Legislation only creates more crime

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 16, 2022)

Legislation, which many people incorrectly call "law", doesn't reduce crime. It can't. In fact, each new bit of legislation creates at least one more crime-- often several more-- and many more criminals as a result. People who weren't criminals before are now, for doing things which weren't crimes yesterday, but which are now arbitrarily declared to be.

Every time anything is criminalized it creates new criminals. That's really the only thing it does. Anyone who doesn't understand this correlation shouldn't be in a position of power over the lives of others.

Murder doesn't need to be illegal for it to be a real crime. You would still have the right and the obligation to defend against murderers. The only thing accomplished by making murder illegal is to allow government to punish it at your expense; an unnecessary complication.

To seek to address crime with more legislation is actually going backward if your goal is to reduce crime. If the goal is to give the state more ways to punish people who don't do what the politicians wish they'd do, then I suppose it works. It's not productive, though.

If you want to fight crime you need to stop pretending something can be a crime even though it has no specific individual victim-- someone whose life, liberty, or property has been harmed intentionally by someone else. Mutually consensual acts don't create a victim and the state can't be a victim.

If there's such a thing as a drug crime, it involves someone misrepresenting their product. Maybe the weight or the purity are not as advertised, or it's stolen property. For that matter, drug prohibition enforcement is the biggest drug crime, since it attempts to punish mutually consensual trade.

There are plenty of other examples which show, again, that government legislation is the source of most crime.

If you're serious about reducing crime, abolish or simply ignore all the legislation responsible for creating it. Leave the people alone to live as they see fit as long as they violate no one else's rights. Let people defend themselves and their property without the risk of being victimized afterward by the state's legislation enforcement and prosecution gangs.

Crime is a problem. Making it a bigger problem than it naturally has to be is not smart but is counterproductive and antisocial. It's long past time to scale it back and start heading in the right direction for a change.

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Bidenflation

Bidenflation. OK, so it's a funny thought, but it's not quite correct. 

Obviously, it's also Trump's inflation. He started it with the first rounds of Covid "stimulus" bribes, after allowing Dr. Evil to demand the economy be destroyed. (But even he was only building on the crimes committed by government/the Federal Reserve since 1913, which make inflation inevitable.)

But then Biden doubled down and is now trying to blame it on Putin's war crimes (a redundant phrase).

Of course, whichever political criminal is in office when the problem becomes obvious is the one who generally gets most of the blame. That's Biden. And if Biden were to blame this on Trump it would allow the masses to think about that and maybe realize it is also Biden's fault for not reversing course. That would be bad for the Zombie-in-Chief.

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Your ancestors' bad choices don't obligate you

Just because our ancestors did something stupid (or evil) hundreds or thousands of years ago doesn't obligate us to perpetuate their mistake. Their bad choices don't need to lock us in.

Establishing political government was a stupid mistake-- yes, even establishing one with the US Constitution. 

Putting forth effort and money to continue to prop it up today, especially in the pro-government slanted way it is being propped up these past 160 years or so, compounds that mistake.

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Institutionalizing wrongness

Even when government tries to do something useful, they do it wrong.

The political criminals in DC have proposed getting rid of the stupid and deadly, twice-yearly clock re-setting. That's good... but the morons are proposing to stick with the worse clock setting: "Daylight saving" time.

Know what it doesn't do? Save any daylight. The daylight stays the same regardless of how badly you set your clocks. Smart, responsible people realize this fact and don't fiddle with other people's clocks.

By that (wildly incorrect) setting, the sun in this area will be at noon around 2PM during parts of the year.

I'm all for getting rid of the anachronistic superstitious practice of changing clock settings twice a year to beg the Sun for more daylight (even though it can't work). But not for imposing the less correct setting on everyone.

That's what you get when "morning people" get power. They always feel the need to force everyone to do things by their schedule. Instead of just opening their businesses an hour earlier, as would be honest, they want your clocks mis-set so it appears that they are opening (and closing) at a reasonable time. DST is a lie.

If they can do that, why can't we all just set our clocks to say the current "time" of 10AM is now 6AM? It makes exactly as much sense as what they propose to make permanent.

Who decided political criminals should have any say on setting clocks? It was a dumb mistake, whoever did it.

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Too dangerous to tolerate

Politics makes people stupid (and usually, also evil). 

Political government is, by definition, political. So, political government is stupid and makes people who "believe in it" stupid-- and often, makes them commit evil.

That's why so many of them support wars, politicians, and other rights violations and anti-liberty things.

Politics is too dangerous to have around.

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Hoist with his own petard?

There's a guy I know of who has been on crutches for a couple of months. He seems like a decent enough guy.

But... a relative of his lives near me and had to babysit his dogs for a few weeks a while back while he did some remodeling on his house. They are large, aggressive dogs, and I didn't enjoy having them near my house. 

They even escaped a few times and were a threat to people in the neighborhood.

I just overheard a conversation he was having with someone else about his crutches and it turns out he was injured a couple of months ago by being attacked in his front yard by his neighbor's aggressive dog.

I wonder if this experience taught him anything about the folly of owning large, aggressive dogs that are able to escape and run loose.

I wonder if he even sees the irony in his situation.

I hate to admit, but it made my sympathy shrink to a much smaller level.

It reminded me of the friend of mine who freaked out on me many years ago over my lack of respect for police, but then sheepishly admitted I was completely right after they kicked in his door and treated him like a criminal on a tip.

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Hard to deprogram cult of government

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 9, 2022)

There is room in this world for many different beliefs, even those which are wrong.

Beliefs are only truly incompatible when one of them includes the belief that it's OK to force others to believe one particular thing. Or, more accurately, to force others to pretend they believe, since belief can't be imposed. Any such belief discredits itself; no valid belief has to be forced on others.

I'm fine with the beliefs of others, even beliefs I think are crazy. It's only when those believers start trying to force their beliefs on me that I have a problem with them. If they push hard enough, I'm going to push back. This is why I write-- I'm pushing back against a dangerous belief.

The most universal belief today is the belief in the legitimacy of political government. Even local churches often fly a U.S. federal flag above their Christian flag, showing which belief system they prioritize. They aren't-- yet-- being forced to fly the federal flag outside their facilities; they choose to do so. I'm sure they can find excuses for their divided loyalties and upside-down priorities, but those excuses fall flat.

If government would respect those who don't believe in it, like more civilized religions do, I would have less of an issue with it and its faithful believers.

Fortunately, government still allows you to practice other beliefs, too, if they are compatible with a belief in government. How generous.

Imagine if another church decided you had to send it your tithes even if you belonged to a different denomination. Or if one declared you would be beaten and caged if you broke any of the rules it imposed on its members even if you belonged to a church which had no such rules.

Some churches have used government to do this; getting it to impose their rules on everyone through legislation. Using government in this way is just as wrong as using it to punish someone for their race or sex or eye color.

So, government is less a religion than a cult. Getting deprogrammed is difficult when almost everyone around you is a true believer. The main disagreement you'll normally find with the cult of government is those who wish someone else were its high priest. May as well rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Believe whatever crazy thing you want, but don't burn the lifeboats or block others from using them.

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"The Russians are coming!"

When I was a kid-- back around the time I began to realize that government was the enemy of everything I valued-- I stopped believing that Russians were the problem. Yes, the Soviet government was my enemy, because it was a government, but I knew Russian people were not the same thing as the Soviet government.

I never feared "The Russians".

I hoped they recognized the same was true about me.

If America got nuked, governments were to blame, not regular people.

I have slightly expanded that blame over the years to include people who imagine political government is somehow legitimate; government-supremacists. Their support empowers the political criminals, even if only by saying the "office" is legitimate even if the goon currently occupying it isn't. 

I assume that in every place around the world, there are a lot of people who know government is a problem, who don't support anything it does, and who don't fall for the propaganda. Those people I can befriend.

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Someday, the w0ke will be viewed with the same contempt as the Nazis are now. 

For some of us, that someday arrived 5 or 10 years ago.
I still don't support a military invasion to rout them from an area.

Site news

After careful consideration, and a mostly sleepless night, I've decided to take down KentForLiberty.com-- just that website. This blog will go on as usual, but there will be a LOT of broken links in posts written before today. I don't think the expense is justifiable anymore.

It feels like a loss, but I'll get over it. It's just time.

Plus, I have its pages mirrored at the top of this blog, so the information wouldn't disappear.

I'm going to see how much it costs to keep the domain name, though. 

Apparently, I can't cancel until after they charge me for the next month, as payment processing has already begun. But soon.

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I oppose "capital punishment" and everything associated with it

The Ukrainian invasion-- and what is likely to await surviving defenders if they lose-- got me thinking of another governmental crime besides war: executions or "capital punishment".

Capital punishment is industrialized, sanitized, clinical premeditated murder. 

The person being killed is not currently violating anyone. They are no longer a threat. So it's not a defensive killing, but a revenge killing. It's not ethical and makes the killers just as bad as the one they kill-- possibly even worse.

It's not much different than chasing down and shooting someone who tried to attack you but who ran away when resisted. "The law" forbids this kind of killing for everyone but legislation enforcers. At least such a killing happens in the heat of the moment, immediately after the threat has passed. I make allowances for emotional turmoil resulting in the death of the attacker during and immediately after an attack. It's a risk the attacker chose.

Murder in the name of "justice" is a cleansing ritual. It's human sacrifice, but rather than to "ensure" a good harvest, it's intended to purge evil from society-- by committing evil. It's really no better than the human sacrifices of the Aztecs or ancient Mesopotamians. Equally ignorant, primitive, and useless.

The ONLY ethical death penalty is carried out at the time and place of the attack, by the intended victim or a rescuer. I never grieve for a bad guy killed in this way.

A murder carried out later, by government employees paid to kill, is a murder-for-hire. I still may not grieve for the person being killed (if I'm convinced they did it and it wasn't an ethical act), but I certainly don't support the murderers who are murdering a bound, outgunned, and outnumbered person in a clinical setting. Or up against a brick wall.

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Stray cats

Cheeto and MommyCat

Does anyone want to pledge a monthly donation to help me feed the stray cats on my porch? I've been feeding them for years, but I may have to stop soon. 

There are three regulars-- "Pants" (short for "the Cat With Pants"), MommyCat, and the youngster, Cheeto--with transient visitors who come and go.  

I've tried to find a local rescue group to take them, but that hasn't panned out.

If this is something anyone would be able to help with, just subscribe through Paypal and mark it with a note that says "cats" and that's where it will go. If not, that's understandable. Cats aren't everyone's cup of tea-- I didn't always like them, myself.

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Our local paper had a note about some prisoners trying to escape from jail.
Excuse me, but I think it's a prisoner's obligation to try to escape, no matter what. Regardless of the rules applied to them, or why they are a prisoner. I don't fault them for that even a little, nor would I add a single day to their sentence for it. You aren't rational if you punish people for expressing human nature. In fact, I feel contempt for prisoners who simply accept their fate.

Hate governments, not people

I refuse to let government or the media make me hate Russians for the acts of the Russian government. (Or Ukrainians for the acts of the Ukrainian government, for that matter.)

I hate the Russian government, just like I hate all political government and political criminals (including the militaries of those governments and political criminals). But I don't mistake people for the political government that pretends to act on their behalf. I never have. Just as I wouldn't want people to judge me by the behavior of the political criminals who "run" America and send its military all over the world.

Sure, the majority of Russians may "support" that government. I understand that most Russian people don't realize they have the option of not supporting ANY government or political faction. Just like most Americans don't realize the same. So they may end up "supporting" a state because they don't know it's a choice.

If I hated them for that I'd have to hate nearly everyone everywhere.

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Invasions and tyrants

Just to be clear...

I'm always against military invasion. I'm against the Russian military invading Ukraine in the same way I was (am) against the US military invasions of various Middle Eastern territories. I want the invader to lose in every case, and be driven out in shame, regardless of the events that provoked the invasion. Being an invader needs to be an expensive mistake.

All politicians are either tyrants or proto-tyrants. They are your enemy either now, or if/when they get enough power. When I suggest a solution to this problem, even if I mention one politician by name because he's the current low-hanging fruit and doing so will be overlooked by the censors, don't imagine I'm only talking about that one political criminal. The point holds true across time and space.

Sometimes things need to be phrased in such a way to confuse the censors, but unfortunately, this can also confuse readers. I apologize for any confusion I may have caused.

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Dredging up old failures to make them fresh again

Earlier a new comment notification popped up on an old post from another blog. Why people bother posting a comment on an old, forgotten blog post that hasn't seen any action in years confuses me, but whatever.

I responded because the person was ridiculing an old comment of mine saying that people can (and do) get killed over "taxation".

What is it with these people who refuse to see things that actually happen as they really are, just because they approve? 

Well, this commenter approved of theft if it is called "taxation" and if it is claimed to be for "the common good". Therefore "nobody ever dies for refusing to cooperate with taxation!" Not counting, I suppose, all the people who have been killed over "taxation".

An earlier comment directed at me, to drive home this point, had been about Person A being given a magical alien device that cured everything, and keeping it to himself. The commenter claimed that Person B would be justified in going to Person A's house and taking the device-- killing Person A if that's what it took-- for the good of society. I disagreed.

Because I disagreed, he said I confuse disagreement with resistance. Which to me doesn't even make sense. The commenter deleted this comment so it wouldn't show up, but I got the notification and read it anyway.

I just hope this guy doesn't imagine he's on the side of liberty (it was an anti-libertarian post, so probably not).

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Obedience isn't the ethical choice

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 2, 2022)

Here's something you probably don't hear every day: I dislike obedience. Obedience is not something to be encouraged or celebrated; it's one of the most dangerous human traits there is. Obedient people have caused far more problems than rebels. It's not even close.

The Holocaust can be laid directly at the feet of obedient people-- including people who weren't otherwise bad, but who were obedient. It wasn't only the Nazis and those who enabled them, their victims were also too obedient.

You may think that's a rare case; surely obedience is usually better than disobedience. You'd be wrong. It may seem safe to obey someone today, but their next order might be evil. If you get in the habit of obeying you may not stop to think before you obey the wrong order.

The tendency to follow orders is still a source of trouble, especially among government employees who ought to know better than to obey orders which are unethical and in many cases, prohibited by the Constitution. Yet, obedient employees lack the backbone to refuse when their paychecks, or even their freedom, depend on obeying bad policies.

It takes courage to disobey, especially when the one giving orders has the power to hurt you. Obedience is the cowardly course, but it could be seen as pragmatic when you believe there's no alternative.

Refusing to obey is dangerous in direct proportion to how evil the one giving the orders is. Even in this case, obeying will probably be worse for everyone in the long run. Doing the right thing when ordered to do otherwise might cost you. It's worth it even if you don't see it yet.

I have no respect for anyone who is automatically obedient and great respect for those who disobey bad orders. I can even respect those who disobey and choose to do the wrong thing. They'll face consequences, and I wouldn't save them from themselves, but at least they weren't automatically obedient.

Don't demand obedience in the people you have power over. If you have a good argument for why someone should do what you want, make it. A threat to use violence against someone for not obeying you isn't an argument. It exposes you as an authoritarian. Demanding obedience usually means your argument is weak... if you have one at all.

As government gets more authoritarian, obedience to it becomes less ethical. Don't obey the bad guys.

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The Ford's Theater Solution could help Russians and Ukrainians

It's time for the Russian people to pursue The Ford's Theater Solution. That's never an unethical thing to do, even though it's forbidden by those who don't want to suffer the consequences for their evil actions.

Even some other high-level politicians are now suggesting this course of action, not quite understanding which side of the divide they are actually on.

Of course, once the solution has been successfully implemented, the Russian people would need to make sure some other political criminal doesn't take the office, or they'll be back in the same position again. Learn the lesson!

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Stop fawning over your enemies

Gun owners-- or anyone who values liberty-- supporting the police is exactly like Jews in the cattle cars supporting the death camp guards. 

It makes me cringe to hear gun-owners' rights advocates go out of their way to express support for the only gang that will physically steal their guns and kill them if they resist.

Do what you want, but you're just helping your enemy enslave you (and me). By siding with the bad guys, or a specific subset of them anyway, you're standing against me.

Are you for natural human rights and liberty, or do you support the Ancestral Enemy's stormtroopers? You've already chosen your side.

(Why "defund the police" efforts are doomed to fail, as currently tried: Carefully crafted failure)

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Rebooting their brains

The next time I hear a "Constitutionalist" demanding border/"immigration" control from the feds, I'm going to use their go-to spiel against them.

They always say they are "not against immigration, just illegal immigration; immigrants need to do it legally, in accordance with the law".

OK.
So I'm going to say "I'm not against immigration control, just illegal immigration control; if they do it, they need to do it legally, in accordance with the Constitution-- they have to follow the process and pass a constitutional amendment making immigration control legal so they aren't breaking the law when they try to control the border and regulate immigration".

The same tactic could be used against anti-gun legislation, prohibition, or the existence of any of the "Alphabet soup" agencies. You want it, shut it down immediately-- within the hour-- then try to pass a constitutional amendment making it legal (to take effect in six months or a year after ratification, like they do with any liberty-enhancing legislation); one issue/agency per amendment, no blanket "all the agencies we have been operating up until now" nonsense-- or dissolve it permanently and give away any related agency's assets to the people it has harmed.

Of course, I actually am against "immigration" control and government borders and documents that establish a state and don't expire once all the original consenting parties are dead. I'm just trying to illustrate the silliness of their argument.

You can decide for yourself whether you feel it was wise or foolish to not include the power of "immigration"/border control in the Constitution, but that doesn't change the fact that it isn't allowed by the document. 

I'm also against government punishing people for defending their private property from trespassers of any kind-- including legislation enforcers and migrants. That includes the use of armed patrols, drones, and booby traps (all at the property owner's expense, of course). 

It's fun to watch the Constitutionalists' brains reboot-- something I've caused more than once over the years (even though the virus of statism always manages to reassert itself and erase any memory of the reboot-- it's like they have a "restore point" in their brains so as to avoid any new settings).

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