The Mind of an Enforcer

Ok – I’ll discuss with Dom. It seems like a subject that might have sufficient “legs” to warrant a section devoted to it.

I myself am very leery of aloquackic medicine – the “health care” industry. Which has a financial interest in sickness.

Now, if you have a broken leg (or similar physical trauma) then a trained doctor can be just what the, er, doctor ordered. But I strongly suspect that most of what ails us can be traced to lifestyle. What we eat, how we care for ourselves, etc.

I tend to pick up on anecdotal evidence and get to thinking along certain lines. For example, out here in the sticks, one routinely finds wizened old farmers who rarely, if ever, see a doctor (excepting trauma). They are stronger than I am, some of them – despite being in their 70s and 80s. They can set fence posts and run barbed wire for six hours in the July sun and it doesn’t faze them. No cabinet full of pills. And they eat hearty – meat – every day.

Meanwhile, back in the burbs… one sees the opposite. Young men – 20s, 30s – who are physical wrecks already. By 40 – if not sooner – they will be popping statins (and Viagra). Hmmmm… what does this suggest?

Eric, I’m with you on allo-pathetic medicine. If I have a limb hanging by the skin or broken bones, then I can see a real need. If I found out that I was eaten up with cancer, I’d probably seek alternative / natural means to affect a cure; I’m not into being poisoned, cut up and irradiated all at great expense. This last incident freaked me out enough to actually “go to the doctor” since I really had no idea what was going on.

Unfortunately he wasn’t immediately available and with my symptoms, the receptionist instructed me to “Go to the emergency room now!” as they shoved a wheelchair under my butt. So they poked, prodded, tested and bled me for 24 hours only to tell me everything was fine except for elevated blood pressure.

So…I’d been looking for a good excuse to go primal and this got me off my duff. When I explained my dietary approach to the problem and backed it up with hard evidence that it was working, the M.D. was nonplussed to say the least.

Which brings me to your anecdote about old farmers: we are vertical beings designed for high mobility under a variety of conditions. Stop moving, sit down or lay down and stay that way and you can expect to…stay that way. We must keep going to keep going. That’s the secret to those old farmers, they never quit doing what they were doing and that’s why they’re still able to. And spending most of their lives in front of a flat panel and pizza box is why a lot of America’s young males aren’t physically fit for military service or much else for that matter.

I knew a retired CDC physician who was well into her eighties and walked all over town, went out to care for her cattle in the country and was clear as a bell mentally. She gave us this advice: “Stay away from doctors. They’ll kill you.” Interesting coming from a doctor, no? She fulfilled Mark Sisson’s slogan of “Live Long Drop Dead.” At eighty-eight years old, she went out to visit her cattle, got out of the truck to open the gate, had an aneurysm rupture and, according to the fellow driving the truck, was dead before she hit the ground. The wonderful part was she was doing something she loved. May I be so blessed.

@eric–

Right! They’re awesome for trauma–acute conditions, like a broken leg or appendicitis. But “chronic” conditions? No thank you. I’m convinced 99% of those are dietary and lifestyle, and most of the other 1% can be fixed with natural medicines.

@Boothe–
Wasn’t it mind-boggling to face your doctor with facts–what you actually did and got good results–and still see his disbelief? It’s a religion; they worship the AMA, the CDC, and the FDA.

meth…Cartels don’t do awesome. But the relative contrast can fool the eye.

@eric–

WOW, you dodged a bullet with your knee problem! Glad you exercised your BS detector. Yeah…a “meniscectomy”, bad ju-ju. It’s that little disk of cartilage that rides between the articular surfaces of the joint. Its job is to sweep the lubricant around and cushion the joint…remove it, and BAM! guaranteed arthritis.

Oh–and a follow-up job later, Hey Eric, meet Mr. Total Knee Replacement!

Just a total lack of ethics for Quack #1.

That, and insurance. If YOU had to shell out the (minimum) $20K for that surgery, you’d damn sure be asking around. But you don’t, and so they naturally suggest the expensive surgical option.

Medicine has been socialized for a long time; it’s just out in the open now.

If ya’ll haven’t, I recommend googling Joel Wallach and Youngevity. His book Dead Doctors Don’t Lie is a good intro to his mode of thinking–which is, just about all disease is a nutritional deficiency. I could nit-pick a few points, but overwhelmingly the biochemistry behind it makes sense.

That’s not a bad idea, either – consider it being looked into!

We already have that with the forum, but nobody likes it. Having a free-for-all is a bit more difficult on this main page.

“free for all”. organic. anarchical. correct.

Eric, I do not know what it takes to make it happen but can you make it so that when we get email notifications of new comments we can just click onto that one comment rather than have to scroll through the whole post to find it?

There are many sharp minds here; I would like to engage them quickly.

Again, I know you are busy and it might be too time consuming for you but I think it would help move the conversations along better.

I am new here. I wish I had found you guys a long time ago! I noticed the forum has had no new posts for several months. Why come nobody uses the forum?

Hi Skunkbear. I’ll add it to my things to do list.

“I suspect that John is either a cop himself or an ex-cop.”

I suspect that “John” is just a garden variety troll who posts here under several user names.

I feed trolls insults and ridicule and nothing else. They want to draw others into pointless attempts to offer them another view. It’s a waste of time to say anything other than “fuck off” to a troll.

That’s my view, and I could be wrong.

I suspect that John is either a cop himself or an ex-cop.

I doubt that. He’s far too articulate. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he’s a recent college grad who, not being able to find remunerative employment anywhere in the private sector, is employed by the DHS (or one of its parasitic contractors) to troll and disrupt web sites like this one.

“Octopussy! – just wanted to say that for no reason. I just like the word.”

I wonder if Ian Fleming ever thought about naming her Octovagina?

I often wonder about things like that. Does that mean that I need psychiatric attention?

tgsam

Dear IAM, Tinsely,

“Pussy Galore!”

I just wanted to say that, for no reason either!

Re: being the bad cop. Don’t sweat it. That’s how “good cop, bad cop” works. I’ll do my job, and you’ll do yours.

Dear Eric,

Now that’s foreplay!

Are you kidding me?

Brucks: “I tell them that they’re not being safe, that they need to slow down and stay safe.”

Peters: “And here we thought safety was the criteria! Apparently, it is safe to ‘speed’ … when a family member has just been sent to the hospital.”

Which part of pulling someone over and telling them they are being “unsafe” and that they need to “slow down” gave you the impression he was saying it was safe (i.e. the exact opposite of “unsafe”, for those of you not paying attention)?

“Exactly like letting a rapist go… because hey, the girl was really hot. Just don’t do that again, son – ok? Keep it in your pants….”

BAILIFF! Whack his pee pee. –Cheech and Chong, c. 1972.

It’s quite amazing how you can dance around this like some kind of politician. Whether or not he “gives them a break” and doesn’t ticket them is wholly irrelevant to what we’re currently talking about.

Once again: He literally said “you’re being unsafe”, and you immediately responded by implying he said they were being safe.

Which part of pulling someone over and telling them they are being “unsafe” and that they need to “slow down” gave you the impression he was saying it was safe?

John J, the cop being interviewed has a typical american view of the law. A social view. See speeding up to 80mph is okay with him. But 81mph isn’t. A good excuse will avoid a ticket, but just driving at a speed a little bit faster than what he thinks is safe gets one. But the traffic engineers and the political system that sets the speed limit is just fine, even though the speed limits are 33% lower than the real upper bound this officer has decided.

The guy is so full of social contradiction that I think it is perfectly acceptable to interpret this as some speeding being ok and others not. It’s one of the clear messages in the interview.

I don’t see how Eric misrepresented it when he equated speeding is ok to this cop deciding who to ticket and who to not ticket based on the story. Also Eric used the qualifier ‘apparently’ which means this is his impression, his opinion, the way he’s interpreting the officer’s words. Eric can have whatever opinion he wants in this regard. I can certainly see that the cop can give that impression. I think rather that the cop thinks it’s unsafe but acceptable or ‘safe enough’ with the right excuse. That is the safety required is relative to the conditions. It’s his apparent social way of thinking.

Why does a good story not get a punishment? Are the people supposed to entertain the officer? The punishment is supposed to be based upon the legal idea that the government may punish or even criminalize risk taking. The risk is probably more when someone is a poor emotional state rushing to the hospital than when it’s just a nice day without much traffic so they decided to go faster. But the person who is in a poor emotional state gets told to ‘slow down’ and is on his way but the person paying attention enjoying the drive for the drive’s sake, he gets punished. It’s just personal feelings, not safety, not even law. Perhaps the cop thinks that it is unsafe but understandable for the person rushing to the hospital, but why does it become unsafe for the other guy when it’s just a difference of opinion? 80mph vs say 83mph? Is it really that far out to think the cop is making a safety judgment by whom he lets go with a short lecture and whom he doesn’t?

I really don’t see how Eric’s opinion is so out of line. Perhaps a bit of an intellectual short cut, but that’s really picking nits. The cop has floating idea of what degree of safety deserves punishment and what doesn’t. What doesn’t get punished in this society is ‘ok’, is by default ‘safe’. We’ve see time and time again because ‘safe’ is an opinion. What’s safe today could be reckless tomorrow and vice-versa.

Eric,

I find it interesting that you continue to find it necessary to bring in personal assessments about me, as opposed to simply own up to your mistake.

You have no idea who I am or what my political philosophy is, yet you feel the need to presume to tell me what I think and what’s wrong with my mind.

I have said absolutely nothing about the morality of taxation, government statutes, or the initiation of force of any kind on humans acting peacefully.

I simply point out a blatant inconsistency in your piece here, and you basically do a little dance, trying to equate someone being ticketed with him being “unsafe”, and then throw out knee-jerk zombie accusations of statist brainwashing.

All I was trying to do was keep you honest. I suppose I should have expected the over-defensive backlash, as I’m sure you’re used to any criticism you get being from a statist criticizing your overall philosophy…but I guess I just thought maybe you’d be intelligent and intellectually honest enough to actually read what is written and not be so self-conscious and presumptuous as to immediately point and scream “STATIST!” the minute someone offers anything other than praise for something you write.

One more time:

You already established in the first section of the article that if he doesn’t feel they’re being “unsafe”, they don’t get pulled over, even if they are moving faster than the speed limit.

That’s it. That’s where the safety issue ends. Either they’re being safe [in his mind] and they don’t get pulled over, or they aren’t [in his mind], and they get pulled over.

Once they are pulled over, we’ve established that he thinks they are being unsafe. He further confirms this by literally saying “you’re not being safe.”

I honestly don’t know how it can get any clearer than that.

Just because he doesn’t ticket them, it doesn’t have to mean they’re not being “unsafe”. The whimsical ticketing is another issue. Go ahead and attack him on that. But do not falsely claim that his ticketing is what determines if he thinks they were being safe…because again,

1) He blatantly stated he thinks they were being unsafe. Unless you have proof you can read minds, you’re not going to win the argument that he really doesn’t think that — and simply ticketing them vs. not ticketing them for their “unsafe” behavior is certainly not enough evidence to give anything close to an assumable theory of mind…certainly not enough to override A) his act of pulling them over, and B) his literally stating he thinks they’re being unsafe.

2) YOU already established that if he doesn’t think they’re being unsafe, they don’t get pulled over in the first place.

Complain about the flexible nature of his enforcement of the statute. Complain about the idiocy of the statute itself. Complain about the immorality of a legal monopoly on force. But don’t sit there and establish one point, and then essentially try to establish a contradictory one just because it suits your agenda.

Perhaps you need a course on logic. Perhaps your hatred for the state simply blinds you to any sort of accurate reasoning when it comes to the topic. Perhaps your interactions with government agents have done a (to use your term) “mind-fuck” number on you…I don’t know.

I don’t know what prevents you from understanding a simple error of logic, nor what possesses you to feel the need to engage in ad hominem nonsense (which isn’t even close to being accurate, by the way) when someone simply points out said error.

One might use the phrase “physician, heal thyself,” here.

Dear Eric,

I didn’t chime in because I didn’t think it was necessary.

John’s “Who’s on First” routine about “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” was utterly irrelevant, and a complete waste of time.

Who gives a damn about who imagined what?

Since John is not as inarticulate as many of the clovers and sheeple who troll, it’s hardly out of line to wonder whether the time-wasting wasn’t his real objective in the first place.

The real issue of course, was what you kept trying to get John to return to.

Does a system that puts individuals at the mercy of such arbitrary, discretionary exercise of power have any legitimacy? Should such a system be abolished?

Since that was your bottom line all along, there was no “mistake” to own up to.

Dear Eric,

Sure thing!

Eric,

I’m honestly surprised at how you are able to keep dodging the issue. First you try to claim “officer oink’s” concept of “safety” is reflected in whether or not he tickets someone…then when I present the logical case that completely dismantles that nonsense, you are now back to focusing on whether the speed limits are too low or not. (As well as continuing to lecture me on the philosophy of government and government agents, and implying I’m defending him, his actions, or the monopoly that he thinks gives him the authority.)

As this is of course your blog, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve been afforded some equally irrelevant and accusatory backup. They are of course your followers.

But what does surprise me is the way you not only refuse to acknowledge the very simple and incredibly blatant point I’ve made multiple times now, but the way you so childishly resort to lectures and zombie accusations of state worship/blind devotion/brainwashing/etc., as if that were at all relevant.

Once again you have no idea who I am, yet you seem to completely ignore what I’ve actually stated, and instead abstract everything down to:

1) This guy is criticizing something I said…

2) That must mean this guy disagrees with my philosophy…

3) That of course would mean he’s a statist!…

4) And that of course means he’s been brainwashed and is so blind that he can’t see ridiculousness if it’s wearing a badge…

5) He needs to wake up!! Break free of the Matrix!!

As I said, I fully understand your inclination to follow such a path of assumption, as most of the time, you’re probably right in those assumptions, so you pay no price of ultimately being wrong, even though the jump from #1 to #2 is complete non sequitur.

But even still, I would have thought (or perhaps hoped) that someone such as yourself would be a bit more discerning and capable of taking what is said at face value, not simply jumping to conclusions about the person who said it so that you might be able to dodge the point made.

I’ll make my point one more time:

You established in the first section of the article that Oink doesn’t bother up to 20 mph over the posted limit.

Great. You have revealed him to contradict himself, as you point out, elsewhere he said the speed limits were not too low.

No problem. He exhibits signs of doublethink. You’ve established evidence for your thesis. The problem comes in in the next section. You quote him as telling a driver they are “being unsafe”…and then turn right around and claim he thinks they are being safe…and admittedly base your conclusion on whether or not he gives them a ticket.

In other words, he tells them they’re being unsafe…and according to you, if he gives them a ticket, it means he actually thinks that. But if he tells them they’re being unsafe and doesn’t give them a ticket, he is actually lying, and doesn’t really think that, he’s just saying it for no reason.

Do you see the problem with your claim here? Nowhere have you established that the ticket is what constitutes Oink’s opinion of “safety”. It’s perfectly feasible that he could believe someone was being unsafe, and pull them over to slow them down, and tell them they’re being unsafe and need to drive slower…and yet still not ticket them.

But it helps your case to imply a human being could do no such thing, that it’s impossible. …that if no ticket is written, then “a good story” has changed the officer’s feeble, contradicted mind, and he no longer thinks the person was being unsafe.

This of course is total nonsense.

Again you and a follower or two may find this to be a negligible point, and I might actually agree that it did not warrant this much discussion, which is why I simply called your attention to it, said you’re better than that, and left it.

But evidently you have either a problem with comprehension, or actually do require a course in logic. (Or of course you simply need to open your eyes and not make so many assumptions.)

I originally called your attention to it because I feel it is important to be honest in the presentation of one’s case. I thought that you were simply not being fully honest in that part of your piece because it helped your thesis.

But your responses here have shown that you may very well not have actually understood the error you made, as it seems you still don’t. (Unless of course you’re simply being dishonest now so as to save face.)

If you are truly that ignorant of the error, I apologize for saying you “lied”, even though I was technically correct in saying so. If it was an honest mistake, I would retract that statement and use a different word. And I would also encourage you to take a course on logic. David Gordon has an online class I would recommend, and I believe Gerard Casey does as well.

But more importantly than that, I would encourage you to at least read what is written and address that, instead of making assumptions about the person who wrote it and resorting to ad hominem accusations, and proceeding to roll into lectures which are totally irrelevant to the point raised.

Once again, that’s not the point you made.

More facts:

Fact: A human being can believe a person was being unsafe, and at the same time not write him a ticket.

Fact: Cop stated the person was being unsafe, and needs to slow down.

Fact: You claim the cop thinks the person was being safe.

Fact: You have no way to prove your claim (i.e. that the cop doesn’t actually believe what he said.)

The point I made stands:

You basically claimed he said (or at least believed) the exact opposite of what he actually said. Yet you have no proof of this claim, and in fact the evidence is against you in this regard.

One more time: he said one thing, and you immediately claimed he actually believed the exact opposite…and based your claim on something that has literally no bearing on what he said. (See Fact #1)

Once again,

Fact: A human being can believe a person was being unsafe, and at the same time not write him a ticket.

Fact: Cop stated the person was being unsafe, and needs to slow down.

Fact: You claim the cop thinks the person was being safe.

Fact: You have no way to prove your claim (i.e. that the cop doesn’t actually believe what he said.)

You can dance around all you like, but you — as well as any of your followers who would likely defend you no matter what you said — cannot honestly deny these facts.

But it’s certainly fun to watch you try and shimmy around them.

Dear Eric,

Like I said, “Who’s on First?”

Only deliberately, to troll us.

Long story short:

It’s not about perception. It’s about action.

It’s not about who thought what. It’s about who did what.

Who did what is not in question. The actions are observable. It does not require “mind reading.”

The clover cop’s actions were inconsistent with legality and justice. No mind reading is required.

QED.

This just keeps getting better. You can’t deny the facts, so instead you resort to more ad hominem and childishly edit my comments and add symbols to essentially call me names.

Real class act there, Peters. Nice to know this is how you deal with honest critique.

I honestly expected a lot more from you. I don’t think I’ve ever actually met an alleged libertarian who had to resort to ad hominem and name calling. That’s generally a state-apologist MO.

Way to steal their tactics.

Eric,

First of all, dress it up all you want, it doesn’t change the reality of your childish and logically fallacious behavior (again, as your second official logical error, if you won’t take it upon yourself to gain some instruction in logic, you might at least look up the term “ad hominem”.)

Second, your constant comparison of “speeding” (a victimless, statute violation) to rape (a clear act of aggression), illustrates a severe shortcoming in your understanding of rights and actual libertarian principles.

I’m truly sorry that someone who presumes to call himself a libertarian apparently can’t see an ethical difference between those two acts.

(I’m sure you’ll come back and insist you do see a difference, but your constant comparison of the two suggests otherwise…speaking of “judging actions”)

I assert this proves he does not really believe what he says.

Which, again, it doesn’t. Fact.

It’s interesting that someone who would seem to want to defer to actual facts (at least in one comment) wishes to ignore them when they aren’t in his favor.

It’s been fun watching you dance, Eric, but I’m afraid there’s nothing new that could come of this. You’ll keep claiming “speed limit” this and “he said the engineers are good” that, but you won’t be able to deny the facts I have stated multiple times above.

Again, all I can do is urge you to educate yourself with at least an intro course in logic (including logical fallacies), and now I suppose, perhaps some instruction in the reality of libertarian principles and actual rights. Selective enforcement of an illegitimate statute is not the same as selective enforcement of a law against aggression.

If a cop elects to not give out tickets to half of the “speeders” he pulls over, that’s great. We’re halfway there.

You apparently think this is a bad thing, and that speeding punishments should be handed out with the same vigor as rape punishments.

Again, I’m sorry that someone who purports to be a libertarian would spout, let alone hold, such a view.

Keep reading, my confused friend.

JohnJ, the cops words and actions are not logically compatible. They are social. They are designed for the reader to come away with the opinion that this cop knows what is safe and what isn’t but shows ‘compassion’ to those who have a good excuse for having an illegal idea of a safe speed or making a different risk decision than he does.

Eric is pointing out that this is illogical. Irrational. His job is supposedly to -punish- unsafe driving. But he is so full of contradictions it’s hard to determine what he is actually saying. The 60mph speed limit is properly set but he won’t punish until 20 over? He’ll cut someone a break with a good story but if it’s a lonely road and someone is doing 82mph because it’s an open road with good conditions then that needs punishment? It doesn’t make logical sense. It makes social sense. Which is the way americans like things by and large.

See they want that guy who just likes driving 82mph punished but not that person rushing to the hospital to see a relative… yet who is probably the safer driver of the two?

Last night I am driving along in the very light traffic because the stupor bowels is on the TVeee and guess what is over the rise, a state cop in the median. I brake, change lanes to the right behind an SUV. I probably broke his laser or radar contact. He starts to pull out. I change to the rightmost lane and start to pass a semi to my left. He dives over and is behind me. I hold between 55-60. He isn’t tailgating… Odd behavior for a state cop. After I clear the semi he passes me and then uses the next turnaround to go back.

Given past experiences it’s good thing I was driving my plain small sedan and not one of my other cars. In the other ones I probably would have been pulled over.

See the law isn’t logical. It’s social. In this plain sedan I am ‘good people’. Put me in one of my more capable cars and I am ‘bad people’. It’s a social thing, and that’s what this cop is doing and you’re going with it. Eric is pointing out the illogical nature of it in total. Most of it is how you see ‘safe’ and punishment versus how Eric sees it.

In the logical mind the cop is enforcing (that is punishing violators of) a particular idea of risk tolerance. His or the state’s depending on what he feels like that day. But if a person has a good story, then he doesn’t get punished. The pulled over driver was then logically safe enough, his risk tolerance acceptable for his personal -circumstances- not to be punished.

If I wrote something on this cop I would have spent a few paragraphs explaining this. Then again I am used to the back and forth where short cuts that should be understood turn into debates on what I really meant.

The cop does deem by virtue of not punishing, the past driving as safe enough given a driver’s circumstances. He just tells them not to do it going forward. Remember, he doesn’t give the guy in the sports car on bright sunny sunday morning on an open road the same break. It’s about his interpretation of risk taking. It changes with the circumstances of the driver. Something summed up in the word ‘safe’.

Second, your constant comparison of .speeding. (a victimless, statute violation) to rape (a clear act of aggression), illustrates a severe shortcoming in your understanding of rights and actual libertarian principles.

I.m truly sorry that someone who presumes to call himself a libertarian apparently can.t see an ethical difference between those two acts.

To the law enforcer they are all the same. If one drives 30 over one of Illinois’ grossly underposted speed limits, he is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. That’s 6 months in jail.

What else is a class B misdemeanor?

Criminal Trespass to Property
Harassment by Telephone
Possession of Cannabis (more than 2.5 grams but not more than 10 grams)

Now 40 over is a class A misdemeanor. What is a class A?

Aggravated Assault
Battery
Domestic Battery
Criminal Damage To Property
Criminal Defacement to Property
Criminal Sexual Abuse
Criminal Trespass to Residence
Criminal Trespass to Vehicles
Deceptive Practices
Driving Under the Influence
Driving with a Suspended/Revoked License
Endangering the Life or Health of a Child
Interfering With the Reporting of Domestic Violence
Patronizing a Prostitute
Possession of Cannabis (more than 10 grams but not more than 30 grams)
Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
Possession of Hypodermic Needles
Prostitution

That’s one year in prison.

What Eric is doing is pointing out how the law works, not libertarian principle. The concept of selective enforcement goes all the way the up the crime ladder. Speeding is equal to the state as many things libertarians see as real crimes. And yes, cops do let people slide on real crimes too. That’s the point of the comparison.

Is conflation as much a function of fiat (keep it simple) as inflation?

“There’s no crying in baseball!” ~ A league of their own

There’s no human being in cop…which has something to do with the cop con-tention of no human being in ‘mundanes’.

“The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as “that which turns a person into a thing — either corpse or slave.” It may sometimes be a necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it.” ~ from a joe sobran piece, couple days back

The only time I had to go to one of these things live and in person, back in the 1990s, I openly challenged the instructor. Also answered questions with real info just to get the damn class over with. Nobody else would speak and it slowed it to a crawl. The instructor even challenged me to find stuff in a book of the vehicle code. I did. She wasn’t too pleased about that 🙂

I’ve been forced to endure one such class back in the eighties. All due to getting a ticket at a “trap” where the cop was lurking: a stop sign that was so far away and in the dark that you couldn’t see it except in daylight. It was a setup. The cop had to actually take his flashlight out and hit the damn thing with it’s beam before I knew it was even there. Hidden indeed! I took the class and it was exactly as you describe. In my thirtyfive years of driving that’s been the one and only time I’ve ever gone to one.

Guys, I think your approach to the driver improvement class is all wrong! I’ve been three times, yes three! Each time it got better. Some of my best memories came from these classes. I still remember some of their names too. Like Heather, the girl with the BMW Z3. She was faster than her car! The key to these courses is to go to a large one and have as much fun as possible. Most importantly, don’t you dare pay attention to what the fuck the instructors are saying though. I missed the driver improvement classes so much I ended up enrolling myself in ASAP (some alcohol class). I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time in this class. Very educational. No Heathers’ though! 🙁

I’ll take that under advisement, Dom. With an eye out for “Heathers”. Remember the movie?

I should add, Only this time, the Love is gone.

Ok, I’m done for the night, that should have read: Ah, I see, it’s both metric and STANDARD at the same time.

I really wish I had recorded the online traffic school. The astoundingly dumb stuff in it was remarkable. (I missed the signal change and turned right .0001 seconds or so after the light turned red but the cross traffic had green left turn arrows which is defacto right turn arrow for me. Perfectly safe. The cop nearly hit someone turning left to proceed straight through the intersection to ticket me.)

The airbag friendly way of holding the steering wheel is classic of what government does. It makes a mandate. That mandate has flaws because people in government don’t know all there is to know and often refuse to listen to those that know more. Then instead of admitting their error they have to teach modified behaviors, make more laws, and/or make new mandates to patch over the previous one.

I think about my air bag going off and slamming my arm into my face often, or just snapping my arm. Can’t wait!

And I want sweet revenge. I want to feel like I’ve just seen every bad guy in every Western Movie get what’s coming to him. Only this time I want it to be those who have betrayed their oath of office and I want it to be real.

tgsam

Dear lib,

the point of carrying is to defend ourselves against the state-employed home invader and gang-banger – not the non-state sanctioned “freelancers.”

Absolutely, positively true!

It’s galling that too many gun owners are still afraid to even think this, let alone say this, or god forbid, act on this.

Example: By deliberately practicing open carry without a “permit.”

As I see it, natural rights are real. Individuals have them. That is the moral high ground.

But, to actually enjoy them in the real world, one must do more than merely assert them rhetorically, one must claim them physically.

Example: Here on Taiwan, most drivers refuse to yield the right of way to pedestrians, even in clearly marked pedestrian crosswalks.

They barrel through without a second thought. They know the pedestrians won’t risk asserting their right of way with their bodies. So the drivers take advantage of it.

They know they can intimidate pedestrians into yielding to their one ton vehicles. After all, who is going to risk spending the rest of one’s life in a wheelchair?

The broad masses of sheeple on Taiwan live with it. They don’t even think about it.

Not me. It sticks in my craw.

One day, I happened to be carrying a very long aluminum pole on the way home. So I stuck it out in front of me, forcing oncoming drivers to stop, or else risk damaging their windshields when they ran into the pole.

(NB: As I see it, this is not “clover” behavior. As I see it, a market anarchist society would stipulate that one ton vehicles must yield to one hundred pound pedestrians out of entirely rational considerations.)

To me, this illustrates an key principle. Rights to be actually enjoyed, must be claimed through physical action.

This is as true of gun rights, as it is of a pedestrian’s right of way relative to motorists.

“He lives around lots of dogs”

Then he should expect the dogs, know what the dogs are capable of and be prepared to defend himself.

The decision to do so is subjective.

Your risk, your decision.

I don’t know how many videos you have to see where people who knew the risks and yet did nothing are beaten, shot and killed.

“why carry a gun if you are going to put yourself in a position where someone can so easily get the jump on you and render your weapons useless?”

People should avoid the grocery store too? And the mall? I try not to let People walk behind me while I’m in stores, I’m not always successful, should I give up on self-defense?

In most areas of life People are going to put themselves in a position where someone can easily get the jump on them and render their weapons useless.

Fine line, I guess?

Yeah, I’m pathetic. I fall short in many areas. Fortunately, there are the enlightened, like you, to guide me.

Dude! The last time I set foot in Vegas was back in 06 while passing on through the air terminal to New Zealand. Before that it was 96 and one night while driving back to Texas…. Wanted to see how it had changed from 82… As you can see I rarely visit. Once every ten to fifteen years. And I know about the economic tsunami that hit the place. While up in the North Dakota oilfield I even saw women who’d moved from Vegas just to get a job. That’s a radical move! I shouldn’t laugh because I’m probably going to join them soon.

Like in anything, it is the use of force, of threats, of exercising control that brings about disorder in driving.

Why do we have left lane blockers? Because of the low speed limits. It’s their god-given-right to do their chosen speed in the far left lane.

As more and more laws are made for ‘safety’ driving gets worse and worse. It’s building better idiots, causing more disorder.

The more rules there are the more advantage a person has by breaking them. Thus breaking them is more encouraged. People also stop being able to see the difference between the nonsense rules and the basic necessary ones. So they break whatever rules that will get them ahead. Perspective is also lost. For instance, 50 miles an hour on a 20mph residential street in the afternoon with little kids playing nearby is punished the same as 85mph on an 8 lane interstate in the middle of the night when nobody is around. Thus more disorder.

The way to keep people from driving like maniacs is not to control as if they were children. To control them like children they will behave like children. They will also act to get away with whatever they can get away with.

Bob we agree on much–911, police state, banksters, guns etc.

But you have to examine your precepts!
Here’s what I mean:

it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others.

Then immediately you point out “it’s only going to get worse”, and talk about the “respect mah authoritah” types.

Do you see the internal contradiction?

Because if you allow enforcement of ANY arbitrary law–one which has no victim–you create the very authority structure that “only gets worse”

You notice yourself the two types–the Andy Griffith and his opposites. You see therefore that “enforcement” is arbitrary–dependent upon the man, not the law.
You’re willing to accept it if it’s enforced leniently, if he’ll “give you a break”.
But you don’t like it when it’s enforced “unreasonably”–too strictly for your liking.

That is not a system of laws or reason; it is arbitrary and capricious. Real law–natural law–is absolute, not subject to the enforcer’s interpretation*

Just so, the speeding laws themselves are arbitrary and capricious. I’m much safer at 100–highly capable car, capable driver–than a 70-year-old in an old beater with no shocks and drum brakes at 60mph. That’s an extreme case–but there are infinite gradations on that scale, just as there are infinitely many road conditions that affect safety.

Freedom WORKS because it lets each of us exercise our full potential in a simple-to-understand paradigm, the NAP. If I’m not harming, stealing, defrauding, or damaging a person or property, I’m free to continue.

And the cop can fuck off unless I’ve actually harmed someone or something–and THEY complain, not the fictitious entity “the State”.

* natural law is absolute; however there is still mercy, for example in recognizing lesser punishment for a crime of passion, or accident, or with extenuating circumstances.

Hi Bob,

“I just think it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others.”

Let’s examine this a little more closely.

Is driving faster than a number on a sign “driving like a maniac”? According to whom? At what point does your (or my or anyone else’s) subjective opinion about what “makes sense” become enforceable at gunpoint?

Most people – probably including you – “speed” (that is, drive faster than government arbitrarily decides to be acceptable) as a matter of routine. Does this – ipso facto – constitute “endangering the lives of others?” If yes, why? If not – then why are you defending the enforcers? It’s either right – or it’s not – to punish people. Punishing them just a little bit – but for no real reason (that is, not because of any actual harm they’ve caused) – or “giving them a break” sometimes, also for no real (objectively valid or even definable) reason – in no way obviates the fact that they are being punished unjustly.

You write:

“If they err on the side of safety, it’s not a big problem.”

Tell that to the millions upon millions of people who’ve been forced at gunpoint to part with large sums of their hard-earned money via tickets and subsequent insurance “adjustment.” I’d very much like to have back the several thousand dollars in “speeding” fines I received just during the Drive 55 era – when 76 MPH was a reckless driving cite in my state. I received several of these absolutely outrageous, trumped-up six demerit point, several hundred bucks a piece tickets…. for driving at speeds that, before “Drive 55” were either legal or nearly so. Now, they’re (arbitrarily) legal again. Is it “safe” – by dint of their saying so? How so?

I’d like a refund!

Here’s the bottom line: You either support the NAP – and its corollary: no victim, no crime – or you don’t. If you don’t, then you’ve chosen the side of authoritarianism and arbitrary force applied against your fellow human beings.

In which case, you ought not to object when force is applied arbitrarily against you.

Meth,

I’m just saying I don’t want to killed or suffer property damage when I’m on a public road because of some idiot’s reckless driving. If there’s a way to accomplish that without speed signs and patrolmen, I’d like to hear about it. In the meantime, what’s the point of antagonizing some decent cops just trying to do their jobs who often agree with our views on natural law and small government?

I think I see the “internal contradiction” you were referring to. Arbitrary laws for victimless crimes are bad. It leads to bigger government with more laws and more law enforcement agents and more taxes until the whole system collapses from parasistic overload. Yep. And that’s where we’re headed. And there’s no stopping it. Just a matter of time. I’ve seen this coming since back in the 70s when I was studying electrical engineering in college and was amazed by all the clueless kids aimlessly wandering around campus while majoring in basket-weaving or some other pseudo-science. I was concerned about what it portended for America’s future until I read Harry Browne’s “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.”

I understand what you’re saying, this is what I believe to be some errors:

When you say “it makes sense” you’re not speaking of sensory experience, or of scientific observations. You are talking about the local consensus of the “Morality Police.”(a Kant-equivalent concept, but we can keep him out of the discussion)

One’s inner “Morality Policeman” is a raw primal intuition that claims superiority over both your own sensory perceptions as well as the scientifically observable aspects of any given situation.

Any man who pays attention to his senses, can perceive that he is driving a car in an unsafe manner.

Any scientist who observer a stretch of highway and keeps notes, could offer a matrix of probability and a model which could be used in a limited way to optimize certain aspects of vehicular flow and efficiency, insofar as he keeps to only the things capable of being reduced to mechanistic recordable events.

You Morality Police, however, claim much greater jurisdiction and powers. The same powers one’s mother always has. Mom just knows what is best for you in any given situation. By virtue of her authority and desire to do good, both Mom & the Morality Police know just what a safe speed to drive is. That you shouldn’t snack between meals, or you’ll spoil your dinner. That there’s a fair price to be charged for a gallon of gas, and anything in excess is price gouging. That one man shouldn’t own one hundred vehicles, when no one else in town can afford even one car.

Andy Griffith was problematic even while he was on the air in the sleepy and fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina (population 1200).

Sheriff Andy’s office is the gateway to tyranny. Certainly, he could be fired and the town could act in a more financially responsible manner.

It would be a sounder practice to have a schedule where townsfolk took turns being the sheriff and manning the jail for an eight hour shift, with their own gun and clothes, no money.

The special uniform, police car, all those things cost money, and quickly escalate into a black hole of spending that consumes a little town like Mayberry.

If Mayberry has a sheriff, why not also a fire department? Fire fighters are even more obviously a bad value. As long as there are fire hydrants and firehoses somewhere, can’t just any pair of citizens hook up a firehose and put out any fires that should arise?

What is the benefit to Mayberry to build a dedicated fire station, buy a firetruck, and pay the salaries of men to sleep in the firestation and earn a living from the other townspeople taxes?

Any self-sufficient town quickly goes bankrupt. Doesn’t Mayberry need a library? And a recreation center? And an auditorium? And a sports stadium? And a history museum?

The mind of the Enforcers blank out the most important fact of their existence. That they are an unsustainable drain on the tiny Mayberry community, and the best thing they all could do is to resign and use the buildings for some other purpose. Otis can sleep outside on the ground, or pay for his own lodging, that’s the only purpose Andy’s malinvestment jail was ever used for anyway.

Eric,

I do like the NAP idea. Taking it to the logical extreme, let’s say all traffic laws and their enforcement were suspended. Further, let’s say there were no significant increase in traffic deaths or injuries as society adjusted to the change. Great, we didn’t need the signs and fines after all. But, if it turns out the roads become more dangerous, what then?

@Bob et al–

I’m restarting this thread at the bottom of the page–search for “More on Speed Limits”

“I just think it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others”

You think? Not be insulting but who cares what you think brother? What do your thoughts have to do with me? Define maniac and endanger because if I ask 10 people each one will give me a different subjective definition so who’s the wise and all knowing high priest that knows EXACTLY when someone is driving like a “maniac” and “endangering” the lives of others?

And who has the authority to “keep” anyone from doing anything that they have a right to do? “Keep”? Heyzeus H. Christ. Do you hear yourself? Somebody has to tell others what to do! And who do you nominate for that job bra?

I think cops drive like maniacs: they speed ALL the time, weave in and out of traffic, type on their laptops, talk on their cell phones and these guys are supposed to “keep us safe”? How exactly? Who is going to keep us safe from them?

I’m vehemently opposed to being punished for doing something wrong before I do something wrong.

And you are morally inconsistent with your ire for the state but your acceptance of state agents.

Cali Bob, the experiment has already been done.

For congested local roads towns in europe removed all signs and traffic signals. Soon after traffic congestion went away. Collisions dropped. Flows were faster. Conflicts dissolved.

For limited access roads there are the no speed limit sections of the autobahn. The lane discipline is near perfect. People accelerate to merge. Turn signals are used. Fatalities are less than the US interstate. The same thing happened in Montana under R&P. When R&P was removed for speed limits fatalities skyrocketed up as high or higher than they were before R&P brought them down.

People are much more agreeable with each other with a few simple rules than they are with the control freakism.

Mankind would do well to disabuse itself of the psychological burden of religion. What little good religion could rightly claim is overshadowed and nullified many times over by the evil that it has wrought.

I’ll buy none of this “misinterpretd” “misused” or “misunderstood” crap. Critical Thinkers find no need to employ riddles to express the truth they discover. Religion is not a viable substitute for Critical Thinking, never has been and never can be.

Religion is a meal ticket for parasites and scoundrels and a cover for usurpers and murderers. But in spite of all this, no candidate for political office would dare openly confess his atheism.

Gott mit uns? Give me a fucking break.

Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)

When the patient lives He gets the credit. When the patient dies we get the blame. –Dr. Ben Casey

But… is what some men call “god’s law” really “god’s law?” Or is it merely “man’s law” falsely labeled as “god’s law?”

No and yes to your two questions, respectively. Perhaps the saddest thing to infect all of the world’s religions, probably since time immemorial, is the sheer and innate laziness of most of their adherents. Rarely ever do laypeople who subscribe to a particular faith take serious time to carefully study the tenets of their faith (the Torah/Bible for Jews and Christians, the Koran for Muslims, etc.). Most people simply leave it to “the experts” to explain it to them. Unfortunately, far too many of those “experts” are either ignorant mental midgets devoid of either critical thinking skills or the ability to understand the tenets of their faith, manipulative and self-serving con artists with agendas of their own that have nothing whatsoever to do with advancing knowledge of the faith or the spiritual well-being of their flocks, or some combination of both.

For this reason, while I was raised in a faith-based environment and would like to more actively live my life by the same precepts, I find myself frequently wanting to agree with Tinsley’s assertion that critical thought and religious faith are polar opposites. It seems that systematic human distortion of scriptural precepts makes any other conclusion very difficult to reach.

Dear Tinsley,

When an airliner crashes, the sole survivor says “It was a miracle. God spared me.”

He doesn’t ask himself why God didn’t spare the other 399 passengers along with him.

After all, wouldn’t that have been a 400 times greater miracle?

Logical thought really isn’t the theists’ strong suit.

Dear lib,

I find myself frequently wanting to agree with Tinsley’s assertion that critical thought and religious faith are polar opposites. It seems that systematic human distortion of scriptural precepts makes any other conclusion very difficult to reach.

Amen to that!

Thank god some people can see that.

😉

Dear Eric,

Top of the mornin’ to you!

It never ceases to amaze me how religionists are able to “reverse engineer” their faith so that whatever the result, it proves what they wanted to believe all along.

This sort of irrationality is far from harmless. For example:

… drowning was used as a way to determine if a woman were a witch. The idea was that witches would float and innocent women would drown.
— Wiki

It also applies to true believers who subscribe to that secular religion known as “good government.”

I’m reminded of an airport security memo that was distributed by the feds to airport security personnel years ago, even before the abomination known as the TSA.

It said that if a passenger positions himself at the front of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s trying to rush through asap.

It went on to say that if a passenger positions himself in the middle of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s trying to hide in the crowd.

Finally it said that if a passenger positions himself at the end of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s hoping the inspectors will be fatigued by the time they get to him and wave him through.

I’d say they have all their bases covered.

Dear Eric,

Exactly the way I feel.

If the tyrant victimizing you acknowledges the truth by winking at you, it’s still bad, but not quite as bad.

At least he doesn’t make you feel like the whole world has gone mad.

At least you know he is merely playing a cynical game, and that he affirms your perception of reality.

My wife is Japanese. Her and my daughter both speak it in the home. My Japanese is obnoxiously bad, but I am a spelling wiz in Japanese. It’s almost impossible to spell a Japanese word wrong. Get this, you know why! Because every word is spelled exactly as it sounds. Imagine that.

My ability in Japanese when at its peak consisted of the socially useless ability to read parts of engineering drawings. I couldn’t speak or even know the words, I just knew what the symbols meant.

So if you wanted to know what hardness the steel was supposed to be… I could tell you 😉

I really should get back into practice on that.

PS: people have probably noticed when I post here without spell check 🙂

The basic alphabet (Hiragana & Katakana) ain’t so bad. I had both memorized for a bit. Not so much anymore. But the Kanji.. Forget about it! Sometimes I read books to my daughter with no problems, but don’t understand what the hell I’m reading! ha

Hiragana and katakana aren’t so bad. Kanji? Fugediboutit!

Ah Ee Uu Eh Oh
Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko
….

The ability to think critically is the thing that counts for me as regards evaluating intelligence.

Spelling and grammar errors – as such – only indicate a deficit in those areas of knowledge, in the same way that many bright people aren’t particularly adept at higher mathematics.

However, all bright people understand – and accept – logic.

When you find yourself attempting to communicate with a person who does not accept logic – who very clearly doesn’t even comprehend the concept of logic – then you know you’ve come up against a blockhead.

Clover, for instance.

Two Minutes Hate Against Ron Paul
http://www.youtu.be/F5SbWHQ0uZg

We must hate this doubleplusungood Oldthinker who wanted us to surrender the war against Eurasia. He unbellyfeels Ingsoc and must be locked away for all his treasonmonger and crimethink.

Eric Blair’s(George Orwell) final warning to us in a 2003 documentary.
http://www.youtu.be/JXm5hklbBsA

“This is the direction the world is going in at the present time. In our world, there will be no emotions except rage, fear, triumph, and self-abasement. The sex instinct will be eradicated. We shall abolish the orgasm..Always at every moment there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless..A boot stamping on a human face forever.”

# Eric looks directly into the camera #

“The moral is – Don’t Let It Happen. It Depends On You!”

I thought those were called the Decepticons? But seeing as they’re essentially the same sort of robots I would have to agree.

I understand your position; there is a difference between a peace officer and a law enforcement officer. Unfortunately there’s no difference in job description these days.

If you want to be a peace officer you can expect no pay. Peace Officers don’t draw a salary anymore. If you’d like money, you become a Law Enforcement Officer.

Don’t like cops? The problem is easily solved; stop paying cops. Start paying Peace Officers.

I QUIT my job as a Peace Officer last year because some dip decided to start charging people for my work. I worked for free.

It’s people just like your readers that can make a difference; Stop Paying Them!

Please.

Most people become cops today because they desire a short-cut to power.

In all societies hierarchies exist. There are two kinds: natural aristocracies, where people rise in social power due to the acclamation of their superior wisdom, or political hierarchies where people attain social power simply due to their credentials, badges, or job title.

We now have a near-total political hierarchy, so people with badges automatically command obedience (or you will be beaten, shot, tazed, under color of law). This power appeals to many people, especially those with sociopathic tendencies.

This is why most cops scare us. We aren’t stupid.

eric’s comment at 12:29 pm – I would like to have that printed in my local paper.

That’s most everything in a nutshell, eh?

Where’s my Easy Button?

Well put. And yes, I fear them simply because they have become revenue collectors and any one of them can complicate my harmless life any time s/he wants to.

tgsam

Eric,

I have a friend who lives in New Jersey (ugh!)where I tell him there are “local yokels” with radar guns behind every billboard and overpass.I’m in PA where it’s only slightly better because the township law enforcement can’t use radar so they time you between the ugly white lines they paint on the road.
Anyway, my friend absolutely does not consume alcohol ever. He does, however, participate in karaoke (arguably worse than alcoholism) 2 nights per week. One evening, he left the bar just after midnight and was promptly pulled over by Johnny Law who was camped out across the street. The cop quickly became frustrated and asked my buddy why he would go to a bar if he’s not going to drink. When he asked the officer why he was pulled over in the first place, he responded, “because you were driving close to the yellow line.” So now we don’t even have to cross out of our lane, just come “close” to the line to warrant detainment and interrogation by our overlords.

Two words: camera camera

You can’t win. Might as well drive drunk.

On that subject, if you haven’t done so already (you probably have, but for the benefit of readers who haven’t), check out what regular LRC contributor Mark Crovelli has to say here, here, here,here, and here.

DUI laws exist b/c drunk people make bad decisions, like thinking they can drive.

If one decides not to drive because he doesn’t want a DUI, that would be a good decision, that he aint gonna make, ’cause he’s drunk!

If you make such a good decision, then you’re probably fine to drive.

The whole thing is an exercise in idiocy; like everything the govt does.

Good Critical Thinking by Crovelli.

If they don’t expect you to drink and drive, why do bars have parking lots?

The modern concept of “police” didn’t exist until a little over 100 years ago. Prior to that, people in society recognized their role in maintaining order.

By “professionalizing” the maintenance of order, paradoxically we get more disorder. The State, and its agents, are by definition creators of disorder…an axiom that appears lost to the Memory Hole today.

@dc:
The State, and its agents, are by definition creators of disorder.
Exactly right!

In fact Bevin had an entire post on the topic a while back; it’s a phenomenon the Chinese libertarian philosophers pointed out 3,000 years ago.

The State creates a culture of violence and disorder–“the fish rots from the head first”.

But of course. This only reminds me of what I’ve said in regards to 9/11: That after countless dollars, agencies, buildings, weapons, bodies here and scattered across the globe, that when it came to the defining moment where they were to be called upon THEY FAILED! And those who failed were rewarded for it. Case closed.

There’s a whole list of adjectives that, when they precede the word “government,” create the most obvious of oxymorons. The most prominent (and oft abused) among them:

– Accountable

– Just

– Legitimate

– Limited

– Representative

– Small

Perfect analysis, dc.

Dear Nick,

I agree. I’m not so sure about that one either.

Lew Rockwell was telling Alex Jones about some homeowner who called 911 and said an intruder was in his house.

The cops told him not to do anything, and they’d be there in 20 minutes.

The homeowner then called back and said there was no need to rush. He had already shot the intruder, so they could take their time.

The cops then told the homeowner they would be there immediately.

Those cops anyway, were probably motivated by the desire to monopolize the protection racket.

It’s why some cops harass concealed carry and open carry civilians. They want exclusivity. They want to be special. They don’t want just anybody to be able to go around armed. That dilutes their cachet.

You have to understand that a lot of young people who enter the profession (like yours truly) do so to help their fellow man. The unfortunate part is that a large number of anal-retentive types are also drawn to the profession and are promoted by the anal-retentive types that have already fought their way to the top of many of these organization.

Libertarian-type officers are usually burned out after a few years of dealing with the criminals running the place and leave the profession all together, hopefully wiser for their experience.

The biggest problem with that though is it leaves all the anal-retentive types in charge and they recruit from their own kind for the next batch of “enforcers.” Today’s batch are hired for their ability to follow orders to the letter and their low personal morality code, which means they will follow any order, including killing their fellow citizens…

Dear lib,

LOL.

I originally wrote “six years of jr. and sr. high.”

Then decided it was too much of an exaggeration. So I changed it to one year, but forgot to remove the “s.”

Maybe I should have left it as is.

As I recall, Lindbergh’s fame turned to infamy when he publicly stated his views on eugenics and race that did not sit well with the prevailing notions of then (and now).

OTOH, Lindbergh married into the Parasitic Financial Aristocracy and appears to have rubbed elbows with key elements of the cabal who effected complete control over most of the world during the 20th century. This renders even his opposition to entry into WW2 suspect in my eyes.

“Yeah,” as Tommy Flannigan would say, “that’s the ticket!”

Dom wrote, “This cop is just that good!”

The laughs just keep rolling out tonite. I keep getting asked what’s so funny.

Also, Bevin wrote: “Tommy Flannigan” – for a lifetime I’ve heard that saying, only Now do I know who said it. Again, thanks.

I’d go a different route: Democracy is the apotheosis of institutionalized slavery (the State), where instead of having to rule each man and woman slave by brute force, the putative “owners” (Charles Hugh Smith’s “parasitic financial aristocracy”) convinced the slaves to chain their own wrists and whip their fellow slaves for “being uppity.”

No need to pay for as many Overseers when the slaves are duped into believing their periodic vote affects the condition of their servitude.

Dear dc,

I’ll add it to my quotes list, credited to you of course.

Thanks, Bevin.

I thoroughly enjoy the like-mindedness I encounter among those who frequent Eric’s blog.

He’s attracting a good crowd, in my opinion.
David Calderwood

Dear dc,

Eric is doing a terrific job of rallying the troops.

Why has he been able to do so?

The answer is surprisingly simple. It’s because he has taken a principled stand.

As far gone as Amerika is, a “Remnant” still retains the ability to distinguish principles from platitudes.

Many of them have stumbled across Eric’s site, an oasis in a political desert, and decide to rest in the shade for a while.

Going through such ritual motions as voting merely adds a layer of hypocritical pretense to the process. –Bevin Chu

Amen to that.

Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)

I suppose it’s important to note that in any health regimen that you don’t simply jump up out of your seat and run a Marathon when you’ve never done so before. Even walking gets you to your goal. Same as in how to deal with cancer, or government. You KNOW it wants to kill you so you get rid of those foods and lifestyle choices that put you into this position and then work towards eating right and taking proactive action on our own rather than being led by the hand by our “government clinicians” and their prescriptions. Because they’ll practice their “government” on you at your expense.

Jacob, thanks for the reply. I suppose, in my typically cynical way of looking at things, I was pointing out that you don’t just “live and let live” with what intends to kill you. You either “cut it out and kill it”, or take an alternative tack (I have a friend whose daughter was essentially given a death sentence, thanks to chemotherapy, told to make funeral arrangements, and then went on an all natural diet and is completely “clean” now. Docs were in complete bewilderment as to why. Really?) before it kills you. Because it WANTS to kill you. The same for government.

@MoT:

A recent land-mine study in the journal Cancer Cell showed what any idiot observing oncology the last thirty years could have told you…

Chemotherapy not only doesn’t work, it makes it WORSE!

As you said–Really? 🙂

Read G Edward Griffin’s A World Without Cancer; it’s an eye-opener.

Methyl, Something I learned but never confirmed is that with chemo baking soda is used to buffer the toxic chemicals. However baking soda is thought to be toxic to cancer cells. Also nobody ever did a study to find out what may be doing the work in chemo. That essentially a treatment of cheap and harmless baking soda could be effective.

Do you know anything regarding it?

Brent, it’s incredible but there have been people who have had sodium bicarbonate “treatments” and seen their cancers vanish. Honest to god. Many believe it’s an alkaline/acid PH balance in our bodies that is out of whack. A friend of our family in Japan was given a few months to live after being diagnosed with cancers that appeared in her breast and elsewhere. The “treatments” were killing her. So she took another path and chose something that even I thought was bizarre… being treated with microwaves, and she is now clean! I was stunned. She’s now well past the point of where she’s supposed to be in the ground. And she’s the very one that pointed us towards baking soda. Irony of ironies that years ago we sent her books on alternative cancer therapies so she would be encouraged and not give up hope. I’ve seen so many men and women (two in my own immediate family, my mom and sister) get eaten up by this shit that it boils my blood.

@BrentP:

I’ve heard of it but not researched it (sodium bicarb).

There are many metabolic peculiarities unique to cancer cells; odd pH balance being one of them, so the bicarb idea seems reasonable.

Chief among the oddities is that cancer cells are fermentative–they metabolize strictly by Kreb’s and don’t use oxidative phosphorylation.

There’s a chemical that blocks Kreb’s–among many others–called DCA…di-chloro acetic acid. Butt-simple, dirt-cheap, very promising, not patentable.

Many terminal patients were using it with good results; the FDA sued them. It went to the “supreme” court–and that august body told the dying cancer patients they weren’t “allowed” to use DCA. Because the FDA said so.

Laetrile, AKA the nitriloside extract of many pitted fruits especially apricot seeds, is extremely promising and is the subject of that Griffin book. I take 15-20 seeds a day as a preventative measure.

There are many, many others; mostly aimed at killing cancer by depriving it of sugar via ketogenic (primal, atkin’s) diets and strengthening the immune system.

The dirty secret is, we ALL have cancer, ALL the time; your immune system kills it before it’s past a few cells.

Kill the immune system–with toxins, vaccines, and poor diet–and you get cancer.

@Meth… I’m going to look into that laetrile that you mention. Especially something for the wife. Seeds? Tell me more or PM me.

@MoT:

G Edward Griffin, World Without Cancer, is where I learned about laetrile.

It was investigated in the 70’s, and the establishment at Hopkins conspired to kill it. The book is that story, and a lot more.

Joel Wallach of Youngevity has a lot to say about selenium and cancer, too. His approach is entirely nutritional.

Dr. Burzinski right here in Houston offers excellent therapy. So good, in fact, the FDA spent 14 years trying to shut him down–while they schemed to patent around his patents!

His story is even more interesting than the laetrile saga.

Suffice it to say–I’d never let myself or a friend or family go through the standard “cut, burn, and poison” scam!

@MoT:

One more thing–except for someone like Burzynski who’s got the stamina to fight the club FDA–forget about getting non-standard treatment in the Land of the Free.

A few of the promising treatments started here–and hounded out by the FDA–have opened clinics in Mexico and elsewhere. Worth looking at.

@Meth… Good links. It’s about prevention for us. After all of the years have passed, and seeing both my mother and sister end up looking like concentration camp victims, I’ve vowed never to end up like that. Our American diet has been poisoned to the point of absurdity. They should rename it the Pyramid of Poison. I won’t rant further. Over and out.

@MoT:

No problem. Yeah–I’m watching my sister’s mother-in-law waste away. The sad thing is, they wouldn’t hear anything from me…I’m that “conspiracy theorist”.

She’s in hospice care now.

What frustrates me is that cancers are up across the board–dramatically so! Childhood cancer especially; they used to be so rare they’d fly medical residents in to see them. WHY?? Shouldn’t we be talking about why there’s 30x as much breast cancer?

But no–that doesn’t suit the Elite’s dialogue. They’re busy killing us, no point in talking prevention!

@Brent Methyl Mot

I did a little designing of certain radiation equipment and though I’ve heard of people it helped, I have my doubts I’d use it myself.

Many people speculate that Fungus and human DNA can exchange and that cross of parasite in a human cell creates a broken Krebs version of cancer cell. The causal connection between sugar and fungus and cancer is well established. Though most cancer specialist will deny that indeed a cancer cell is actually fungus what they don’t deny is that some DNA of fungus might enter into a human cell an cause malignancy.

Personally if I had cancer I’d opt to get as much of it chopped out with a laser as possible. Then instead of chemo, I’d buy me a hot tub or sauna. I’d press the temperature to near body fever temperatures (would require supervision from a caretaker). As cancer high temperatures is known to kill cancer much more effectively than chemo. It would be delicate though pressing into 104 F and not done right you could cook your brain.

70 some years ago they found that cancer would regress when a bacterial infection insued in a cancer victim. Basically it was shown that by introducing a chronic strep bacterial infection cancer would totally disappear in 80% of victims. Many speculated at this time that the bacteria stimulated a immune response including fever that most often times eliminated the cancer all together. Once chemo came on the scene though most doctors moved away from this proven treatment. Many concerned that by injecting the body with another pathogen such as strep violated their hypocratic oath to do no further harm. But then it became hypocrisy instead when they irradiated and chemically nuked the body instead.

Actually what I was alluding to was hypthermia treatment of cancer. Microwaves and RF are often used to focus on cancer cells by heating the tissue infected with cancer using microwave (deep tissue) tumors respond by shrinking. But the secret I believe is just elecated temperatures. Cancer cells because of their broken Krebs cycle have a voracious appetite for fuel and oxygen. To supply cancer the fuel the body thinking that it has a problem of lack of these material will often build a larger network of veins to the cancer cells.

Like any other exothermic chemical reaction when you add fuel and oxygen the outcome is excess localized heat. Therefore by elevating the body temperature to 104F the cancer cells running much higher burn rate and temperatures die first.

Also I’ve provided a link to the research of bacterial infection curing cancer (Coley’s Toxins):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1888599/

dammit, mispellings, capitals where I didn’t want them, bad grammar. BTW I meant hyperthermia instead of the mispelling, I’m trying to give as much info as possible and still work on my products. I don’t mean to sound ignoramus by my choice of poor wording and grammar though.

What I think is most interesting is that with all the alternatives, the status-quo defenders say they are all trying to rip people off, make money off them.

Well, what is the current order doing? It is so money grubbing it uses the FDA to block anything it can’t make money off of. Yet, we aren’t supposed to even consider the ideas of anyone else for they might make some money off it.

@Hot Rod–

Yeah, I do remember something about the sepsis-killing-cancer theory. I didn’t know it had been practiced! Amazing how fast the medical establishment shoves unprofitable treatments in the memory hole.

Keep in mind Kreb’s is anaerobic; and it’s highly inefficient. Thus the elevated temperature probably stresses them past their energy-production ability.

Yeah…fungi hate high temperatures. It’s theorized that’s one reason we mammals run high constant temperatures.

Never heard the fungal/human cell hybrid theory but it’s fascinating. I’ll have to do some reading.

One other theory is that all cancers are trophoblast cells–essentially stem cells–that are normally used by the body to repair damaged tissue, but go wild and produce cancer. That implies all cancers have a common genesis…

“What I think is most interesting is that with all the alternatives, the status-quo defenders say they are all trying to rip people off, make money off them.”

@BrentP

Excellent words. I agree there is nothing more more insane for a logical mind than when a scientific field becomes dominated by manager crooks. You know what I’m talking about being an engineer that actually makes things. The manager who always has to argue with you just to one up you and spite you, though he has a degree in history. I’ve found that the only way to get this dumb bastards to do the right thing is to make them think the right way was their idea to start with. Its really not that hard, but it does drive up their ego. Same is true in the medical profession as the politicians always strangle out the productive. Hence why we as individuals have to try to sift through the garbage when it comes to our own health. We may be totally wrong as division of labor isn’t on our side and it would make economic sense to allow dedicated professional in a true marketplace to focus on one thing and become the best at it. Until government or the miniverse of it gets involved in “professions” which then turns everything upside down again. Then its everyman for himself with his own health. Fortunately, the internet is providing alternative views and thoughts, they maybe wrong as hell but hopefully a logical mind can narrow it down to a few plausible answers.

@Methyl

“Keep in mind Kreb’s is anaerobic; and it’s highly inefficient. Thus the elevated temperature probably stresses them past their energy-production ability.”

You are correct its anerobic and inefficient, however it does require oxygen in its electron transport. Many people don’t understand this but you can literally kill cancer cells by decreasing the oxygen delivery to them, despite you being correct that its anerobic (lactic acid producing cycle). Many blood thinners and I believe vitamin A and Beta Carotene can starve the blood flow of both oxygen and fuel to the cancer cell therefore making it hard for the cancer to grow. Carrots are high in beta carotene by the way more on that later.

“Never heard the fungal/human cell hybrid theory but it’s fascinating. I’ll have to do some reading.”

Well its interesting because I’m no doctor but bacteria for example can become resistant to antibiotics by “jumping genes”. It requires no sexual contact or reproduction. The bacteria simple hand over succesfull genes to another struggling bacteria and the ailing bacteria gets an update in DNA code. Look up bacteria transmutation and jumping genes and it will throw your head into a tizzy that if a backward parasite can do this than higher evolved life probably also has various and more efficient ways of doing the same thing. The problem with fungal cells is they are very close to the human cell and vice versa. Step and point is why antibiotics work well for both of us in destroying our bacterial nemesis without doing damage to either fungus or human cell. But fungus will also respond to human hormones and steroids and vice versa. So you got the potential for fungus to damage the human cells, the human body responds by more steroids trying to outgrow the infection, but the fungus responds well to the steroid and a reproductive race results. Vice versa fungus produces growth hormone that human cells respond to. Remember that certain fungal cells can use the Krebs cycle to ferment. The idea is that one theory is that either a fungal gene is transfered to a human cell that transforms it into a Krebs cycle. Or maybe a fungal parasite is able to drill into the human cell and basically damage and take control of the cell. The latter case that everytime the cell reproduces that the invader is also able to multiple in the new offspring.

“One other theory is that all cancers are trophoblast cells–essentially stem cells–that are normally used by the body to repair damaged tissue, but go wild and produce cancer. That implies all cancers have a common genesis…”

I hear you and as you know that most cells have a Hayflick Limit. The telomeres (shoe lace nucleotide tips) keep getting shorter with every multiplication until the strands of DNA become totally unravelled and the cell dies. The Hayflick limit is there to keep a bad cell from going nuclear and becoming cancerous if damaged. But suppose like you said that a immoral stem cell that keeps adding the telomeres with each multiplication and thus has no Hayflick limit somehow gets corrupted, then you can have a cancerous cell divide infineum. This would mean that if a fungal predator or gene transfer was involved that it would have to affect the type of stem cell you are talking about. Not too unlikely since they are distributed throughout the body.

Again I’m not sure that all cancer is going to be fungal transmutation or invasion, but there is a high correlation of fungus in cancer victims. Whether that is cause or effect is to be debated. Interestingly, that the baking soda cure that one doctor uses to eliminate cancer tumors claimed that cancer causing fungus is killed by contact with baking soda. He lost his medical license though he claimed excellent results in curing cancer victims with a baking soda on tumor contact. Doesn’t mean he was right, but like BrentP said if a cure doesn’t have an instant profit motivation you can be sure the FDA and pharmies will try to squelch that one.

Anyway, a possible reason carrot juice and garlic have been known to help cancer victims? Both are antifungicides as well as blood thinners.
I’m no doctor so take into account this is nothing more than my own self education and opinion.

@Methyl

I just was brainstorming about what you said about stem cells and kind of married that with gene therapy (gene jumping- transumtation) in my own mind. I was thinking that the idea of the dispersed stem cells is that they can become any other kind of cell when needed. So they could become a heart cell, a skin cell, eye tissue cell, etc. Therefore, there must be some kind of communication with neighboring cells (gene therapy or information transfer) what cell the stem should be converted to upon demand of damaged tissue. One could see this as a pathway for maybe a fungus cell growing nearby to somehow transpose its genetic material (transmutate the cell with its own DNA)? Anyway that would combine the immortal aspect as it would involve the stem cells and at the same time provide an open pathway of insertion of DNA code from an invader? Just all speculation, but one can see that there must be a communication between neigboring cells going into converting the general stem cell to various other kinds of cells when needed. What if that pathway gets polluted by an invader (fungus)? Could this be like jumping genes?

HR, one of the early bosses I had in my career would work me in a circle. I would suggest a solution, he would have me work on his idea, then his next idea, then another, then back to the one I suggested in the first place. So I stopped making suggestions. Guess what? He would then suggest what I would have done first thing. The guy wasn’t dumb, just enjoyed these stupid games. When I stopped playing he had no other choice but to allow me to get the job done.

Dear Eric,

Thank you Eric!

Both for the generous praise, and for “manifesting” this intellectual oasis in an endless political desert.

It has allowed everyone who has stumbled across it, to drink from the refreshing waters before returning to the fray, to do battle against creeping — nay, galloping tyranny.

I salute you!

Eric, It’s great that you put this site together. I was the ‘black sheep kook’ of a few autos forums because of the parallels I see. It’s great that you put this site together. Finally a place I can discuss these things and have people participate with ideas and solid thinking instead of reflexive name calling.

And my thanks to you, Eric, for introducing me to like-minded virtual friends…and providing an oasis of sanity for us to sharpen our wits.

It’s wonderful to know we’re not alone.

I’m an almost daily reader, though I don’t comment very often. But this is one of the very few sites where the comments are generally as good as the content. (And your content is very good, Eric!). Not many others where I bother to read the “thoughts” of the commenters. A good group here. It’s nice to listen to rational, intelligent folks on the Internet for a change! Thank you all, and thank you Eric!

Aw, shucks… [fade in beet red here]

Some family, friends, and colleagues might disagree with you on the “best minds” part.

Nor I.

And here’s the troubling thing: Even those with the right mindset, who want only to be peace keepers, cannot be only peace keepers.Not if they want to stay on the job. The job requires them to enforce the law. To man arbitrary and probable cause-free checkpoints. To batter down innocent people’s doors. To threaten harming-no-one people with lethal violence for daring to assert their right to decide for themselves whether to “buckle up for safety” …

What sort of man could stomach such “work”?

Not me.

Momma’s talkin’ to me tryin’ to tell me how to live! Dununah dununah dun dun dun!

But I don’t pay attention ’cause my mind is like a sieve! Dununah dununah dun dun dun!

(Sorry, but any mention of pink tutus makes me think of that song.)

…does wearing a pink tutu get me out of the ticket..? I’m on it! Ha!…No seriously, my parents were corrupt law enforcement folks…cop and court clerk…so getting out of tickets was a learned art form for us kids…you’d mention how much respect you had for the law,…”cause your Dad was a cop”….next thing you know they would be asking about my Dad…”a big-son-of-bitch,..right?”… next thing you know, we’d be on our way! Corrupt, corrupt, corrupt…all of it..

And quite honestly, most of them deserve to “get it good and hard.”
Like you say, our task is to remain among those who are spared the ass-ramming that the majority deserves and has coming to them.