Kent's "Hooligan Libertarian" Blog

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Charged with 'Possession of...'

Possession of anything, no matter what it is, can never be a real crime.

It doesn't matter how much you wish it were so.

That goes for drugs, guns, large amounts of cash, "open containers", or anything else.

For one thing, it is easy to plant some prohibited item on a person you want to find a reason to punish. Cops do it all the time, and if you believe they don't you might ought to consider a few thoughts.

Is it easy to plant something on someone? Is it likely you'd get caught doing so? Is the benefit of planting it outweighed by the small risk of being caught? Is it likely that anyone who voices the concern that the prohibited item was planted will be ostracized as siding with the "criminal"- and quite probably lumped in and accused of the same "crime" the supposed criminal was accused of?

The answers to all those questions, if one is honest, shows that planting prohibited items goes on all the time.

Sure, some people actually do have guns and use them aggressively. Some people do use and sell "drugs"- although making this "illegal" was one of the most evil acts of statism ever committed. Some people involved in things the government disapproves of do carry around big wads of cash. So what?

For a real crime, as opposed to a government "crime", to have been committed, an individual or their property has to have been violated individually by the individual person who is responsible. Possession of anything doesn't cut it. Not ever.

But, when the "authorities" can parade (or speak of) the prohibited things being found in the possession of a person they are seeking to punish, and when the general population cheers for the "bad guy" getting caught. it is just too convenient. Advocating these sorts of "laws", or supporting enforcement of them, plays right into the wrong hands.

Simple possession, of anything, can never be a crime, even if in some cases it might be ethically or morally wrong. Anything else is just too ripe for abuse by the real bad guys: the bullies who call themselves government.

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Just a common cop

The other day I saw a cop and the thought came to me "He's just a common cop."

Yep. That's what they are: a common cop, or even a "common badge". Lowly scum, just like any other common criminal-type property-violating, aggressive scum.

These "people" need to be reviled just like other "common criminals" are. They are worse, in fact, since they seem to feel entitled to worship due to their vile position. Few burglars would expect to lead a parade or have people thank them for what they do. But, cops? All the time.

#CopsAreScum

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

All have identical, equal rights

(My Clovis News Journal column for April 8, 2016)

I see politics as a flawed attempt to get along with people you don't like. Flawed, because using the violence of laws to try to make people do what you want leads them to pull the same stunt against you. It's the ultimate "an eye for an eye" opera, which never ends unless one side stops.

One sad thing I've noticed is people preemptively poking themselves in the eye-- doing their enemies' work for them-- without realizing what they are doing. They do this by supporting the political party "their people" have historically identified with regardless of how it actually treats them.

I wonder why people do these harmful things to themselves.

Why do most feminists, LGBTQs, and environmentalists support the Democratic Party, when it doesn't actually support them?

Why do most conservative Christians, gun owners, and entrepreneurs stand behind the Republican Party, when it betrays them whenever it gets the chance?

The mainstream parties are out for their own best interests, willing to use whoever they can dupe, as long as they find them convenient. As soon as the favors are due, they get amnesia about who gave them their power. And their supporters forgive and forget.

On all these matters libertarians-- even the Libertarian Party, if you still believe politics can solve anything-- are more welcoming to all the above than either of the mainstream parties.

The only thing anyone might miss in libertarianism is the lack of license to violate others or their property. If this is your desire, you're on your own. It doesn't matter what your excuse is, how bad you want to reserve the option, how "necessary" you believe it is, or who assures you it's OK.

Libertarians know beyond a shadow of a doubt, and are willing to put their lives where their mouths are, that every human on the planet has equal and identical rights. Whether the "powers that be" respect those rights or not. Regardless of what you own, who you love, where you were born, what language you speak, what you worship, how much melanin is in your skin, or which chromosomes you have.

Unfortunately, this eliminates any excuse to use laws to make anyone subservient to anyone else. No legal favoritism and no legal hindrances. Many people can't tolerate this equality.

This causes me to reach the sad conclusion that for most people it's not enough to experience liberty-- someone else must have their liberty violated, too. Which explains why we still suffer politics and governments.

Great and Fearful "Laws"

I'm not afraid of your "laws".

I don't honor or respect them, either.

Nor do I want or need them.

They are nothing to me. Less than nothing.

Laws never stop bad guys from hurting me, and if bad guys who use laws to violate others want to hurt me they don't need laws to help them do so.

Sure, the most cowardly bad guys hide behind "laws", but they'd hide behind something no matter what.

Respect for the law seems an empty thing to hold on to. A very silly thing.

Monday, May 09, 2016

Statist Language Games

(Previously posted to Patreon)

Control the language and you control thought. Sometimes to the point that thoughts outside of the box aren't even possible. How can you think something when there are no words to express it? Or if the words have been redefined to the point they are meaningless?

Nowhere is this reality as obvious as in the use of "legal definitions".

Legal definitions are written by statists. Statists who believe in the State and in "laws" that create the State and prop it up. "Laws" which create "authority" and privileges and obligations... which have no foundation in reality.

Maybe in some cases they were halfway decent statists who wanted to promote liberty, but the very notion of a legal definition is statist.

When people focus on legal definitions they are being brainwashed into statism.

People who "study law" seem to get sucked into the superstition worse than people who don't. They begin to believe human-written "law" is legitimate. And "important". And somehow "truth".

At least I sure see a lot of evidence of that.

**Magical words will fix everything, if you just say them the right way.**

**Look at the words on this paper; they don't say what you believe they say, and if you know what they *really* mean, you can show this to the Rulers and they'll leave you alone.**

Stuff like that.

It's where you get the self-contradictory idea of the "sovereign citizen".

And those who fall for this the hardest get really angry at people who don't buy into their superstitions. I just had one (who was also posting links where he blamed everything on Jews, and demonstrated he doesn't have a clue what "libertarian" means) call me an idiot on Facebook. I count that as an endorsement.

But he seems to really believe that if a definition is the "legal definition", it means something more than what the word means, and it can be used to advance his agenda- whatever that may be.

Well, good luck playing a game that was rigged so that you can never really win. As for me, no thanks.

Magical acts of statism: destroying guns

Very few statist acts are as stupid and full of delusional magical-thinking as the act of destroying guns. Either individually, or on an industrial scale. Well, perhaps the statist act of destroying ivory and rhino horns is equally stupid and delusional.

But, really. You have tools that you fear. Instead of fearing (or defending yourself from) the few bad guys who use the tools, you allow a huge gang of the worst of the worst to steal the tools, and then destroy them to "keep them out of the wrong hands".

If you are destroying guns for the State, you are the wrongest of hands.

Do you somehow believe that destroying valuable tools will change the hearts and minds of those who would violate others? You say you hate gun manufacturers, but you help keep the price of their products artificially high.

You believe that destroying historical objects is a good thing to do, just because you are too cowardly to take responsibility for yourself?

Do you believe a gun used in a crime has somehow been possessed by an evil spirit and needs to be melted down to ... what?.. burn the demon, or release it back into the wild? How dumb are you, really?

Yes, destroying guns is stupid. It is magical thinking. And yet, many of those responsible know how stupid those who cheer their destruction are, because they know what I just pointed out. They simply count of you being too stupid to see it.

Don't be their tool.

Sunday, May 08, 2016

All the world is a stage Act on it.

Everything good happens against a backdrop of liberty. Or, inside a matrix of liberty, if you prefer thinking in higher dimensions.

Nothing truly good violates liberty, and nothing evil is liberty compliant. (Liberty has room for plenty of ethically neutral acts, though.)

Even when evil people like cops or freelance thugs choose to do something good-- something which they have a right to do and which violates no other person or their property, and which benefits someone other than themselves-- liberty allows them the choice. It gives them the space in which they act.

When they choose to do wrong, that's not liberty. It is a violation of liberty.

Saturday, May 07, 2016

Hurting the bad guys' feelings

I am not an angry person.

But, I'm not gonna coddle statists, and they often see this as anger. The truth is "mean". It hurts their feelings. Well too bad. But I get it. No one wants to see that they are wrong.

What seems really odd to me is when other liberty lovers mistake truth and a lack of coddling for anger.

Maybe you want me to hold their hands and tell them "Now, now. You're not so bad. You just have a different opinion. It's OK". This might work in a few cases, but some people need to be snapped out of it, and this touchy-feely stuff won't work for them. They need to be shown exactly how horrible they are being. Yeah, they may dig in their heels, but it's still right to warn them that beliefs- especially horrible false beliefs- have consequences.

But, really, you believe telling them what they advocate is wrong isn't nice? Are you missing what they are doing to you? Would you comfort a rapist from all the mean old people who tell him he is evil? Would you get upset at the person who shoots him in self defense? Would you say we should just reason him out of his behavior, and if he doesn't want to change, "Oh well"?

Then why coddle statists?

Maybe you don't understand exactly what it is they are supporting. They don't care that they support sacrificing your property to their beliefs. If you get in the way, they support putting you in a cage. You liberty scares them, and they want bullies to control you. And if you resist any of this, they're fine with you being murdered. That is what government-- The State-- is. It is ALL it is. Aggression and theft on a grand scale. "Too big to change."

Well, it's still wrong to support The State. In every circumstance. If you're going to support evil, but you don't want anyone to call you out on it, you are going to be disappointed. Time to grow up.

Thursday, May 05, 2016

Reading hieroglyphs

When you see a "no guns" sign do you know how to interpret that particular modern hieroglyph?

I do.

The above symbol means "The management of this establishment is so terrified of self-responsible humans that in case one of them ignores this deplorable sign and enters you'll find said manager crying like a baby, soaking in pants soiled with his own filth, under the nearest chair."

A picture is worth a thousand whimpers.

Or, maybe it really means something else altogether. You never know with anti-liberty bigot cowards.

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Statist drama overload

I get it. I'm different.

If you are going to engage in statist drama- v*ting, "criminal justice", punishment, prohibition, imprisonment, "borders" and "immigrants", and all the rest- just leave me out of it.

I am not in your cult and I don't want to be involved in your aggressive and destructive rituals. I hate them and I hate your cult.

Even if you claim it is for my own good- perhaps especially then- none of it is done on my behalf.

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Liberty much like buffet choices

(My Clovis News Journal column for April 1, 2016)

Buffets are nice. You get to choose what you like from all the glorious possibilities offered, picking and choosing your favorites. If you see something you find disgusting, skip it and move on to the next item. No single buffet can possibly offer everything, but no one can tell the buffets what to offer. Consider them all together and your dining choices are practically unlimited.

Some people think of liberty as a buffet, but they want to be in control of what's offered so as to limit the choices others can make. They want to pick and choose between the things they personally like while claiming everything they don't like is off-limits for everyone. This is the opposite of liberty.

With liberty you can choose anything which doesn't violate another person or their private property. The popular, the offensive, the wise, and the foolish- they are all there. Things you love and things you hate. The only thing not available is the authority to tell others which selections they can't choose. Neither are you allowed to slap the choices you disapprove of from anyone's tray.

No one will force you to take part in things you don't like, but they are there if you ever change your mind. Your power lies in making the choices for yourself, not for anyone else.

In other words, you don't get to decide what is on the buffet, even as you decide which parts to enjoy.

Be warned: this liberty buffet has many choices which may offend you. Some of the offerings may even offend the majority of people. But as long as one doesn't use private property against the wishes of the owner, nor use violence against those who are not being violent nor violating someone else's property, it's simply none of your business. Being offended is your personal problem, not a license to push others around.

This is hard for a lot of people, even some who claim to support liberty. People react strongly to those things which offend or disgust them, forgetting that things they see as normal probably disgust and offend someone else.

It's painful to see someone who says they love liberty trying to limit other people's choices on the grounds that those choices are disgusting.

Respecting liberty doesn't mean you approve of everything others might do, it means you recognize where the limits of your power lie. It's an issue of boundaries.

Support?

Is "Cops are scum" collectivism?

(Previously posted to Patreon)

In spite of the well-meaning-- but misguided-- objections of some liberty lovers, "Cops are scum" is NOT a collectivist statement. It is a recognition of identity.

Frozen water is ice. It doesn't matter what form it takes; whether a snowflake, an icicle, or the surface of a hockey rink. It doesn't matter what contaminants it contains or any other conditions. If it is frozen water, it is ice.

If someone is a cop, that person is scum.

Only scum would lower itself to do the things a cop must do as a part of the job.

It doesn't matter how nice Cousin Bob the Cop is at the family picnics. If cousin Bob is a cop, then cousin Bob is required to be scum while he is on the clock. Can a person be part-time scum, or does it color everything he does? Can there be good serial killers?

Now, maybe you believe scum is a necessary component of society. That's a different question altogether. I believe you are wrong, but it's a question for another day.

Saying "cops are scum" is no more collectivist than saying "rapists are aggressors". "Policing" is what someone does, not who they are. A rapist might be the nicest person you ever met while they aren't raping. They might save little old ladies from violent death. But, still, as a rapist he is an aggressor-- not a "good person" at all, no matter what else he does. And, no matter what good a cop may do, as a cop he is scum.

Saying something like "Black people are criminals" is collectivist. No one chooses his or her "race". Being "Black" or "White" or "Asian" doesn't mean anything as to the character of the person. I know people of every "race" who could disprove any collectivist accusation anyone could dream up about them, good or bad.

But being a cop is a conscious choice. It is the choice to enforce counterfeit "laws" against people. It is the choice to be a thief and aggressor. Choosing to be a cop is choosing specific actions and behaviors. You can't make that choice and be a good person.

Every good thing a cop might do could just as easily be done by anyone. Every evil committed by a cop could only be committed and gotten away with by those operating under the safety net of being a cop. Cops are allowed to commit evil by "virtue" of their job. Things you or I would rightfully be shot for doing, cops do every single day.

So, when someone doesn't like the truth that "cops are scum" being shared, and tries to make the case that you are being as collectivist as racists, just remember: "Cop" is a behavior, not a "race". To deny that some behaviors are evil is denying reality.

#CopsAreScum

Letting "the law" control you

If you go out of your way to make an effort to break a "law" just because it's "illegal", you are just as much a slave to the "law" as those who go out of their way to obey.

Monday, May 02, 2016

Statists are crazy wrong

Statists are often somewhat right about the problem, but crazy wrong about the causes and the solutions.

Crime is a problem. Real crime, not victimless "crime". But it's not as large a problem as statists believe. If they were realistic about the amount of crime there is, it would eliminate a lot of their justifications for government/The State.

They see crime and are quick to blame "illegals", guns, drugs, and whatever else their particular bonnet bee happens to be, but don't notice that the root cause of actual wrongdoing is aggression, and the biggest advocate (or "normalizer") of aggression is the belief that it can sometimes be right. Particularly if done in the name of The State.

And their "solutions" inevitably revolve around giving The State more excuses to commit aggression and theft.

Yes, they are actually that crazy. That's why they are still statists. And why they continue to be so wrong about the causes and solutions for problems.

Sunday, May 01, 2016

Punishment addiction

I understand where the base desire for punishment comes from- it comes from the same place the acceptance of theft and aggression comes from.

But it often causes more of what it is claimed to stop. Especially when imposed by The State.

I used to be a fan of punishment. Therefore I can still understand the attraction, even though I have moved on.

But, if you believe you can teach someone to not violate person or property by making them suffer through their own person or property at some future time, it seems to me you don't understand people very well.

People never believe they are going to get caught. They will be the exception. So, they don't fear punishment, because that only happens to people who get caught.

And things such as imprisonment create a culture you have forced them to join- as punishment- where they can learn more justifications to violate person and property, and more skills to carry it out. It's a stupid, self-defeating "solution", even if you can't think of anything better right now. Even if you believe doing anything else means they "got away with it".

I see people who are hung up on punishment as addicts. Nothing you can say will convince them they are shooting themselves in the foot. It's something they must see for themselves, if they are to ever see it.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

"Not to worry. I have a permit."

Ever find yourself in a situation where some bully is demanding to see a "permit" because you are doing something you have a right to do, but which some "authority" has decided to control?

Well, worry no more. You now have a permit:

Print them out and distribute them to all your friends and family
PDF here (Thanks to the Granarchist!)

Yes, Ron Swanson's permit is simpler, but as you know, some people want to do things they have no right to do. This avoids that issue.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

"I've seen what a lack of government leads to"

(Previously posted to Patreon)

Government- or more accurately, The State- is always a net negative to society.

There is simply no excuse for it.

But, but...!!! What about all these people out there who claim to have seen the absence of government in various hellholes around the planet (generally while invading with a government military and therefore responsible to a great degree for the hellhole quality of the place), and so insist that government is "necessary" or "essential"?

First off, they are lying.

The places they point to are never examples of "no government", but are usually examples of competing governments. Gang warfare, between competing gangs of bullies seeking to govern the same area. In other words, not a case of "too little government" but a clear case of too much government. Like Somalia, for example.

But, they don't know they are lying. They have come to believe unless a government matches one of the templates in their head-- involving the infrastructure, rituals, dress code, etc.-- it can't be a government. So when the murder, theft, and corruption is more openly committed than by the governments they are accustomed to seeing, by people who don't look or act like they expect government to look and act, they mistakenly view it as a lack of government rather than a case of government competition.

They may point to warlords (government) or rape gangs (government) or thieves and murderers (government) violating the people of the area, and say how much better it is here. The reason it is "better" (less brutal, perhaps) here is that the people here don't generally fight back against the bullies here, seeing them as somehow "legitimate". I know- it's utterly insane! But they usually do. Their first instinct is to comply with the most arbitrary and evil demands, as long as those demands come from a government employee. Otherwise there would be no such thing as "drivers licenses", anti-gun "laws", the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs, speeding "laws", property codes, dog licenses, and... well the list could go on for page after page.

Then too, the cases where the government here murders, rapes, robs (beyond "normal taxation"), and behaves like those foreign bad guys, are carefully ignored unless it is impossible to do so. Then it's a "few bad apples", or "he should have just obeyed their orders", or "he brought it on himself". It's never the fault of government, but of the victim. It's a sick world-view.

But, if it is a gang seeking monopoly control of the people in a region, sustaining itself with theft ("taxation" or some other kind), making up arbitrary rules and enforcing those rules under penalty of death, it is a government. What is more honestly referred to by quaint people who aim for accuracy, as a State.

There is no such thing as too little government. It's like claiming a person can be too healthy. There are bad guys everywhere. What they do always involves the political means, rather than the economic means. Whether they are called "the government" or not is irrelevant. What matters is how they behave. Do they employ aggression and theft? Then they are government of one kind or another, no matter what you call them.

So, do you prefer one form of slavery over another? I don't blame you if you do. But the solution isn't to excuse the slavery because it could be worse. The solution is to hang the slavers up by their entrails and stop being a slave.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

"Witch!"

The accusation of "Witch!" just doesn't have the effect it once did.

These days a new accusation is needed when evil people seek to destroy (figuratively, if not literally) someone they don't like.

Fortunately (?) for those people, the modern religion of HyperStatism has provided a worthy substitute. Now all you have to do is point an extended finger and scream "Child molester!" and hope it takes hold.

It finally got used against me*. Probably by a cop, but maybe just a copsucker. It doesn't seem to have stuck. This time. If I keep poking the evildoers, they may try again. Time will tell.

Interestingly, I'm not concerned. If I were, I would have deleted the comment. As it is, I'm actually calling your attention to it.

Copsuckers and their gods are really sick people. No act seems to be below them. It tells us all we need to know.

*It's possible someone has done this before and I just don't remember.

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Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Better tools

If someone can only think of one way to deal with a particular issue, and you point out why you believe their way is wrong, they can get really angry over it.

I guess I can understand. They had a tool, and you've just taken it from them- or made the argument why they should lay their tool aside.

That might upset me, too.

No one doubts aggression can be "useful". But there is always a better way- one which doesn't involve aggression. It might be harder to find. It might be harder to implement. It may not have the instant results you want. But you still have no right to initiate force.

And, if you don't think you can afford something, stealing it is a "useful"way to get it. But theft is always wrong, even if you call it "taxation", "fines", "asset forfeiture", "property codes", "zoning laws", "fairness", "common good", or various other euphemisms thieves prefer. You still have no right to steal.

If those are the tools you reach for when a problem crops up, you need better tools. And since using government to "solve" your problems is always a use of theft and/or aggression, using government against people is not the best thing to do.

My only exception to that would be when you have the chance to use government against itself. In that case, I think it's hilarious to see government eat itself. Just be very careful- anytime you involve government at all, you increase your risk of being caught up in the carnage. Just make sure it's worth it to you.

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