Buy some KentForLiberty swag on TeeSpring-- I have about 20 designs on there. You're bound to like at least one of them.
Donate FRNs, Bitcoin, or Dogecoin, and/or subscribe to make me feel as though what I contribute is worth my time and effort.
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| Is that you, Crow-magnum Man? |
I'll go with "Branch Covidians", instead. It's funnier and it's completely accurate.
Covidianism appears to be a branch of Statism, but maybe it's distinct and there's only some incidental overlap in the middle. Maybe, but probably not. The correlation seems too high to be coincidental.
Branch Covidians have their own religious canon-- handed down from the politicized Experts, put into action by the political Rulers, and preached by the priests of the Mainstream Media. It has sacred garments (face masks) and rituals (anti-social distancing). Sacrifices are required; both human sacrifice (people killed by shutdowns) and "covenants of flesh" (vaccinations), and tithes (economic ruin through shutdowns and stimulus money). And most of it is divorced from reality-- including science-- in a big way.
In spite of the craziness, the Branch Covidians have gone mainstream-- pushing their religion from the media and government buildings-- and it's bizarre.
My eyes hurt from rolling so much at what Branch Covidians believe and worry about. I can't be one of them. It appears I'm an atheist concerning that religion, too.
As with any religion, I have no problem with anyone practicing it until they start imagining that the rules they make up and apply to themselves as believers in that religion apply to the non-believers as well. Then I'm going to resist.
(My Eastern New Mexico News column for January 6, 2021)
For example--
When people observe that the pandemic (if real in the way it is being presented by politicians and their lackeys) is being used to condition people to be compliant, he misrepresents this by saying they are arguing that there was a meeting between politicians from all over the world where they hatched the plot to create the pandemic and use it to train compliance into the populations.
He changed the argument being made, regardless of whether the original argument was reasonable or not.
He's arguing against something that exists only in his own mind, because he probably can't argue convincingly against the actual observation which has been made. (Although, I'm not saying there's no one who believes this happened; there probably is.) This is a textbook example of the straw man argument.
He does this with guns, with trans"gender" issues, with copsucking, with the Constitution, and with any topic where he can promote government-supremacism. He simply takes whichever position increases government power. He doesn't do so by honestly addressing the criticisms, but by constructing flimsy straw men he can tear apart-- without acknowledging the actual argument against his side. Is he doing this just to prop up his own fragile belief system? It sure looks that way.
I still listen to him because when he's right, he's right. But when he's wrong it's because he's taking the government-supremacist side, almost without exception.
No matter what it does, no matter the actual results, they defend its existence in the face of 5000+ years of evidence. Even if they admit government sometimes commits great evil-- more than any other group has ever managed to commit-- they won't face the flawed premise it is built upon: that wrong isn't wrong if enough people sanction it.
They seem to imagine that any potential good justifies the very real evil.
I don't accept that, even as I'm able to recognize the "good" that can be sometimes accomplished (though never justified) by committing evil.
I accept that sometimes government does the right thing-- even government's gang of thugs occasionally does something worthwhile. Sometimes government gets good results. Where I part ways with the government-supremacists is that I recognize that good results or even sometimes "doing the right thing" doesn't excuse the institutionalized theft and/or coercion required to get there.
Doing wrong and having it turn out well anyway never excuses doing the wrong thing.
Was any medical knowledge gained by the Tuskegee Syphilis "study"? Probably, but that doesn't justify it. It was still evil.
Might mask mandates and forced shutdowns slow the spread of a virus? It doesn't matter because it's still wrong to do those things. Even if you are really scared of the virus.
Might draconian "border security" and "immigration" control prevent some problems? Probably, but that doesn't make it right-- get rid of the root cause of the potential problems (v*ting, welfare, and anti-defense legislation) instead of thrashing at the leaves.
It's entirely possible you could find some innocent individual who is still alive because of some specific anti-gun legislation. Even if there weren't a trade-off with lives lost as a result of such counterfeit rules, it's still wrong to violate the natural human right to own and to carry weapons.
Yet because people keep asking the wrong questions (because they either don't like the right ones or don't even know what to ask) they keep getting the wrong "answers". And this allows them to keep believing that somehow, some way, political government is something other than a cancer.
Responsible people who have worthwhile principles have to accept that they have no right to violate others just because they have (or believe they have) a good goal in mind.
A right is something you can do just because no one else has the right to prevent you from doing it. Something you can do because you were born human. (Which is everything that doesn't violate the equal and identical rights of anyone else.)
A privilege is when someone else lets you use their right in some limited way. Basically, they let you appear to "violate" their right-- with their permission-- for a set time, often in exchange for something they want, like money or information.
If they didn't have a right, they couldn't loan it to you.
Since rights can only be individual, not collective, and government can therefore have no rights, government can't even grant privileges. And they certainly don't have the "right" to ration or otherwise violate the rights of human beings in any way.
Even every argument against rights only destroys the justification for political government even harder.
It looks to me as though they already know and are afraid others will figure it out.
And do what, exactly?
At this point, the most that would happen is for Biden's presidency to come with an asterisk in future fringe history books. He still has the power to do all the damage he can think of while he occupies the office-- just like those who came before him, whether any of them were legitimately [sic] elected or not.
Of course, I don't believe in or advocate mob rule. There has never been a legitimate election and there never will be. So I'm not the kind of person they need to keep in the dark. It's all those they want to keep playing the rigged game. Those people have got to keep believing, because if they were to become like me, the whole tower of Dunder Mifflin complaint forms would collapse in a jumbled heap.
(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 30, 2020)
"Some government regulation is necessary, but this time it has gone too far."
This is what a statist who has been harmed by the state says.
How often do you see this statement, or something similar? Pretty much every day, right?
No, government regulation-- by legislation or by edict-- is not "necessary". Let the market regulate, instead. If regulation is actually necessary, it will happen organically without coercion.
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| Here, Elon. Print out and fill in your permit. |
I enjoy following the SpaceX Starship development down in south Texas. I'm excited to watch the next test flight. After several weather delays, it was scheduled to launch Thursday. Then the FAA decided to interfere.
The low-down slimy FAA pulled their flight permit (or whatever it is called) at the last minute; the morning of the planned test flight. And refuses to issue another one until their demands are met.
How does the FAA imagine they have "authority" to be issuing or withholding permits to anyone for anything? Wow, I hate that kind of arrogance.
They've demanded more info from SpaceX on the flight. As if they couldn't have asked earlier, before the flight was scheduled. (The individual bureaucrat responsible needs to be sued as an individual for the entire cost of the preparations that were wasted.)
Obviously, the FAA is staffed with useless bureaucratic piles of crap throwing their weight around. They have no legitimate "authority" over anyone. But they'll murder you to keep up the pretense if that's what it takes.
The FAA went from being a useless bureaucratic annoyance to a threat to the future of the human race. An enemy of every human being.
If anyone can take them down, it's Elon Musk*. I doubt it will come to that, but if it does I don't think it will go the way they imagine. I can think of several things he could do-- but I'll let him come up with his own ideas which would undoubtedly be even better.
At a minimum, SpaceX needs to drop the fawning "and thank you to the FAA for..." that they recite at the end of each launch broadcast. Why thank your mortal enemy?
Abolish the harmful FAA. Use its ruins as a toxic waste dump-- oh, wait, it's already worse than that! No free country would put up with such a monstrosity.
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*I understand the valid criticisms leveled against Musk's cronyism, and I agree with it all.
I would like to get in on Dogecoin, since... why not? So, if anyone is interested in donating some as an alternative to donating dollars or Bitcoin:
D6Wiw75gJbe9hzLEG7PeY22VRdVn2qfjPZ
I run into them everywhere; I'm sure you do, too. Most don't even realize they are the bad guys. Some see themselves as heroes, when nothing could be further from the truth.
I recognize that ignoring their toxic opinions, or even daring to refute them, can cause them to attack me, either individually or through the violence of the state. But I can't stand to see them attacking someone who isn't going along with their cultish agenda. Sometimes I step in, even though I'd rather ignore them, knowing I will only attract their wrath, just because I can't let their attack go unanswered.
Otherwise, I'll do what I can to avoid this or defend myself if avoidance fails, but I still don't care about their ignorant and wrongheaded opinions.
Why would anyone?
They are petulant toddlers with illegitimate power. Let them throw their tantrums and try to stay out of their reach. But don't concern yourself with what they think of you. They are just not credible, rational, or sensible.
You should care what some people think. It's probably not healthy to not care what anyone thinks. You'd be a psychopath or something if that were the case. But most people "out there" aren't really worth coddling.
These people will try to bully you into doing or saying what they want. It's going to probably seem rude to them when you refuse. But how would it feel to you if you caved in? How would it look to others who see you comply with something you (and they) know isn't right? Which is worse?
I usually try to find a way to refuse to go along that isn't confrontational. Often I simply ignore them-- they aren't worth the effort. Sometimes you're not left that option. Sometimes to refuse is to be confrontational. In that case, it helps if you don't get too wrapped up in the opinions of those who are trying to bully you.
If I cared too much about what others think-- when they do not have my best interests at heart-- my liberty would be destroyed. One person at a time, they'll destroy everyone's liberty. Don't let them. Stop them at your liberty, and stop them if you see them targeting someone else. Refusing to be bullied is not the same as imposing your will on them.
I'm pleasantly surprised.
No, they aren't as high quality as the original batch-- but they also cost half as much as those did, almost 15 years ago, so I didn't expect them to be.
They are better than I had anticipated and I think they are worth the price. If I didn't think they were, I would tell you. I'm much more enthusiastic about them now than I was before seeing one in person.
If you bought a flag, feel free to send me your own review (good, bad, indifferent) and let me know whether or not I can post it.
(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 23, 2020-- This is one of those headlines that makes me go "Huh?", but such is life.)
