The National Agenda

As I was walking past the television I heard some TV face on a political show saying that "The battle is over who will control the National Agenda". I am assuming he was only considering the various minions of the Tyrannocrat Party. To me the real question is "Should there BE a national agenda to control?"

Of course, my position is that there should not be. A "national agenda" implies that there is "one answer to fit all" out there. It suggests that attacking other countries before they have a chance to attack "us" is a legitimate course of action. This is the kind of thinking that leads to "for the children" disasters, and welfare rolls expanding, and laws that cripple us all for the benefit of parasites and predators.

You as an individual can and probably should, have an agenda. It gives focus to your life. America, as a country, once had an agenda. It was called the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The US government rebelled against it and has been floundering looking for a legitimate purpose ever since.

Who's the "Criminal"?

I was reading a website where Steve Kubby was referred to as a "felon" and it got me thinking. He is considered a bad guy by the government, and his only "crime" was in violating the counterfeit "laws" against self-medicating with chemicals the government doesn't like. Yet when police officers kick in the door of an old woman while enforcing these same counterfeit "laws", and shoot her to death, they get the benefit of the doubt. Even to the point of the government trying to tarnish the grandmother's name. It becomes news when it seems they may, possibly, be held accountable for their murderous rampage.

If the concept of a "felony" is legitimate, it is only the serious crimes that fit the definition. Crimes like murder, rape, kidnapping, major thefts (IRS), and serious assaults. How long a time the corrupt agents of the government choose to hold a person prisoner should not enter into the definition. Using chemicals on your own body does not measure up. Neither does owning a gun. Nor refusing to pay taxes. If no harm is done to another person, no crime was committed. Anyone who considers himself a libertarian in any sense should recognize the distinction and not fall into using the state's terminology against anyone who has committed no crime. Cops who murder old women fit the bill very well; Steve Kubby does not. So I ask: Who is the criminal?

Laugh at Me

It is a sad fact of life today that people seem to have lost the ability to laugh at themselves. Perhaps a sense of humor is getting as rare as "common sense". Almost every joke has to come with a disclaimer that "no offense is intended". Television commercials, when creative, can be certain to offend someone, somewhere, too. Humans are absurd. We might as well admit and enjoy it. Throwing a tantrum about a joke that we find offensive drives the point home even harder.

Look at me for example. I think I can make a difference. Is that funny, or what? How can I take myself seriously? I get my panties in a wad when I misspell a word and can't edit it. (As I did here. Look at the last word. I hate that!!) I refuse to dress conventionally or to cut my hair to "fit in". I wear 18th century style glasses. I force myself to deal with handicaps that most people think are unnecessary because I refuse to tolerate certain government intrusions or ridiculous demands from employers. I have hobbies that most people don't "get". I am not an expert on anything, yet I foolishly believe I can understand most things at their core. I sing karaoke.

These things may or may not have any bearing on whether my ideas have any merit. That isn't for me to decide. After all: crazy people don't know they are crazy.

Out-of-Proportion Punishments

Out-of-proportion responses by government cause panic and bad decisions by people. Just like someone who is involved in a hit-and-run accident who panics and leaves the scene of the accident. How much of this is caused by a fear of the draconian punishment meted out by government? Probably most of it. Otherwise, there is no reason to panic. Ask someone who has done this and see why they fled. I doubt they feared that the pedestrian's family would kill them.

I can usually count on a rational response from individuals. Even when I unintentionally have harmed someone. Give that individual the badge, though, and you create someone who no longer treats the "non-badged" among us as humans, but as "perps". Simply putting a bad(ge) guy into the mix escalates the tension.

Take the case of the hit-and-run. If it happens, you can count on the fact it was not intentional. The person who is at fault should take responsibility for causing harm. Even if it is the pedestrian who is to blame. However, if the driver has no license, or no insurance, has taken an allergy pill, or is even just behind on child support, the consequences of having to talk to a cop can destroy his life. His car may be stolen; he may be jailed. Someone who may desperately want to stay and help is prevented from doing so out of fear of inappropriate punishment.

The worse the law pollution becomes, the less respect I have for any laws. I suspect I am not alone.

"Driving is a Privilege"?

Privilege. This means it can legitimately be denied to you if you don't agree to do it the state's way. Nonsense. What would have happened if the British had tried to force the colonists to pay for "license brands" to be renewed yearly on their horses' rumps? What if they had been required to get "riding licenses" in order to ride a horse to town? More British enforcers would have been hanging from lamp posts and much sooner, that is what. What has happened to us? Why do we tolerate such obvious meddling? Driving is simply a modern extension of walking or horse riding. Nothing more; nothing less. Any claim about "higher technology" is meaningless. It makes as much sense as saying there is a right to "freedom of the press" as long as no technology invented after 1789 is used. Quills or 18th century printing presses are OK, but ball-point pens and computers are not, without a government permit. The technology increases, not diminishes, the safety. Should riding bareback be unregulated, yet if you use a saddle, you need a government permission slip? Is horseback riding so safe that no one ever dies? Hardly. Were the roads not "public" back then, so government couldn't lay claim to everything that touched them?

There is a right to travel (not a "right to trespass"), and it is not dependent on the method or technology used. Any government regulation, licensing, restriction, or obstruction (such as "check points") of this right is to be decried as the thrashings of a tyranny running out of time. Stop the highway bandits-with-badges.

... For Your Own Good....

How many things does government impose on us "for our own good"? Well, there are all the gun "laws" and the drug "laws". Then there are the "health laws" regulating certain foods and behaviors. Seatbelt laws and speed limits and laws against porn. Mandated vaccinations and building codes. Even tax laws are involved since this is how all this enforcing is financed. "You can't cut the budget for cops because the resulting chaos would kill us all!!" Every one of these laws has a reasonable sounding, if completely erroneous, "safety" component to it.

With all these laws making sure we are safe, why do we not live forever? Because they don't work, can't work and were never intended to work. At least, not in the way they were "sold" to us. These laws are about controlling the peasants. They do make certain people safer: government enforcers and bureaucrats. The rest of us do not matter to those who believe they are superior. We have fallen for their lies for centuries. If the average person does not have the capacity to manage his own life, what makes you think that once elected to a political office, that same person can manage the lives of all those he seeks to control?

My job as president would be to hand your life back to you. You are the only person who truly has your "own good" firmly in mind. I trust you with your own life; would you trust me as president?

Politics One Polls

Politics One as two polls where you can vote for me. The Situation Poll (the second poll down on the right side) and the Libertarian Party poll (further down). Thanks for all the votes!

"In Search of the Second Amendment"

The new documentary, "In Search of the Second Amendment", is a scholarly examination by David Hardy into the historical background of the right to keep and bear arms. I have not had a chance to see it, but will try to get a copy soon. If you have an interest in this subject, I would recommend that you watch this. You can watch the YouTube preview at the bottom of the page I linked to. The collectivists out there will not like this film, and will make the same old tired excuses that they always do. They are still wrong.

Not to Be Trusted?

Does anyone really feel that they, personally, need to be tracked and controlled by government? Or do they feel that only other people need to be watched, and that in order to accomplish this, they are willing to put up with it themselves? In either case, to be so suspicious of one's fellow humans is pathetic. To hand them over to the state to satisfy one's paranoia is even worse; it is evil. How can individuals be worse than a group of people who work openly to enslave you? As a group, government is insulated from taking the blame and receiving real consequences from destructive actions. There is safety (for the individuals in government) in numbers. So who should really not be trusted? Why not require tracking collars on politicians and other government employees at all times? Why not make them all submit to humiliating random drug tests and constant surveillance? After all, they are the ones who can do the most damage to America. As tempting as it is, it would still be wrong. As libertarians we have the moral high-ground. This means honoring even the rights of those who do not deserve the consideration. Like governmental parasites.

REAL ID? Any ID? Why?

There is starting to be a lot of mainstream opposition to REAL ID. This is the universal tracking permit that the government wants to force you to have in order to still qualify as an American. Some states are rejecting it, mainly due to financial reasons instead of the draconian socialist overtones inherent in it. Still, any opposition is good, for whatever reason. Bush wants to force you to have it. If you balk, you are a terrorist in his mind. It will replace and become your "driver's license" soon. The idea of being forced to carry any sort of identification should be recognized as completely against any sort of freedom that America ever stood for. It is something directly from the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. People fell for it when driver's licenses were first "required" and they continue to fall for it each step of the way towards total state ownership. I can't tell you to refuse to submit to driver's licenses anymore, but I strongly suggest that once REAL ID gets implemented, you would be wise to consider refusing it. Why do you need a card from any government to "be legal"? The only reason for the card is to be tracked and controlled.

Illegal acts by government, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and REAL ID do more to give in to terrorist demands than any ransom ever paid or any concession ever given to freelance terrorists. Make no mistake; only the US government "hates us (Americans) for our freedoms". So it continues doing to Americans the exact thing that government mouthpieces claimed the 9/11 terrorists wanted; government destroyed out freedom. The US government is the largest terrorist organization the world has ever seen. America does not negotiate with terrorists. America should not give into demands of the US government tyrants.

The "Cult of Government"

If I were to start my own cult, I would find a basic human drive (the respect for a powerful leader-figure; fear of the unknown) to use to my advantage. I would then pervert basic human psychology (like our innate cooperativeness; the need to "belong") in order to collect followers, and I would emphasize the necessity of accepting the "truth" as I preach it, and would forbid real questions. Arguing over "how many angels could sit on the head of a pin" would be OK; questioning whether the angels actually existed would not.

In other words, I would set up a system just like a government. If you can "draft God" into your cult of government as effectively as many presidents, kings, and dictators have done, you have an even greater advantage. Allow the people to get caught up in whether Demopublicans or Republicrats are a better choice to lead America, but squelch any questioning of whether America needs to be led by anyone. Set up a dichotomy of "you are either with us or with our enemies" instead of letting anyone point out that government policies do more damage to freedom and liberty in America that if every freelance terrorist on earth suddenly invaded our shores. In the event of such an invasion, the population would see a clear threat and no government pronouncements would be able to keep us from doing everything in our power to protect our homes, gun "laws" or no. But if government dismantles America a piece at a time, saying it is for our own good, and says the only other option is to allow our "way of life to be destroyed", then people follow like cattle while the very parasites claiming to protect us, destroy us.

"They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer

Here is an exerpt from They Thought They Were Free - The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by
little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in
secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government
had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous
that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released
because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler,
their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who
would otherwise have worried about it."

A Trap to Avoid

I have read a few items recently on other blogs about people who have done horrible (in my opinion) things in support of the US superstate. We need to learn the art of recognizing these misdeeds and publicizing them without necessarily calling the authoritarians who do this by name. At least unless you can do it anonymously. It is an unfortunate fact of modern life that those who perpetrate crimes against humanity don't like to be called on it when they are exposed, and if motivated enough, they can make life miserable for those who expose them. This doesn't mean they hold the moral upper-hand, just that they have been empowered by their unholy alliances to do damage to those they fear. Attack the deed; not the person.

Drug Tests - Just Say "No! You Pervert!"

Why is it so important for employers to become perverted "urine collectors"? For most jobs, it probably wouldn't even matter if someone came to work slightly "impaired. For the rest, unless someone is obviously not "right", it doesn't matter if they are impaired because of chemicals, depression, illness, or lack of sleep. All those things impact performance. I don't want a surgeon cutting on my brain with any of these issues hanging over his head. Why are "drugs" singled out?

Your personal time is just that: personal. What you do on Friday night is not your employer's business on Monday (or a couple weeks later). Liability wouldn't be an issue if we could get back to holding people responsible for their actions and any harm they cause. But then, Congress would all be facing the death penalty, wouldn't they?

Which drugs are OK to use? Ibuprofen? Benedryl? Alcohol? Caffeine? Chocolate? Broccoli? Every single substance you ingest or inhale affects your body chemistry in some way. Some have more of an effect than others, but if you are able to do our job without putting anyone, other than yourself, in increased danger, then you should be left alone, and any bodily fluids you contain should be yours to do with as you see fit. If you apply for a job that demands a urine sample, give them one right then and there. Let them get a sponge if they want to put it in a cup. It is time to stand up like humans with dignity and say a loud "No!" to this sick behavior on the part of government and its worshippers.

Now, I recognize that employers have a right to require just about anything they want. On the other hand, no companies had even thought of this intrusion until it became a government fad. You also have a right to refuse a job if they make ridiculous demands. Without the blessing of government, fewer companies would try to get away with this sanctioned molestation. In a future, free, America there will be enough companies and opportunities competing for your skills that you will be able to pick and choose.

"The Light's On, but Nobody's Home" - Ed Lewis

Liberty For All article about "they".

Would I Be "Allowed" to Take Office?

Would the powers-that-be allow someone like me to become president? Would they make certain I was assassinated before I could begin to dismantle the police state that they are working so feverishly to implement? I do sometimes fear the possibility. I don't fear it enough to make me stop the campaign, though.

No matter who wins the presidency, no matter how loudly that candidate has decried the abuses of the government in the past, nothing ever changes once that person takes office. Am I the only person who has noticed this? How does the government make certain that nothing changes? Does it make sure that only a dedicated police-stater gets elected, or does it "convince" the new president to go along?

Whatever normally happens, I would not allow that to happen with my presidency. I pledge to uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights. My VP would have the responsibility for making certain of that, up to the point of shooting me if that is what it took. I would hope he would use persuasion, press conferences, and pressure before resorting to this last option. If I were ever guilty of going back on my campaign promises, and would not listen to reason, and some member of the population took it upon him- or herself to "fix" the situation through assassination, my successor would be under strict instructions to grant an immediate pardon to "the voter". This is the only way to keep a politician, even the most well-meaning one, honest.

Murder-by-Cop in Florida

Isaac Singletary, 81 years old, of Jacksonville, Florida is the latest victim of murderous drug cops.

"If you've got an individual that's got a firearm, then you have to do what you have to do based on your training to protect your life or protect the lives of others," said the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Director of Homeland Security and Investigations, Micheal Edwards.

And that is exactly what Mr. Singletary tried to do. He had tresspassers in his yard. He asked them to leave. They refused, and he tried to defend himself against these criminals. Once again, though, the bad guys had badges. He was murdered for his efforts.

Libertarians: Amish of the Future?

A couple of days ago, I was watching "2057" on The Discovery Channel, a program looking at life fifty years from now, and wondering; where privacy will be in the future. It was mentioned a few times on the show, but only in passing. Will libertarians be left out of the future wonders if we do not accept the all-seeing state? Will we be the Amish of the future? Will we, will liberty, become obsolete? That is a scary thought. Or will the world be divided into the urban areas of great technology, but zero privacy, and rural areas of greater privacy, but less tech? Perhaps the liberty lovers will be expected to put up with the intrusive state, and pay for it, but will not get any benefit because we won't or can't pay for it. We are already viewed as paranoiacs just because we can see the drawbacks of giving up liberty for (false) security. We are already being marginalized because we don't ask for permission to do the things we know we have an inborn right to do. Try explaining to some state sympathizer why you have no "driver's license". Try to retain a bit of privacy when you open a bank account. Imagine how much harder it will be in the future. It will be hard, but we must never give up. It will be easier to hold onto what we have, than to try to get it back if we give in now.

Then again, government meddling has kept all the wondrous things that were predicted fifty years ago from coming to pass, maybe it will prevent this too. It's too bad. I would really like a flying car, even if I balk at government "requiring" a license and registration for using one.

"Politics One" January Poll

I ended up winning the Politics One Libertarian poll for January.

I am in fourth place in The Next Prez's January poll at the moment, and in third place on the Libertarian Poll.

"Thank you" to everyone for your votes!

Tyranny Deniers

There are people out there who seem to do everything in their power to overlook the evils of the state. They attack and ridicule those whom they mockingly call "tax deniers" and others who attempt to fight the state; even those who do so without any violence. They are the tyranny deniers. They would not see tyranny in their own backyard as long as it was operating under color of law. They try to trivialize the fight by finding fault in the argument that the resistance uses, or by finding fault in the resisters themselves. No one is perfect. I certainly am not. Does that make my fight against tyranny illegitimate? No, it makes my fight human. In epic battles of the past, sometimes less-than-heroic allies have helped defeat an even greater, more pressing evil. There is no more horrific evil than tyranny. Don't become a tyranny denier just because you may not like or agree with someone who is standing up to the state. Find a way to strike your own blows. Divide and conquer the state instead of letting the liberty movement be divided and conquered. Authoritarians of every stripe are a major threat to all of humanity, even to the tyranny deniers.