Don't let others' weaknesses control you

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for May 5, 2024)

Everyone has weaknesses and faults. This includes you and me. We need to acknowledge our weaknesses and work on doing better. Your life will also be easier and you'll be a better person if you're tolerant of the weaknesses and faults of others. Up to a point.

This doesn't mean you have to sit quietly while someone's faults are damaging your life. Communicate the problem and, when it needs to be said, tell them clearly where your line in the sand is. Be polite when possible.

You aren't obligated to allow others to hurt you just because they don't know a better way.

A frequent example is those who want "just a few more" anti-gun rules. Common sense gun law already exists; "shall not be infringed". Anything else is a call to return to slavery. How tolerant of slavery should we be? Not even a little.  

A fear of guns doesn't create any right to enslave you so others feel better. No, it is their responsibility to grow up and take charge of their own security rather than demand you become a slave to their fearful weakness. Making others equally weak and helpless won't make the weak and helpless stronger or safer.

This goes for every cry to expand government and give it more power. Just like it isn't reasonable to be tolerant of a mugger, no matter what weaknesses and faults he believes give him no choice but to be a mugger, it isn't reasonable to be tolerant of those who want to strip away what's left of your liberty. Wanting to exercise liberty isn't a weakness or a fault; seeking to take it away is.

You can feel sorry for the people trying to do this but don't let your pity give them the power or opportunity to enslave you.

You may even understand why they do what they do. Maybe they aren't smart enough to resist the pied pipers promising free stuff and safety.

Maybe they are crooked and see an opportunity to steal life, liberty, or property from their fellow residents.

Perhaps they are terrified of liberty and those who live it.

These are all weaknesses, and while sad, don't entitle them to control you. You can sympathize a little with their problems, but don't surrender to them. They'll have to work out their issues on their own.

Liberty gives them the best chance of doing so successfully.

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Should anything be "illegal"?

Recently someone was criticizing a state politician by saying that under his administration "nothing is illegal"... as if that were a bad thing. Of course, it wasn't true anyway.

Plus, this was immediately after complaining (again, not exactly truthfully) that this same politician had criminalized several things the speaker was in favor of.

So, which is it? It certainly can't be both.

I'm of the opinion that nothing should be outlawed by legislation. Legislation only muddles things. If something is wrong to do to others no legislation is necessary to make defense (from having it done to you) your natural human right. 

No one needs to make up legislation forbidding the act of murder to "give you the right" to defend yourself from an evil loser trying to murder you. Writing and passing any such legislation would be a pointless waste of time. You have that right whether murder has been made illegal or not, and regardless of any opinion or legislation to the contrary.

Making self-defense "illegal" can't remove the right to defend yourself (are you paying attention, Great Britain?). In this case, the legislation is the crime.

It's the same for anything you have a right to do-- anything which doesn't violate the equal and identical rights of others.

So, "nothing is illegal" is only a problem for weak, delusional people who believe government, through the police, will save them. What a pathetic belief.

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Opinions built on loose sand

Someone expressing a difference of opinion with me doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is a difference of opinion when the opinions are based on objectively incorrect "facts"; hallucinations. Things that can easily be found to be false, if one looks into it.

A personal friend of mine holds many opinions of this type. She's not interested in hearing anything that would challenge her opinions, so I rarely bother, but it is really strange to me. I don't understand this at all. Normally, I just take note of it and move on.

I know she's highly influenced by "public opinion", especially those expressed by the customers and coworkers she's around every day. She doesn't pay attention to "the news", but she still absorbs the narrative. And when their opinions are baseless, hers end up there, too. But, "everyone knows...", so what can you do?

My first observation of this phenomenon was back in 2020 when she was sure Covid was going to kill off all the old and weak, and that the shots were the only thing that might save us all. I nearly broke her brain when I didn't get the shot(s)-- she was sure I was doomed. She wouldn't listen to anything I had to say on the matter. I was foolish and was spreading the plague to the innocent.

In a recent conversation, she expressed a few different opinions of this sort in a short period of time, which is what got me thinking about it. Some of these opinions could actually be dangerous for her to act on, but when I tried to say something about it, she shut me down. She's not interested. Others could save her from a huge amount of future problems, while solving current problems. Nope. Not interested. Others probably won't make a difference in her life, but it's odd to not even be curious enough to want to find out the truth. She's the most incurious person I've ever known.

It seems odd to me. 

That's probably more common in modern humans than I'm comfortable admitting, but if this is a fact, my opinion should change to reflect it.

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More potential fake "felony" convictions

Hunter Biden’s gun “crime” trial is exactly as bogus as Trump's hush money trial, and if Hunter is convicted, it will be as illegitimate as Trump's conviction.

I'm no fan or supporter of Hunter Biden, either. But wrong is wrong. And this is wrong.

Smart, ethical people would toss the case, void the rule, abolish the ATF, scold the prosecutors, and remove them from their positions of power. They shouldn't be allowed to victimize anyone ever again.

Government has no legitimate "authority" to punish drug use or abuse.
Government is specifically prohibited from restricting firearms and all other weapons in any way. Form 4473 is therefore forbidden by the Constitution, and lying on an illegal, illegitimate form can't be wrong.
He's not even accused of using his gun to violate anyone's life, liberty, or property. There is no crime alleged, only counterfeit "crime". So Hunter Biden, in this case, did nothing wrong. 

Those who are prosecuting him are the criminals. The same as those who prosecuted Outlaw Trump in his "34 felonies" trial. The "justice system" delivers the opposite and needs to be abolished forever.

Consistency, people. No specific individual victim; no crime. Prosecuting or convicting anyone under such circumstances, no matter who it is or how you feel about them, is the real crime.

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Statism withers in the presence of thought

It seems odd to me that a large segment of the population is fine with aggressive criminals facing no consequences for their actions but are scared of mere tools. This doesn't make sense if people use their brains.

I've met some of these people. They aren't able to put their arguments for these beliefs into words. Other than expressing their feelings about the matter.

Interestingly enough, I've met some on the other political side who are the same way.

They acknowledge that some cops are trash, but still cling to the delusion that those are a minority and most are good. I had someone express this to me recently, due to recent events. My response: "Yes. And then those good cops stand by and do nothing while the bad ones do the bad stuff, meaning the good ones are just as bad." There was no pushback. How could there be?

It seems to come down to the fact that their Party holds the position, so they hold the position, but they can't really explain why. There doesn't seem to be anything like thought backing it up. And if you keep pushing, even gently, they'll get angry or shut down.

I don't think they know why they believe what they believe. It's most likely because they haven't really put any thought into it. They just believe what they've been conditioned by their team to believe, and can't even articulate why they believe it. If they thought about it, they'd see how silly and nonsensical their position really is. So they avoid thinking about it.

You don't think yourself into statism, but you can think yourself out of it. In fact, it's the inevitable outcome if you really think.

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When technology lets us down

The house AC stopped working Friday night. I was supposed to take my daughter to a comic-con over the weekend. She went; I stayed home.

We got a "small room" window unit to try to keep a couple of rooms comfortable enough for the cats and especially the chinchilla (chinchillas are sensitive to overheating, as you can probably understand). The rest of the house is blocked with a doorway blanket to concentrate the cool air as much as possible.

The cats like to venture into the hot part of the house, fall into a stupor, and nap. I do not.

My weekend largely consisted of trying to manage the temperature in the house and give the chinch cold bricks from the freezer, since the little AC can't really keep up with the heat. 

Coincidentally, my parents' AC went out a week before mine did, so taking the chinch there for coolness isn't an option. (Theirs should be fixed before mine, though.)

I've been OK, if not comfortable. The other household members, who got back Sunday night, are not OK with the situation. They've let me know. Unceasingly and vociferously.

As a consequence, my mood hasn't been great. I'm having trouble writing, and I end up deleting most of what I do write because it ends up sounding grumpy. 

A repairman is coming, and I hope he's able to fix it. Affordably.

Some people think I'm a Luddite, wanting to stick to primitive ways of doing things. They would be mistaken. Where the primitive ways are (in my opinion) just as good or better, I prefer them. When technology is better than doing without, I'm happy to embrace it. 

The only caveat is that I never want to be so dependent on technology that I can't survive (or am stuck in a loop of complaining) without it. I realize how easily it could all go away, so I appreciate it while I have it, but try to make sure it's never necessary to my survival. 

As I've pointed out before, learning to make fire without lighters or matches has caused me to never again be caught without lighters, and to appreciate the inventors who gave us this kind of thing. 

The market did that.

Happy update: It got fixed last night and is now running and cooling the house! For "only" $264. It could have been worse; my parents' repair bill was $1000.

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Trump, the outlaw candidate?

Here's an uncomfortable admission: The Trump convictions don't sit well with me.

I've always been in favor of jury nullification, saying I would have a hard time convicting even in the case of archation, just because it feels like handing government a win. Doing what The Ancestral Enemy wants is the wrong thing to do, except in extraordinary circumstances. This isn't that.

When it's a counterfeit "law" I wouldn't convict my worst enemy. Liberty is more important than personal feelings.

And this seems to be the case in this trial.

It's not even about Trump. I liked Donald Trump when he used to appear on David Letterman's show. That ended when he entered politics. Politics makes people stupid and usually a bit evil, too. Although I never supported him, I never suffered from TDS, and never thought he was a unique danger like so many others seem to be hallucinating he is. I think this allows me to think more clearly where he is concerned.

I don't need or want a president and I don't need or want to be governed. By anyone. Particularly not by an anti-gun bigot (like all presidents turn out to be).

Part of me thinks "The shoe's on the other foot now", but part of me sees this as a bogus trial, politically arranged and rigged to take out an apparent enemy of the current party in power. (Even though he used to belong to their party and still follows their dogma on many important issues.)  If they imprison him, it will make him a political prisoner, and I am completely against governments and the holding of political prisoners. Even if I disagree with the prisoners on everything of importance. I oppose all political prosecutions.

This has caused me to have some sympathy for Trump-- not support, but sympathy for someone I don't generally find to be a very sympathetic character. I don't like it, but there it is. That was an amazing accomplishment, Democratic Party. Congrats. 

If they had gone after him for his actual crimes-- the bump stock ban, continuing the Stupid and Evil War on Politically Incorrect Drugs, not pardoning Snowden, Ulbricht, and Assange (and others), supporting police, and other evil things he did-- similar to the evil things every other president does-- then I wouldn't care. Get him. But to go after him on the things they chose? Things they'd ignore if he wasn't Donald Trump? Nope. Not gonna buy it. It was a sham.

Trump is now an outlaw. Not a Liberty Outlaw, but the other kind. Yet definitely no worse than the kriminals-- the serial archators-- who are out to get him. 

So, my feelings are definitely mixed.

Will it backfire? I wouldn't mind seeing it happen. And I don't really mind seeing Leviathan eating itself. Anything that shatters government's illusion of legitimacy is a good thing. 

Just like having Biden as a president has shown how utterly inconsequential having a president is. If he can do the "job", anything could. The "job" could be abolished without problems, as long as you didn't change the rules and eliminate the requirement that the president sign bills that the congressvermin pass to make them enforceable "laws". No signature; no new legislation, which would be a good start.

Having a president is a terrible idea, as is having any kind of political government... which can decide to "get" its enemies. Maybe even you or me.

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FISA declaration a war on liberty

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for April 28, 2024)

The enemies of America just scored another major victory against us. Did you notice?

The reauthorization and expansion of the deceptively named "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" (FISA) is an anti-American act. Both Democrat and Republican politicians were in on this crime.

Any government which gives itself permission to spy on you is not on your side. Whether it's China's government, the government of Iran, or the US federal government, it's your enemy and is telling you so directly in plain language. It's up to you to hear what it's telling you and believe it.

For Congress to rubber-stamp FISA is a declaration of war on you and your liberty. The problem is, it's such a common thing for Congress and the rest of the federal government to escalate their ongoing war on you that no one pays attention anymore. It's business as usual; it's just another day in Police State America. The USA has become what I grew up being told the evil Soviet Union was. Maybe they were, but so is the USA now, and perhaps it always was.

National security is a lie which has nothing to do with protecting you, your life, or even "the nation"; it's strictly about protecting the federal government and its power to tax and control you into perpetuity.

It's why the US has an unconstitutional standing military. It's why the unconstitutional (and ironically named) intelligence agencies exist. In America, "unconstitutional" means illegal; against the foundational rules which allow the federal government to exist as an institution. Break those rules and the deal is off. The federal government has lost any legitimacy it might once have had.

It's best to distinguish between America and The United States of America. America is the people, the society. the land, the cultures, and the traditions. The USA is the political government occupying America, giving jobs to political criminals who rule you. You can choose whichever side you prefer in this cold war, but you can't straddle the fence and pretend to support both.

The public is brainwashed to confuse government with society. These opposites are commonly conflated, and the confusion is useful to your enemies.

I love America and I wish it could have been saved from the criminals who thought up and imposed FISA. Now, it's probably up to our grandchildren to wrestle liberty back from the bloodstained talons of the security state. I wish them luck.

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Bottom line

If you can’t hate something and still oppose legislation against it, you place too much faith in The State.

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Helpful cops?

Police can be helpful, or they can choose to enforce “The law”. 

I’ve seen videos of cops trying to warn people of oncoming tornadoes or other dangers, or trying to help those who didn’t get to safety in time, and I’m grateful for what those individuals do at that moment, no matter who they are. 

But most cops rarely get the opportunity to do helpful things and instead spend their time doing harm by enforcing legislation.

The problem is that no one needs a badge to be helpful, but being harmful by enforcing legislation is something only those with a badge do.

Be good. Do good. Be helpful. Don’t be harmful by enforcing “laws”. There’s enough bad in the world without you contributing to it.

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V*ting for candidates isn't a good idea

It's a good thing I don't v*te. I was never very good at it. And I still wouldn't be. 

For one thing, I just can't get past that "no one has a right to govern another" thing.

My observation is that no one is good at v*ting, but some people imagine they are. Or they feel they have to, anyway, and hope for the best.

Hope for the best... But, in the case of some-- or most-- candidates, which version of them do you believe is the real one? 

In the past, they would say one thing to one group and another thing to a different group, and there wasn't too much danger that anyone would catch the discrepancy. They were more free to lie to court the v*ters by saying what their audience at the time wanted to hear.

Video seems like it would have put an end to that, but it didn't. For instance, I don't believe for one nanosecond that Trump has become a respecter of the natural human right to own and to carry weapons without government permission or oversight, even though he seems to be trying to make this claim. I think he's lying when he suggests he is in favor of "gun rights".

Today, in addition to historical-style pandering to whichever group is listening at the moment, they can also say things as part of their official platform that seem opposed to things they have posted on "social" media in the past. Which version is their real self, reflecting their actual opinions? You'll never be sure.

Maybe the "social" media posts were their past opinion, but they've changed their mind. If that's the case, might they change again once given power? Or was it just a lie all along? It's not worth the risk.

Even if giving someone the power to govern others was legitimate, you could never be sure what someone would do with that power. 

You don't need anyone to run your life or to run society. And neither does anyone else-- even if they don't want the responsibility to run their own life. Too bad. You own you and it's your responsibility anyway, even if there is some clown called "The President" lording his power over your life.

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Is it just me, or is the legislative climate heating up?

It seems to me that government is desperate, and getting more desperate with every passing day. 

The political criminals are making up "laws" at a dizzying rate, flinging them at the wall and hoping some of them stick. Especially where firearms are concerned. It looks like a frenzy to me.

This may be good news for liberty in the long term, even if it makes things worse for the near future.

They are desperate to make you into a criminal so that the NRA-types will agree you should be disarmed. 

As Ayn Rand observed, "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." The complete quote is worth reading if you haven't.

 Once you see it, you'll get it.

"Breaking" or ignoring counterfeit "laws" can be dangerous, but it's never wrong. It's sometimes essential. People who make up "laws" are sickos. Don't let sickos run your life, even if it's sometimes necessary to dodge them and their hired goons.

The line between being a slave and being a martyr can sometimes be hard to walk, but I recommend giving it a shot anyway. 

I'm hoping this situation will be temporary-- although 6 thousand years so far doesn't feel temporary to the human mind. Maybe this legislative desperation is a sign their cult is starting to crack up. I can hope.

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Government "self-defense"

Murder vs self-defense. It's odd how many people get confused. Often this confusion happens when individuals are involved, but the confusion is nearly universal when discussing governments.

Governments never engage in true self-defense. Governments have no rights because they are collectives, so they can't have a right to defend themselves. When a government-- or those acting on behalf of a government-- kills people, it's always murder.

If Government A murders a bunch of people, so Government B kills a bunch of people in reaction, it's murder. Murder committed by people acting on behalf of Government B.

A lot of people are OK with this, or even enthusiastic for it. This is why the world situation is such as it is.

The populations of the world should be armed sufficiently so that if Government A sends murderers (or thieves, vandals, rapists, or any sort of archators) to harm them, the individuals targeted can act in self-defense and kill (or otherwise decisively thwart) the thugs doing Government A's bidding. If Government B prevents this with anti-weapon rules, Government B is complicit in the crimes of Government A. Both governments are equally evil and responsible.

You might complain that this isn't the world we live in, but by pretending it's OK, that governments can kill in self-defense or prevent individuals from owning and carrying the most effective tools of self-defense, you are guaranteeing a stupid, deadly situation will go on longer than it otherwise would. Anyone contributing to this twisted status quo isn't helping.

Government is a murder machine. The lie of government self-defense is the ammunition it uses.

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Biased cops are WORSE than useless

The recent incident I mentioned, where I observed that cops are useless, may have gotten even worse.

I need to share more details to make this make sense.

On the evening in question, my sister's house was breached by a car. The police showed up and treated my sister and sister-in-law as the problem, not the 23-year-old who, with a couple of girls in tow, crashed his car into their home. 

He hit a mailbox on the other side of the street, then executed a nearly 90-degree turn to go directly up their driveway, through the support column between the doors of their double garage, totaled my sister's car, and crashed into the inner walls hard enough to shatter them, push them inward a foot or so, and destroy half of their kitchen and utility room. 

There are marks on the garage floor where he spun his tires in reverse trying to make a getaway, but was unsuccessful since his car was stuck in the walls and against my sister's car. He also begged the first people on the scene to not call the cops-- I guess he thought no one would notice if he left the scene and abandoned his stuck car.

Fortunately, since my sister and sister-in-law had gone out to eat, no humans were home, and their cats all managed to avoid injury. And only one of their cars was destroyed.

The young guy's family seems to be politically connected. His mom was friends with one of the cops who responded to the scene. The guy wasn't given any sobriety test. Nor was he given any sort of ticket for the wreck; only a warning. My sister found an empty vodka bottle on her lawn near the garage after the accident, but it may not be related-- I had her bag it, but she'd already handled it. He either claimed his steering wheel locked up and he couldn't steer, or that he was distracted because he was changing the radio- the story the cops told my sister the night of the accident is different from the one on the police report. I'm wondering if this is because the car could be tested to see if the steering wheel had locked.

The contractor who came to look at the damage gave a rough, preliminary estimate of $70,000+ in damage to the house, and that doesn't count the totaled car. Or, I suppose, the property inside the house that was destroyed.

My sister-in-law wants revenge/legal punishment for the guy. I told them justice would be for him to pay for all repairs and related expenses resulting from his actions. The injured parties should not be out a single cent.

At least the guy was insured, but they expect a fight. Since he and his family have connections in town, and the police have already shown a clear bias against the victims, it may be an uphill fight.

They spoke to a big-time lawyer in town, one who has held several political offices as well. It turns out he knows the family well and has represented the guy's mother. So he's out as an option, even though he had initially been very excited to take the case, until the police report was finally available and he found out who the driver was. So they've been looking for another attorney, in Albuquerque and other cities in the region, hoping to avoid more friends of the guy's family.

As much as I hate dealing with cops, lawyers, bureaucrats, insurance agents, and such, I would be completely miserable if I were in their shoes. A billion dollars for stress and emotional damages wouldn't cover it.

  

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Refuse to act as though others own you

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for April 21, 2024)

To say I’m skeptical of the institution of government is an understatement. If individuals make bad choices, a collective of people with an incentive to do bad things and very little chance of being held accountable-- unless they anger some opposing faction within this institution-- won't do any better. Quite the opposite.

Organized evil is worse in every way than disorganized incompetence.

It doesn't matter if this institution has been around "forever". The same excuse was used to justify slavery. A long history and public acceptance can't change wrong into right.

Eventually, humans will see little difference between chattel slavery and the belief that anyone can have the right to govern another. Some of us see no difference now. What's the difference between ownership and control? There isn't one. since control is the defining characteristic of ownership. If someone controls you, the reality is they are behaving as though you are their property. If you go along, you are agreeing with their counterfeit claim over you.

Maybe you're scared to be fully responsible for your life. Too bad. You are fully responsible anyway. Acting like property can't erase responsibility. If someone orders you to do something, you are still accountable for choosing to do it. You always have the option of refusing to comply, which, in many cases, is the only ethical choice. It can be hard; it is dangerous. Not accepting responsibility for your life is dangerous, too, but the danger may be hidden from view.

Taking responsibility is good for you, even though you will make mistakes. It's the only way to grow. Trying to avoid responsibility by saying it's someone else's job harms you.

I'd rather suffer the consequences of my own mistakes, and learn from them, than watch rulers making mistakes which I know, through experience, will hurt me and others, but am powerless to prevent.

Legislation is one of the most common attempts to avoid responsibility. An attempt to assert ownership over others. It treats the population like stupid children, so how do you think they'll behave?

I want you to exercise your liberty muscles. To take responsibility, and refuse to act as though others own you. I want you to own your mistakes and celebrate your victories. I want the institution of government to fade away from disuse once enough of you realize how harmful it has always been to society and the individuals who comprise it.

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Cryptocurrency for Dummies by a Dummy

I am far from an expert on cryptocurrency. Some of you undoubtedly know more about it than I do, and you can correct me in the comments where I got something wrong or if I missed something. If I've got it all wrong, I'm sorry. I probably should have read up on it before writing this, but I didn't/

Off the top of my head, here's how I think it works, at least with regard to Bitcoin:

All crypto transactions are recorded on the blockchain; a large mass of computer code going back to the first transaction and kept in such a way that any fudging of the code would leave obvious traces that would be noticed by those who keep track of it. Since it is spread among millions of computers, any messing with the blockchain would show up as a singular discrepancy and the other computers would recognize it as fake.

The blockchain gets continually updated by computers doing crypto "mining", which is just logging the transactions and verifying them by seeing if other computers agree to the details. 

After a set amount of computer work doing this, the computer's owner is rewarded with a specific amount of crypto. Since there is a set limit to the amount of Bitcoin that can ever be created, every so often (I think it has generally been every four years or so) the amount of Bitcoin paid for that amount of work gets halved. This way there's still Bitcoin to mine. Since the price of Bitcoin keeps rising, this doesn't mean mining it "pays" less in value than it used to. You may get less Bitcoin for a reward in 2024 than you would have in 2012, but the dollar value of Bitcoin is so much higher that it's still worth it. (I don't mine Bitcoin, because it takes a dedicated computer set up for that.)

Since all the blockchain is held simultaneously on all the computers doing the mining, you could wipe out 99% or more of those computers and the blockchain would still exist. As long as at least one computer still contained the blockchain, the data could be shared with more computers and it would be widely distributed again. 

There is no "head" for government to target or control. 

Because all transactions are recorded, and stay recorded, as part of the blockchain forever, I don't think it's as anonymous as many would like to believe it is. Especially since most of the ways to spend it leave a trail. As with all things, protect yourself in all that you do.

Is it real money, and is it worth using?

Fiat money exists and has value because government promises to keep stealing from the population into eternity to keep the money worth something... something you can pay its extortion with. Governments can print/create fiat money without limit, inflating away its value (as we've been watching happen). As long as people keep accepting it in trade, I'll keep using it in spite of the negatives of being attached to the state. Using fiat money isn't capitulation that government is necessary or good any more than driving on government roads means you believe without the state, no one could build roads.

Gold and silver have value because they are pretty and useful and durable, and people have always been willing to accept them in trade. There doesn't have to be an objective reason. They can't be readily created from cheaper materials so the supply is set (unless a gold asteroid falls to Earth or the cost of creating gold in a particle accelerator drops enough that the cost of making gold is less than the price of gold). I admit I have a visceral reaction to gold and silver coins that I don't have to other forms of money. I enjoy the feeling of them in my hand and in my vision.

Cryptocurrency exists as computer code, complete and whole inside each of the untold millions of computers keeping track of it. Bitcoin has a set upper limit to the amount that can ever be created- and lots of it has already been irretrievably lost over the years (mainly when it wasn't worth enough to keep up with). All of this makes it non-inflationary.

All money is subjective. You aren't required to accept or use any of it, with the exception of fiat money being imposed by force by The Ancestral Enemy. All money has pros and cons. One pro for crypto is how badly governments hate it and what it represents.

I personally like crypto. I have used it to buy gold, silver, guns, and gun accessories. I bought someone else a television as a gift. I have used it to pay expenses, which isn't as much fun. As long as crypto works as money, I'll keep using it. I trust it for what it is, and I don't think I have unrealistic expectations about it or its supposed anonymity.

You do you.

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Not progress

I get little update emails from a crypto business. Generally, I find them informative.

In yesterday's email, though, they were celebrating the possibility of more legislation. They said, "The journey to getting effective legislation and regulation passed in the US has not been an easy one..."

They are complaining that the gov has been committing evil without the benefit of legislation so far, "...the Securities and Exchange Commission appearing to regulate through enforcement in recent years." OK, that's obviously wrong of them to do. 

The solution is to get gov out of it, not to give them another doorway in.

Cheering this kind of development shows a lack of brains.

I love crypto. I'd like to see it go "to the moon". But not if this is what it takes.

The last thing crypto needs is "effective legislation and regulation". It needs liberty. Don't kill the good thing because you hallucinate a need for government oversight. Don't embrace a bad idea because you feel something worse might be inevitable otherwise. No compromise. Give me liberty or else.

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Turning normal into "shocking!"

To me, it is very strange that the simple act of carrying a gun has been turned into something that so many people see as sketchy or unusual. Something to raise an eyebrow about or to question. Or, even to consider shocking.

In reality, it's no different than drawing breath or wearing pants. Anyone trying to make it into something else is doing so as an excuse to violate you.

We are expected to believe it's something governments and cowards can legitimately control in others. That's absurd.

How did it get to this point? How did something so natural and normal get dishonestly reframed as controversial? 

It's not that guns became more dangerous, although liars with an agenda to enslave you would love for you to believe they have. 

It's not that the average gun owner has become more dangerous. There have always been irresponsible and criminal people among the population. There used to be acceptable ways to handle them without blaming the tool like a moron would do. Letting the irresponsible and criminal among us dictate what the rest of us are "allowed" to do is stupid and evil. Just don't.

I think the main change is that government has become more openly authoritarian/anti-liberty. Yes, even the most "pro-gun" politicians. Liberty is an existential threat to political government. Rights that government would prefer to violate with impunity get turned into "second-class rights"-- rights (or even privileges) with a giant "but" and all sorts of justifications for not respecting them. There are no "but"s. 

The media has, at the same time, become more pro-government-- as long as government suits their biases and is working toward the same odd, anti-human goals. Once upon a time, most of the media would have hesitated to be so staunchly and enthusiastically in favor of slavery. The dishonest ones will object to being painted with this brush today, but they are 100% pro-slavery when they call for "common sense" anti-gun legislation. Or any at all.

The majority of people have been brainwashed by governmedia into believing "safety" rules, and those crime gangs which enforce such rules, protect them. After all, for some weird reason, that's the fantasy the mainstream media and government want people to believe. It makes no sense, except that it does give politicians more power and wealth, and it encourages political criminals to give the media more access and head pats when the media carries this water for the state.

Carrying a weapon isn't sketchy or unusual, nor should it be even slightly controversial. It's a perfectly normal, natural act. And even if it becomes unusual due to pressure from the bad guys who want to destroy the exercise of this fundamental human right, it's something you ought to do anyway. Just because you exist, you're alive, and you're human. Even if it shocks those who hate you and want you unarmed.

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Evil has planted a flag

At the local park, there is the obligatory monument to victims of government human sacrifice. Above it flaps the flag that serves as a reminder that government doesn't care about those it can't account for during or after it has used them for its power and glory.

For a while now,  rather than a standard Holy Pole Quilt flying over these reminders of how stupid and evil government is, there has been a Cowards' Swastika flag on the pole.

What's up with that?

Generally, I only see these hideous abominations flying at the residence of a Blue Line Gang member, or the house of a rabid copsucker. I don't remember seeing Cowards' Swastika flags in public spaces that aren't specifically claimed by cops.

I don't know who oversees the human sacrifice memorial or the pole quilts that flap above it. I also don't really care enough to ask around. But this seems to be an escalation of the war against liberty. Evil has staked a claim by planting its flag.

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Those email lists

I'm on a lot of email lists. From groups I never wanted to get emails from. They can still be educational.

Most of them are telling me to ask Congress (or other lawgiver institutions) to "strengthen" this or that "law" (legislation) so that some horrible thing will be averted. Often for the children, the environment, or democracy. I'm not buying it.

Sometimes I ignore the email. Sometimes I unsubscribe. Occasionally I reply and tell them what I think of their nasty anti-liberty demands- and then unsubscribe. I'm sure they never read the emails I send, even when the email address isn't listed as "unmonitored" as so many are.

Even when I kinda, sorta, agree with their point, I don't agree with the way they are going about it. I'm not going to beg government parasites to make up more legislation. That's just so low.

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