Occasionally, bad cops do the right thing

I’m not always against cops.

If a cop is doing something that everyone everywhere has a natural human right to do, then I have no grounds for opposing them.

When I oppose them, it’s because they are doing something no one has the right to do, and they imagine the uniform and badge create the "right" out of thin air, just for them.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of things cops do, as part of the “job”, are in the second category. That’s when, if I’m to have worthwhile principles, I must oppose them.

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Out with one crook, in with another?

I'm glad the disgusting anti-gun bigot Pam Bondi lost her "job" as the Top Crooked Lawyer in America, but I don't trust Trump (or any other political criminal) to pick a better person for that position.

Having principles is incompatible with an elite government "job" (maybe with any government "job"). A commitment to stop violating the natural human right to be armed at all times requires strong principles that don't bend to pressure from the crooked cowards who make and enforce rules. They are a powerful pressure group.

Wanna bet the next TCLA will be even worse?

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Vicious cycle of Statism

I don't get pleasure seeing someone on the side of the road being subjected to an armed robbery by a cop.

It brings me no joy to hear of an entrepreneur being taxed.

It doesn't make me happy to know of someone being arrested or imprisoned for violating some counterfeit "law".

I dislike seeing anyone being governed. Even if I think they deserve it for advocating for others to be governed or violating others in some other way. There are better ways of dealing with any problem.

Until more people feel as I do, it will be impossible to throw off the yoke of political government. It's a "Do unto others because it is done unto me" situation, which gets us nowhere worth going.

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Don't trade liberty for dystopian world

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 25, 2026)

It feels like the world, and America specifically, is becoming an authoritarian dystopia. More rules, harsher punishment, more surveillance; all leading to less liberty.

What disturbs me the most is how many people seem to think this is fine. Or actively demand it because they fear or hate other people or what other people might do. Government is always willing to violate your rights and will oblige when asked to do so.

Too many people will trade liberty for a false promise of safety- a hope for something government power can never provide.

As long as they believe "other people" are getting it worse than they are, they're fine with the police state being built around them. They seem genuinely shocked when it is inevitably used against them and their rights.

Enforcers- police- act as though they have rights above and beyond those possessed by "ordinary people". Their delusion is reinforced by a lack of accountability. This is how you know America is a police state, not a free country.

Those who are politically connected and powerful regularly commit the most awful crimes with no consequences, while people the state considers expendable are killed by enforcers for not obeying conflicting orders fast enough. In the unlikely event consequences do come for the "elite", it's too little, too late, and a slap on the wrist compared to what would happen if you or I were in the same situation.

So, little by little, the dystopia grows. The police state gets worse. People who wish to be ruled deny it's a police state, but this doesn't change the facts.

Although libertarians are frequently accused of being utopian, we are the most grounded realists there are. We don't believe human nature permits some to rule over others. We realize that only the worst people are drawn down that path. I don't believe respecting liberty will result in Utopia, but it will make dystopia more difficult to maintain.

Most Utopias seem nightmarish to me, anyway. Pro-government people want to be protected, taken care of, and entertained. I want the liberty to do these things for myself, in ways that fit my values best. If your Utopia is someone else's authoritarian dystopia and violates anyone's rights in any way, you have no right to impose it on them. Not even if you're scared.

Utopia isn't an option; I wouldn't want it if it were. But I don't need your "safe" dystopia.

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Disguised Evil

Evil hides in plain sight. It wears a disguise and rarely looks like you'd expect evil to look.

The greatest evil often looks a lot less like Voldemort and more like Dolores Umbridge. It’s bureaucratic, legalistic, "common sense", and smiles a sickly sweet smile at you as it gleefully plots your destruction.

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There are a few conservative realists out there

There are a couple of conservatives I follow and read. Yeah, they're wrong half the time, but they are what I would consider conservative realists.

They know government is the problem and that it is evil, and in unguarded moments seem almost libertarian, but for whatever reason, they just prefer keeping The State around. 

Sometimes their reasons are religious, and other times they are cultural. Normally, it comes down to them hating someone or something more than they hate government.

They don't realize that government is the biggest threat to the things they value. They can't quite think that clearly.

Still, they sometimes have good insights and can be amusing. But I don't get caught up in their moral panics or their flawed reasons for the things they advocate.

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Liberty isn't that complicated

It's a sad fact that most people aren't that bright. 

George Carlin pointed out how dumb the "average person" is, then reminded us that half are dumber than that. Scary!

OK. That's fine. There are plenty of things I'm not smart about. I can admit it.

If liberty is going to prevail, it's going to need to win over a lot of the below average people.

I love liberty enough that I'm willing to try to make it simple enough for them to understand. It can be done, by me or someone smarter than me, without compromising anything. Liberty isn't that complicated.

I love liberty more than I love feeling superior. How about you?

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Begging the wind to stop blowing

I honestly don't know what Constitutionalist statists expect me to do.

I point out that, according to the Second Amendment, all anti-gun rules are illegal. They ask if I'm OK with that, and if not, what I'm going to do about it.

Here's what I will continue to do:

I'll ignore their rules as much as possible, but I'm not going to beg the criminals to stop being criminals. It's not in their nature, nor in their interests. I may as well beg the wind to stop blowing.

It's the same way with all the other rules they make up to violate life, liberty, and property. Do you really think they'll stop if called on it? Do you believe you have another way to make them stop? V*ting? Petitioning? Memes? Speeches? Logic? They're immune to all that. They only understand power- and they have it.

They won't stop. 

Violating life, liberty, and property has to hurt, BAD, immediately for them to decide to stop. And they've set things up where this is unlikely to happen.

You're better off figuring out ways around them than wasting your time begging them to change.

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Don't mug R2D2

Some people are promoting the idea of taxing robots "instead of people".
I'm guessing these are the same people who used to argue for a "flat tax".

You can't tax a robot because robots own nothing. If you pretend to tax a robot, you're only taxing the human who owns the robot. You are stealing a portion of that robot's value from the owner of the robot.

Even if you ignore that inconvenient fact, the money is still going to fund government. 

You're diverting money away from the economy and dumping it down a black hole of desperation and misery.

Funding government is always the unethical choice.

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Worthless pseudo-certification

Government is the last entity I’d ever want certifying anything or anyone. 

If you’ve ever watched one of government’s "firearms experts" trying to disassemble a simple pistol, you can explain to me why you believe these clowns should be certifying firearms, firearms accessories, or procedures.
Or illegally making up any rules they’ll (also illegally) apply to firearms or firearms businesses.

Some of these supposed experts even think a shoelace is a machine gun- for punishment purposes, at least. They are clowns.

I’m no firearms expert, but I know firearms well enough to see government experts’ utter incompetence. 

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect would be my only excuse to avoid the recognition that this incompetence is systemic across government. Because it is.

Since I don’t suffer from that particular cognitive blindness, I know government shouldn’t be certifying anyone or anything at all.

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We have to trust liberty completely

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 18, 2026)

Few people understand liberty. Even fewer trust it to work.

As Voltairine de Cleyre wrote in 1908, "[T]he sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly".

They thought America could have liberty along with a central government- a state. It didn't work. Now we are stuck with a growing police state, and the tatters of our remaining liberty are being criminalized at an astonishing rate. This won't end well.

Liberty is indivisible- it can't be broken into pieces and remain liberty. You can't respect it selectively (for some people, in some areas, some of the time) and call it "liberty". True liberty requires consistent respect for everyone's rights, everywhere, all the time.

Critics of liberty often pick apart one small aspect they dislike, arguing either that this single piece "won't work" in isolation or that removing it disproves all of liberty. They then act as if they've won the debate, but they're missing the point entirely.

All elements of liberty are deeply interconnected, like parts of an ecosystem. You can't remove one part while keeping everything else unchanged, and claim you've shown a flaw with liberty. Government's very existence cripples liberty.

A common pro-government argument claims you can't have "open borders" and a welfare state. I agree. Easy fix! End all government welfare. This isn't the answer they want, though. They don't dislike welfare; just migrants.

This is how it looks any time people attempt to argue against a free society, like saying that without legislation enforcement, criminals would run rampant. Yes, they would... if you ignore self-defense, consequences, and social pressure (things legislation attempts to thwart).

It's a dishonest argument.

It’s like taking a malfunctioning rocket engine, removing critical parts you don't like the look of instead of addressing the bad piece, then pretending you won because the engine still doesn't work. Of course it won’t. It’s a system. A rocket engine's fuel pump won't lift a rocket into orbit by itself, nor can an engine designed to require a fuel pump function without one.

This government-supremacist argument doesn't work and looks dumb. Unless you're the one making the argument to others who do the same thing, and you're patting each other on the back for being clever.

Government is the enemy of liberty. Claiming this as proof liberty is unworkable is like noticing scammers exist, and this proves money is useless. Trust liberty completely; distrust all who fear it.

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It's a big, flashing clue

When reality doesn't conform to your beliefs, you have some choices to make. 

You can change your beliefs.
You can keep your beliefs while suffering the discomfort of others not agreeing with you.
You can use threats and aggression to force others to adopt your flawed beliefs (or act as though they did).

Statism always seems to choose the path of coercion. The path of trying to make reality irrelevant by forcing people to ignore it- or else.

This is how you know they are wrong.

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They'll have to work it out

Republicans are as out of touch with reality as Democrats are, only in slightly different ways.

Part of the evidence for this is that they'll call you a Democrat any time you disagree with them for being irrational.

Just like the Democrats call you a Republican any time you disagree with them for being irrational.

I feel a little bad that reality just doesn't support their beliefs, but that's not my fault, nor is it my responsibility to coddle them in their distress.

My responsibility is to not archate, and not demand that others do so on my behalf. Other than that, they'll have to work it out on their own- and calling me names won't help them get there.

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Hoping I’m not psychic

I don’t have (or believe in) precognitive dreams. Even if they are real, I hope this isn’t my first one.

Saturday morning (around 3:30am), I dreamed of a rocket explosion. In my dream, I was watching the launch of a rocket with a center core and 2 side boosters. Just as the engines fired, there was an explosion at the bottom of the center core, just above the nozzle/s, and the whole thing blew apart, mostly destroying the launch mount as well.

I’m not sure if the rocket in my dream was a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, NASA’s SLS, or another rocket. When I woke up, I felt like it was SLS, which is scheduled to launch soon, but that wasn't part of the dream.

Either way, I hope this doesn’t come true- I don’t like rockets being lost, and I certainly don’t want a manned rocket exploding with people on board. Not even government employees.

I figured I'd document this, making a record that would show precognition if it came to pass (which I think makes it less likely to happen, since the Universe seems averse to precognition being demonstrable).

Update: It wasn’t the Artemis II  launch, and I’m glad of that!

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Counterfeit "law" will be the downfall of the State

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: If the state keeps cracking down on liberty, making more and more normal activities "illegal", then it will be more and more a badge of honor to be an outlaw.

The more things they turn into "crimes", the less respect the "normies" will have for their "laws". Some might even end up having contempt for "the law" like I do.

Not contempt for real Law, but for legislation and arbitrary government rules; counterfeit "laws". 

Government supremacists get very upset over me pointing out counterfeit "laws"- they demand to know how I can arbitrarily decide which laws are real and which ones aren't. 

But it's not arbitrary at all. 

If they weren't so concerned with defending a criminal organization and its evil rules, they could see it for themselves. Counterfeit "law" is having consequences, and those will only get more obvious. I don't expect the State's addiction to counterfeit "law" to be cured. I expect it to get worse. I expect more and more people to gradually start seeing it for what it is. I expect less and less respect for "the law" over time.

Statists (and Statanists) have only themselves to blame, but they'll never face reality. They'll try to put the blame everywhere but on themselves. It will be their downfall. It can't happen soon enough.

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Hooray for Afroman!

I hope I'm not alone in being satisfied by the outcome of the frivolous lawsuit against Afroman, filed by the armed goons he embarrassed.

He is a hero for free speech and against cops doing what cops feel entitled to do.

If there was to be a lawsuit, this was how it had to turn out if justice is to prevail. The loser cops had to also lose in court, not just in life.

He'd better watch his back, though, because that gang doesn't like being mocked, even though they deserve it so much. If he is the victim of a drive-by shooting anytime in the next few years, I will assume the Blue Line Mafia is 100% responsible. No matter who they find to blame as their scapegoat.

Stay safe, Afroman!

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Idiots hate your liberty

I've had something go wrong, and it has sent me spiraling into depression. I'll get over it.

But, I haven't felt like doing anything. Or writing anything.

I did make the mistake of going on X- the cat videos are nice- but I see things posted by people who really ought to know better that make me feel even worse.

I just can't believe the lengths people will go to when trying to justify government. People who really should know better, and who I think would be ashamed if they had enough self-awareness to realize what they're saying.

I even had someone (who should know better) respond to something I wrote a couple of days ago, saying if you don't like being governed, you can revoke your citizenship any time. A different spin on the "Love it or leave it" nonsense.

They said no one may have the right to govern, but "we the people" gave them the "authority" to govern in 1788. Funny, but I wasn't there, and I did no such thing.

We really are going to have to get used to being outlaws if we are to hang on to any shred of liberty. Those who should be on our side are all too happy to sacrifice us and our liberty to The State, just so they can keep the parts of government they like. Idiots.

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Association must be voluntary, by mutual consent

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 11, 2026)

If you believe the best solution to any problem, real or imagined, is to give government more control, you're off base.

The government-created issue of "immigration" illustrates this perfectly.

Liberty trumps every other concern. Government solutions to "immigration" never enhance liberty but are a direct threat to it. Even if government is doing something you want it to do, and even if you believe the trade-off is worth the cost. Nothing is worth eroding liberty.

The New Mexico government recently barred state and local government-run facilities from contracting with ICE to provide detention centers. Good, bad, misguided, or pointless? This doesn't mean others won't choose to help ICE carry out its rights violations, but New Mexico governments won't be allowed to do so. It's still government doing government stuff.

Government has no business being involved.

As with most things, I expect some localities to ignore the legislation, hoping they'll get support from the federal government.

I'm opposed to concentration camps, whatever you might call them. I'm also opposed to barring people from living where they can make mutually consensual, voluntary agreements with the property owners.

Alternatively, I'm opposed to government participating in human trafficking; importing people from other countries and spending tax money to install them in communities.

Typically, you have people on one side who want government to ignore the Constitution and "control immigration" pitted against people on the other side who want government to import every basket case from every third-world country, and then support them for the rest of their lives on tax money stolen from the productive residents.

I want government out of the game altogether. Live where you want; make it on your own.

If you only want to hire people who were born in America- or in New Mexico- that's your right. Modern legislation might disagree, but if so, it's wrong. Again.

It's the same if you wish to discriminate on any basis for employment, housing, services, or whatever. Forced association is a violation of everyone's rights. If you don't want to be around me, why would I want government to force us together? That wouldn't be good for either of us. All association must be voluntary and by mutual consent. I wouldn't want to eat a cake baked by someone forced to "Bake the cake", to borrow a phrase from another case of forced association.

Government fouls everything it touches, including human interactions. It's never the solution.

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Simple, painless solutions

If you won’t wear a hat, I don’t want to listen to you complain about the sun in your eyes.

It's funny how often that translates into other areas of life, too.

A solution that is simple, costs almost nothing, doesn't take time or effort, doesn't hurt, is safe, and doesn't disrupt your life in any way- but people won't do it just because they don't want to. They don't like the solution. Complaining is more satisfying.

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Being useful or being used

It's interesting to me how many times I find it necessary to remind people that not allowing myself to be controlled is not the same as me controlling the person who wants to control me.

Refusing to be used by you doesn't violate your rights. You have no right to use others.

If you have a mutual understanding that you'll do some specific thing for someone, that's not what I'm talking about when I say "being used". That's just being helpful or useful, voluntarily of your own free will. Consent is the key.

As much as I hate mowing and yard work, I do it for my parents to be helpful. I don't resent it or feel like I am being used. They've done things for me, too.

Being used can create resentment and devalue you. It's akin to slavery. Being useful can make you feel good, even if it's not particularly enjoyable in and of itself.

Government employees don't get this distinction (almost by definition), but many freelancers also don't get it. Governing others is just another way of using others; of controlling them in ways no one has a right to do. It's not exclusive to bureaucrats and other political criminals. 

Refusing to be controlled, in this case, can be a valid form of self-defense. The control freaks won't like it.

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