prefer to "control" the cancer rather than removing it from your body, you must at the very least reverse the runaway train of legislation.

Every halfway legitimate law was imposed centuries ago- although some weren't applied to everyone equally. Since then only harmful laws have come along; laws which violate life, liberty, and property.

It's long past time to turn this around and applaud only those legislators who "accomplish something" by abolishing laws. Any new law imposed, no matter how necessary you believe it to be, must count against them. Many people have a superstitious belief that just because a law was dreamed up and approved by a person holding a political position it must be obeyed until it is abolished. The absurdity of that belief should be obvious.

Of course, the simplest way to deal with all these harmful counterfeit "laws" is to simply ignore them. There's no need to go through the ritual of abolishing them. Illegitimate "laws" are nothing, and nothing doesn't need to be cleaned up.

So, stop permitting more laws to be enacted against the life, liberty, and property of yourself and those around you. Stop supporting corruption.

Frustration with anti-gun bigots

(Previously posted to Patreon)

It is so frustrating that people tolerate anti-gun "laws", and that they don't treat people who ban guns from private property like people claiming the right to rape-- as long as they "only" rape in their own home.

I realize my views on this are extreme- even for a libertarian.

I am not saying a private property owner doesn't have the right to ban guns as a condition of entering his property, I am saying he is a foolish bad guy for doing so. He is making his guests much less safe, while lying and claiming he is only doing it for their safety. Good people wouldn't do that.

Such people should be shunned, ridiculed, and viewed as what they are.

If someone doesn't trust you with a gun, they don't trust you, period. If they don't trust you, why would you trust them? If you don't trust them, why would you do business with them, or associate with them in any way?

I know many people have a soft spot for those who fear guns and want to stay away from them. I have yet to determine if this soft spot is in the heart or between the ears. I lean more toward the latter.

Anti-gun "laws" should be absolutely intolerable to anyone who values liberty. And anti-gun property owners should be avoided and despised- on their own property or off.

Orlando- "no guns"

A "no guns" sign is nothing but a filter.

It filters out the guns which might be used to defend you, while those which would be used to murder the innocent pass right by, utterly unaffected. It works the same everywhere, every time, without exception.

The same for "no guns" rules.

How anyone could ever believe this is a good thing is something I can't wrap my head around. It is a delusion too bizarre for words.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Truth? Who cares? See how deeply I feel!

"Truth is useless for persuasion whenever emotions are involved." ~ Scott Adams

Yes, it is. And that's a shame, but reality doesn't care if you like it or not.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the anti-liberty bigots' response to the Orlando mass murder by a religious extremist.

Liberty is supported by facts, reason, logic, ethics, history, etc. But statists are driven by an emotional attachment to their cult, so they reject reality and substitute their own matrix of feelings and wishes in its place. Feelings and wishes that run counter to the truth, but "feel right" to them.

Liberty can appeal to feelings, too. What's better than owning your life and the products of your life? But most liberty lovers have a harder time expressing that particular dimension than do statists, who are driven by emotion rather than by truth. I know I have a hard time expressing my emotions the way statists do.

I have feelings, but I feel (ha!) my feelings are less important than the truth- than reality. If I like a comfy lie, I feel bad about liking it and would rather focus on reality until I like that instead.

If I like the truth, I want to express that truth rather than worry about how liking it makes me feel.

I want my feelings to align with the truth because reality is what really matters to me.

But, to persuade people you've got to sink to their level, and that means you need to ignore truth and focus on feelings. Especially in politics, truth has no place, unless you are talking about how you truly feel.

So, here's a bit of truth and "feelz" for you:

It deeply saddens me that anti-liberty bigots care so little about innocent lives that they keep doing everything they can to make it easier and easier for bad guys set on murder to carry out their plans in the most efficient way possible. With as little risk of being stopped "too early" by an armed good guy. Anti-liberty bigots don't care about you or "the children" at all, or else they wouldn't be anti-liberty bigots. They only care that their agenda is pushed. If you have to die because of it, well, that's a price they are eager to pay.

How does that truth make you feel?

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Orlando mass murder. Will people ever learn?

A guy intent on murder has succeeded again, largely due to "gun control laws". Yes, he is ultimately responsible, but politicians (and property owners) practically held his hand, led him to his killing floor, and pointed out targets for him to kill. Because some of them are so blinded by a political agenda that they still believe saying "no guns" will save lives.

Idiots. Evil idiots.

These places are always "gun-free" slaughter zones- places where the good guys obey the evil rules saying they can't be armed, but where people who don't care about counterfeit rules (you know, like people who intend to murder a bunch of people in spite of laws forbidding murder) waltz in and start picking off the defenseless targets who have been disarmed for their convenience.

Anti-gun "laws" kill- or at least make it easy for bad guys to use those "laws" to get a large body count. Notice how the killing always comes to an end after people (in this case, other bad guys) with guns show up. Why give the bad guys that time advantage?

If a place says "no guns", remember what they are actually saying: "We don't care if you die". Oh, they'll be really sympathetic afterwards, but they'll keep their insane policy in place- or even double down- to make it easy for bad guys to kill unopposed yet again.

Do not obey anti-gun "laws". Your life depends on it.

Judging by the guy's name, I do have a suspicion that this was a Muslim "killing two birds with one stone"- killing homosexuals like his religion (among others) orders him to, and killing Americans who his politics tells him to kill. Perhaps I am being prejudiced in this suspicion and it is completely unfounded. Perhaps.

Added: Statement from the Pink Pistols on the shooting: Pink Pistols Saddened by Attack on Orlando Club

"We're DOOOOOMED!!!"

The worst political fears- the ones used to manipulate people into accepting (or even begging for) government coercion- almost never come to pass. They are "hobgoblins".

Yes, bad things do happen. Horrific things. But these are usually the result of government "doing something", not due to government "failing to do something". The worst thing that can ever happen when a problem is noticed is for government to step in to try to solve it.

The belief that one candidate is worse than another is another hobgoblin. The ways in which each is bad may vary a little, but not enough to actually matter to your life (if you'll switch off the "news", anyway).

Look at history before you hyperventilate over whatever it is the fearmongers are trying to scare you with.

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Saturday, June 11, 2016

Confidence, arrogance, and doubt

I am too confident in some things, and not confident enough in others.

I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that aggression and property violations are something no one has a right to do. In most cases, this means they are wrong. It doesn't matter who is doing it, or what justifications they grasp for in those cases.

I am completely confident in this truth, and that confidence may come across as arrogance. I have been told it does- and have lost friends over it when they want to worship bad guys with government "jobs" and they didn't like where principles led. It is what it is. I could pretend to have doubts about it, but I'd be lying.

In fact, though, I used to be filled with doubts over this. Each time I doubted, either due to an objection I had thought up for myself, or due to an argument someone made against it, I would examine the alternatives or the arguments. And each and every time without exception, those arguments failed. They were self-contradictory or didn't hold up in some other way. I'm not going to pretend a failed idea is valid.

That doesn't mean I won't consider opposing opinions anymore. Of course I will. But each time I do, they still fail. I will continue to give them consideration, whenever someone makes the effort to present them. But I don't expect them to succeed any more than I expect to drop a brick and have it float up and away. Past experience has been a good teacher.

If someone ever makes a reasonable case for aggression or property violations, or if I ever lose a brick to a light breeze, reality will force me to adjust my expectations, and my confidence will be shaken. Again.

Liberty has earned my confidence, and if having confidence in Liberty is "arrogance", so be it. But, I've never been arrogant about myself, regardless of how I come across.

Thursday, June 09, 2016

Why can't statists act civilized?

I can dislike something and still not want government to make or enforce "laws" against it.

I can dislike a person and still not want government or its "laws" used against that person.

I can HATE someone and still object to force being initiated against them or their property being violated. By anyone. Even if I believe they "deserve" it in a karmic sense.

I can like something and still not want you to be forced to fund it.

I can love someone and still acknowledge they are dead wrong if they initiate force or violate private property.

Why can't statists do that?

Instead, they focus on silly things like "respect the office even if you don't like the person holding it". What horrible drivel! The office is the problem. Without that office, the evil fool holding that office couldn't hurt you from behind his veil of imaginary legitimacy. If he violated you, you could defend yourself without having his gang, numbering in the millions, coming after you.

And statists are always looking for ways to justify aggression and theft, even as they object to it if it is used against them. Some even "justify" aggression and theft used against them or their loved ones if they fear calling it what it is (evil) would undermine their arguments for The State.

And, yet, I am still willing to leave statists alone. But they can't seem to return the courtesy. I just don't understand that mindset at all.

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Radicalized aggression and cops

Radicalization. Specifically radicalized Islam. That's what a lot of people fear these days.

Radicals can be found in any group, and it's not even necessarily a bad thing to be a radical. It depends what you are radical about.

If you are radical about the Zero Aggression Principle you will be no danger to anyone who isn't a bad guy- and bad guys need to have the cost of doing what they do raised to the point they take a different path.

But, if you are all about aggression and property violations, then being radicalized is never going to be a good thing.

This brings me to cops.

Cops are radicalized "law enforcement".

Cops were never the good guys, and I could never support them, but they got much worse after they became radicalized.

Perhaps "radicalized" isn't the best term for when bullies go full-potato.

Since the problem isn't the radicalization, but that which is being radicalized, maybe the most accurate term would be "aggressionized". Because they have become radical about committing aggression and property violation. Just like the aggressionized Muslims who you'll probably never encounter in real life, but whom you are told to fear.

Aggressionized law enforcement is a much bigger danger to your real life than any other aggressionized group could even hope to be, because they are infesting the countryside at horrific levels. It needs to be stopped.

Cops have been aggressionized, and it is getting worse by the day.

Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Libertarian society already exists

(My Clovis News Journal column for May 6, 2016)

One of the minor amusements of publicly promoting a society which respects the rightful liberty of each individual are those who object by proclaiming "You're wasting your time. We will never live in a libertarian society."

They are missing the point. We already live in such a society. In fact, if society weren't mostly libertarian, it wouldn't qualify as a society at all.

Almost everyone knows it is wrong to attack or to steal from others. That's all a libertarian society is. People who break these rules face consequences.

The problem is most people carve out an imaginary exception for government employees.

We know theft is wrong, but often look the other way when theft is called "taxation".

We know we shouldn't throw the first punch, but call it "enforcing a law" and most cheer the bully. At least until they find themselves the victim of a wrong-headed "law"- then the artificial line between "law enforcement" and bully is exposed for what it is.

We know it isn't right to trespass or damage our neighbor's home, but if they call the damage "property codes" and pretend there's justification for it, they can get away with almost anything.

It's not right.

The contradictions in these examples would cause discomfort if people actually noticed them, and would cause a change of heart if people who noticed them gave the matter some thought. This is why people try really hard to avoid thinking about it.

That's all I am trying to do: point out the contradictions and get people to think. I don't need to convince you to create a libertarian society- I only need to get you to see you already live in one, and convince you to stop excusing bad guys who refuse to live by the rules and get along.

It would not be up to you to give me a libertarian society to live in, even if societies weren't libertarian already. There will always be those seeking to violate you and your property in any society. Society survives in spite of them. You do what you can to prevent them from violating you, and defend yourself from them when you can. It doesn't matter if they wear a badge, a suit and tie, other "gang colors", or are freelance.

I don't even need to persuade anyone. You already know the truth, you just need to stop hiding it from yourself, and start living like your liberty matters.

The ones you are better than

(Previously posted to Patreon)

"Firefly". Episode: Shindig:

Mal and Jayne; in a coerced meeting with Badger, who is trying to hire them for a new job.

Mal: You backed out of a deal last time. Left us hanging.

Jayne: Hurt our feelings.

Mal: You recall why that took place?

Badger: I had a problem with your attitude is why. I felt you was… what’s the word?

Jayne: Pretentious?

Badger: Exactly! You think you’re better than other people!

Mal: Just the ones I’m better than.

Recognizing you are better than some other people. It happens. In the world of Firefly it can cause problems, and it can do the same in the real world.

How can it be wrong to feel superior to people you are superior to? It might not be "politically correct", but you really are better than some people. In at least some ways, and probably in lots of ways.

You may be smarter, or kinder. You may be more generous. Or, you might be more ethical because you abide by the Zero Aggression Principle. But I guarantee you, in some way you are better than me, and in some way (I hope) I am better than you. And it's the same when any two people are compared. I am not superior or inferior in every way to anyone, and neither are you.

This oddity of not being happy about, or even acknowledging, the ways in which you are "better than" seems harmful to me. If there is nothing better to see and aspire to, then everyone may as well wallow in mediocrity. Never strive to improve.

Personally, I want to be around people who are better than me. I want to learn from them those things where they put me to shame. I hunger for that, and can't understand why anyone wouldn't want the same.

Protecting liberty by destroying liberty?

Gun writer (and generally excellent "gun righter") David Codrea of The War on Guns blog is beating the anti-"illegal immigration" drum loudly these days.

I disagree with him (although I am not intending to pick on him), and here's why.

If you can't have Liberty without having those "borders", then you simply can never have Liberty, period. It means Liberty can never be. It's nothing more than an impossible fantasy that can never exist in the real world.

Maybe that is how it really is. If so, what's the point of even trying? Just batten down the hatches and shoot all who come after you. Which, I suppose, is what borderists are advocating in a way. Or, as the anonymous commenter advocates, "Kill them all and let God sort them out"- 7 billion of "them".

You can have Liberty, or you can have government-enforced "national borders", but not both. They are mutually exclusive. (And "secured borders", and all that goes along with them, are also unconstitutional, but that's another issue.)

If you believe a government's "borders" can protect your liberty by keeping out those who would violate it, you must also believe a person can only be raped by one rapist at a time.

As soon as you have a government large and powerful enough to "secure" those borders, you will have "taxes" being stolen to finance them. You will have the property rights of those along that border being violated as being inferior to the government's imaginary "rights" (some of those violated are fine with that, believing it the preferable violation- or totally blinded by nationalism). You will have the right of association violated. You will have the right to travel unmolested being violated. Where these things are happening, there is no liberty. There is no longer anything to protect.

The big fear seems to be that all those "immigrants" come here and end up v*ting Democratic, and against the right to own and to carry guns. And they might. Especially if they see angry gun owners talking about deportation, prison, and walls, while simultaneously saying they are lazy welfare parasites, and that they "take our jobs".

That is no excuse. You've got to strike at the root.

V*ting on rights, by anyone, is the problem. Rights are never legitimately up for a v*te nor subject to popular opinion. And if someone places your rights on a ballot, or allows a politician to live... I mean, stay in office after he has violated your rights, then that is the problem more than the idiots- regardless of where they were born- who support the violation of human rights through "majority rule".

Instead of making enemies, why not first try to be friends and help them understand why the right to own and to carry guns is their natural, individual right, too? And, if that fails, defend yourself from those who try to violate you without worrying about where they were born.

I can't see how anyone can imagine that being violated by bullies who were born in the same tax farm you were born in is somehow "better" than being violated by bullies born somewhere else.

You can't protect liberty by destroying liberty. No matter how much you wish the opposite were true. And anti-"immigrant" is just as anti-liberty as anti-gun.

(This is my 4000th blog post here. I never suspected I had that many in me.)

Monday, June 06, 2016

Positively imaginary things and their rights

I just read a strange string of words: "A country has the right to..."

Really?

It doesn't matter what the supposed right was, since a collective has no rights and never can.

Rights are purely individual in nature. A collective can't have any rights not held by every individual voluntary member of that collective (and if the group is truly voluntary for each and every member, I don't consider it a collective). And a coercive collective isn't even true cooperation- it is just a big rights-violating party where a few individuals live as parasites on the rest of the individuals.

Those rights held by a voluntary group's individual members don't change one iota due to membership in that group. Disband the group and the rights remain unchanged. The group is completely inconsequential to any rights which the individuals have.

So, no. A country has no rights. The individuals in that country have all the rights, and those rights are almost certainly violated most seriously by the individuals acting on behalf of that imaginary coercive collective they call the "country".

Sunday, June 05, 2016

Right and wrong- them and you

The nature of an act- particularly its rightness or wrongness- doesn't change depending on who is committing the act.

It doesn't matter if you idolize those committing the act or hate them.

If "their" troops are evil for doing it, so are "your" troops. Also, if "your" troops are righteous for doing something, so are theirs. Every person on the planet has equal and identical rights- and no one has the right to do things outside those rights.

Again: Right and wrong don't depend on who does them.

It seems a lot of people don't understand that simple principle.

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Government hurts the poor

If you support The State, you advocate harming the poor. You aren't showing love or generosity, or even concern for their plight. You are acting like you hate them and want to make them suffer.

Government hurts the poor and the "middle class" the most. The rich can afford the added expense and time of jumping over government's hurdles and complying with all its silly demands. They have the money, connections, and power to work around them, or even to use them to their advantage.

The poor don't.

And this isn't the fault of the rich; everyone should do what they can to survive living around a government- as long as they don't use that government to physically attack- or threaten to attack- anyone who has not attacked anybody else, nor to violate their property.

Of course, government also hurts the rich- or at least costs them- but they have enough spare resources to deal with it. They may grumble, and have to waste money protecting themselves from The State, but at least they usually manage. Everything they waste complying with, or avoiding, the State is money and time that won't go into helping others- it is just flushed down the hole that is government. It can't be invested in their businesses, it can't be used to buy products or services from people desperate for more customers, it can't be used to hire people who want a job. It is wasted.

But, the rich survive it.

Not so with the poor.

But what about welfare and minimum wage "laws"? Aren't those there to help the poor?

I would gladly trade all of those "protections" for the liberty of being free of government interference in my life. I'm just saying there's a big difference- a negative difference- between a handout or some "favor" like having wages kept artificially high, and being allowed to improve your own lot in life.

Big government prevents people from earning money the way they are most suited for. If they don't have the required permits and licenses, and if they don't pay the extortion called "taxes" for the privilege of adding value to society, they will be punished. Robbed, caged, or even murdered.

When you help government grow, you are hurting everyone, but you are hurting the poor and the middle class the most.

If you believe you can grow government to help the poor, you are moving backwards. It's like you are helping government to break their legs and then steal a crutch from someone else on their behalf. Support for government isn't just crazy, it's wrong.

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Hope floats, or maybe it dog paddles

In my family I have racists, people on welfare, lots of government employees (mostly in kinderprison jobs), borderists, and generally people who are happy to use the force of the State against those they don't like.

Liberals, neocons, or any other flavor of statist you can imagine. People who despise the force of the state being used against them, but who have no problem siccing the state on others. It drives me nuts.

I have expressed my views to them, but I can't force them to do what I think is right. That would be acting like they act.

Mostly, I simply refuse to be a part of their statist games, and roll my eyes at them a lot. And some of them are actually beginning to move ever-so-slightly in my general direction. It gives me hope.

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