Here’s a quick way to tell whether a person is still under the sway of statism: Ask his (or her) opinion about this business of granting (word choice deliberate) driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
Notice the already-accepted premise?
Most people – Democrats or Republicans – will preface whatever their answer is with an implicit acceptance of the notion that all of us – “illegals” and “legals” – have an obligation to go on bended knee to the state and ask for permission to be allowed to drive. They accept – as a given – that driving your car is a conditional privilege.
Not a right.
Example:
In Chicago, Governor Pat Quinn recently signed a new law (yes, another one) that grants illegals permission to drive.
“This was a bipartisan effort to pass an important law,” Quinn said. “When the president speaks on Tuesday, he can say about his home state of Illinois … we not only passed the Dream Act last year, we passed driver’s licenses for those who are undocumented .”
Italics added.
Democrats like Quinn – and Republicans like Mittens Romney – are in perfect bipartisan agreement. Everyone must be documented. That is the essential thing.
Of course, it’s all backwards – the result of backwards thought. Or rather, non-thought. Conditioning is perhaps a better term. People – most of us (me included, by the way) grow up in a system that is very careful to prevent our minds from ever awakening and developing the capacity to think critically. This system fills our heads with rote, unquestioned premises – such as the notion that everything we’re allowed to do derives from the good offices of the state. Never that we are free men and women – entitled by dint of our existence to think and act for ourselves.
Thus this business about granting driver’s licenses to illegals. Of allowing them to drive. Of allowing us to drive.
Such servile terms! And most people don’t even realize what they’re saying – and, accepting – merely by accepting the verbiage. Words represent ideas – and ideas are everything, whether we’re consciously aware of them or not. And this, friends, is why it is so very, very important to the powers that be to keep as many people as possible unconscious. To make it so that they reflexively use the state’s language – and thereby accept the state’s premises. Above all, the heretically dangerous idea of self-ownership must never be permitted to form in the minds of men.
Stefan Molyneux clears the air when he analogizes our condition to that of “free range tax cattle.” (See below for his superb video.)
We’re exactly as “free” as livestock. Like beef cattle, we are allowed to roam about the pasture – the farmer’s pasture… at the farmer’s pleasure. It is not our pasture. And more, our very bodies are not ours. They belong to him.
At any time – and for any reason – the farmer can do as he likes with us.
Exactly like the state.
Whether our “pasture” is larger or smaller – or the “farmer” relatively benign (an American president) or sadistic (a Stalin or Hitler) the essential thing is always the same. We are allowed certain limited, conditional privileges.
For now.
Such as a driver’s license.
It is critical that more minds are awakened – and as rapidly as possible. Because the “pasture” is quickly transforming into a feed lot. Even the limited, conditional privileges we once enjoyed – and which made our status as livestock plausibly deniable – are being taken away from us. And not slowly or incrementally – as has been the practice in the past. It is precisely because the cattle – that would be us – are beginning to comprehend the nature of things that the pace of events is picking up speed. The “farmer” understands the threat to him posed by the nature of the awakening that is taking place – hence his increasingly desperate measures to steer us (government schools, MSM propaganda, Ritalin for the boys… estrogens in the water for the men, fluoride in the water for all…) to frighten us and set us against one another (so as to prevent us from recognizing our common foe)… perhaps, 
even, to get the noncompliant cows into the chute for the necessary knock on the head. The farmer knows he must get a handle on things – before things get a handle on him.
Once enough of us begin to think about this business of being granted conditional privileges by the state – of being allowed to do things… it’s game over for the farmer.
And that day can’t come soon enough.
Throw it in the Woods?
@Badger – You’re in GB? I went to school there and worked in Birmingham for a while. Where are you?
“the people who didn’t vote tacitly approve the current government”
I didn’t vote, but I didn’t vote because I didn’t like any of the candidates. So I voted for “none of the above”, which is a vote. It’s a choice, however, that the gov’t leaves off the ballot.
I’ve never understood how someone can vote for a candidate that they don’t believe in. Some say they want to exercise their constitutional rights, even if that means voting for a criminal that will violate their rights once in office. Others say they vote because they believe the illusion that their vote matters; it doesn’t. Some say they vote because they’re a patriot, others admittedly vote for the lesser of two evils. None of which are valid reasons to vote IMO.
As Eric as pointed out many times: presidents are selected not elected.
I guarantee that if “None of the Above” were a valid option on the ballot, millions more would turn out just to vote for it. It would be an epic embarassment for the establishment and so it’s just one more “freedom” you don’t have.
The truth is that “No One” received a majority of the votes in the last two presidential elections so “No One” should be in the Oval Office.
Some say they want to exercise their constitutional rights, even if that means voting for a criminal that will violate their rights once in office.
Worse still, many Clovers say that they vote because it’s their civic responsibility. Even if the person they’re voting for is an incompetent or a criminal who will do more damage than good once in office (hell, is there any other kind of political candidate?). Even if NONE of the candidates are fit for office. Even if Clover is completely ignorant of either the candidates and their platforms (as if platforms mean a damned thing) or the referendum items he’s being asked to vote on.
Oh, and will somebody please DEFINE the term “civic responsibility?” AFAIC, that term is defined as “minding my own goddamned business, you minding yours, and both of us, and everyone else, going about our lives without interfering with each other’s lives.” Voting, by its very nature, violates that definition of “civic responsibility.”
1.of or pertaining to a city; municipal: civic problems.
2.of or pertaining to citizenship; civil: civic duties.
3.of citizens: civic pride.
Origin:
1535–45; < Latin cīvicus, equivalent to cīv ( is ) citizen + -icus -ic
Citizens are "civil" side g.i.joes. Creatures of state, in other words.
Hi Don –
I’m not in England right now but I used to spend a lot of time there so I still use some of the popular British colloquialisms from my distant past when they work. I’m not anywhere right now, you could say I’m in transition. I’m a US citizen though.
I understand the problem and I didn’t vote in the last “final” election though I was involved in the republican primaries. As soon as the guy I liked got booted I dropped out of the race with him, I think a lot of people did that. The national elections are really runoffs they way they’re set up I think and they leave a lot of people with no representation. What makes it worse are the arcane and deliberately obtuse way primary elections get run along with the draconian rules for getting on the national ballot.
So I agree the game’s rigged and not voting doesn’t imply consent, unless you figure that living in such a corrupt and obviously manipulated political climate for any length of time (after you become aware of it) is a form of consent.
A license is simply permission to do what is ‘otherwise’ illegal, given by recognized authority (gov.) after receipt of the correct ‘bribe’.
And usually “illegal” only in the positive-law sense of the word. That is, the activity outlawed was made so not for natural law reasons (i.e., that it causes harm in all cases to another person and/or their property), but by fiat because some government arbitrarily disapproved of it for utilitarian reasons.
Dear TonyWonder,
Thanks for bringing up Lloyd DeMause, he seems like an autodidact with some interesting ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_deMause
As far as ACE goes. The ACE study (adverse childhood experiences) was done by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente. One must assume it’s only about rent-seeking and government playing the savior to the crisis it is the cause of.
ACE also seems tied to the ludicrous new self-appointed “mission” of the FBI/CIA to stop “child trafficking.” Only the most abject Clover moron would want the Tavistock Tortures of the FBI/CIA to bring their ravenous appetites for destruction into the realm of our homes, children, and families.
In some sense, UK, Dutch, German, homelands, colonies, and freed dependencies may legitimately see themselves as a sort of family. This is a long process America has barely yet begun to undergo. The America Govt wants you to think it is “one of them”, but don’t let it deceive you.
There is no sense or soul of American leadership, it is like Skynet or the Matrix. Ideally it need not be smashed, but only dialed back down to its proper size and role. At its best, America itself is a transactional entity like the Internet Backbone or the UCC International Cargo Freight protocol. Painting a face on a plane doesn’t really makes it a “flying tiger” Neither does anthropomorphizing the American State, which has not yet even achieved a toddler’s developmental level.
The Philosophy of Childhood – S. Molyneaux
The State As Family
A Philosopher As Parent – S. Molyneaux
Dear Tors,
“The state as family” was a zinger.
Religious orders knew this too. Indoctrinate the child, and you have him for life.
That’s why courts (especially family courts), government schools, and other Establishment institutions go out of their way to create such conflict and division between family members. The goal is to destroy the nuclear family, which the State sees as its biggest and most dangerous competitor in the quest for power and authority.
The WHO – I Can See For Miles
http://www.youtu.be/Hje28F-IhLo
Their Licenses, foodstamps, education, the whole rot…
They can keep them. I stay Undocumented, Undoctrinated, an Unmade Man – – –
The more They repeat their impoverishing tricks, the better one’s vision becomes.
“I know you’ve deceived me, now here’s a surprise.
I know that you have ’cause there’s magic in my eyes.
If you think that I don’t know about the little tricks you play. And never see you when deliberately you put things in my way.
Well, here’s a poke at you, You’re gonna choke on it too
You’re gonna lose that smile, Beacuse all the while
I can see for miles and miles, I can see for miles and miles, I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles, Oh yeah”
Tor, if you can see for miles, then come walk through the pasture with me. I need some good eyes since I’m going to try to kill some food without a “license”.
I’ll be there just as soon as I can afford a new battery for my “They Live” teleport watch.
– –
Our eyes receive ~ 11 million packets of visual data per second. Your brain is able to process what it considers to be the 40 most important bits.
Tell-Lie-Vision
http://www.youtu.be/aBPbCjtpUjg
Avoid the lizard wardens by using the libertarian force.
They Live – David Icke / John Carpenter
http://www.youtu.be/HutU5CM9BBo
You Think That’s Air Your Breathing?
http://www.youtu.be/obYeD3GEs5E
Eric I’ve been lurking on your site for a few months and when I read the headline on this article I thought “Oh Shit! Here he goes after the illegals. I was more than pleasantly surprised.
A lot of neo-con bullshit artists seem to think closing the borders is going to create jobs, near as I can tell it’s just unions and big businesses protecting their interests. Nobody likes competition and folks ready to work for what the market pays are competition.
You do good work. God bless and defend you if you’re one of those folks who believe in a supreme being, otherwise I’ll just leave it at “Good on ya!”
Most welcome, Badger – and glad you’ve decided to peek out of your burrow!
I was aware of open container laws etc but a DUI when you’re stationary? Wow, that’s a new one to me.
Btw, I don’t know if anyone here has seen ‘Steelyard Blues’ (a largely forgotten film from 1973), but it’s worth checking out for its libertarian angle. It’s about five cultural misfits and outlaws who set about building their own plane, their dream being to escape to a land free from statists and bureaucrats. It’s knowingly idealistic in that, as one character notes (asking that standard question), where are they supposed to go? But it’s more about the basic desire for freedom and the fantasy of pursuing that desire. I love the jaywalking scene where Donald Sutherland’s character casually tries to cross the road only to be repeatedly herded back by a traffic cop while everyone else waits patiently until the lights change – and he’s clearly thinking ‘what the hell?’ Some nice dialogue too: when Jane Fonda’s character says ‘I don’t belong to anybody’ Sutherland’s character replies, ‘great; that makes five of us.’ Likewise, when she muses over what the authorities may or may not do with her should she stay behind, he tells her ‘if you’re still worried about what ‘they’ might do then they’ve still got you.’
There aren’t any online clips of the best scenes, but, given the topic of this thread, I thought some people here might get a kick out of the theme tune:
Drive again – Theme from Steelyard Blues
Steelyard Blues! Thanks for that memory! I’d almost forgotten it. A must see for anyone who wants a practical introduction to “just doing it”.
Where do we go? As far away from the authoritarians as we can. That doesn’t mean another country though, lots of folks seem to think finding a different government will secure freedom but it won’t. Finding a different government is like being a slave in search of a different master. It’s not a geopolitical problem, it’s a geographic problem. Going to another country only works if the government is weak and the place you pick is one they don’t have the resources to patrol. You’re just as well off in some back country spot in Virginia as you are in the mountains of Columbia.
BTW, John Brunner wrote a book called “The Shockwave Rider” where he proposed the idea of “paid avoidance zones”, places where government actually paid you to live because they weren’t there to protect and serve you.
Would that be wrong for Libertarians? Being paid by “government” to be left alone? It’s a real quandary for me, I’d be happy if they just left me alone.
“Would that be wrong for Libertarians? Being paid by “government” to be left alone?”
The gov’t has no money to pay you with. It would have to take it from someone else who earned it which they have no right to do so it is a wrong.
A government, composed of complacent people who support and comprise it, has the full faith and trust of those people. They do have the legitimate ability to pay you to get lost.
You assume the “government” isn’t backed by the full faith of the people. This is clearly incorrect, else the government of those people would rapidly cease to exist. It has not. Ipso facto, the government may legitimately pay me to go away.
Reference Botany Bay.
And yes, I’m picking a fight. I think you are extremely wrong.
can i play, too?
all “the people” on one side, me all by my lonesome on the other. been there & done that. so what? full of faith…or full of shit?
“the problem” isn’t geo-p or geo-g, either. but some geo-g insulation can keep you cooler in summer, warmer in winter….
got a fan in each fist. bring it….☻
What fight are you picking? You asked if it was wrong and I explained it was and you seem to be addressing a different topic now.
“You assume the “government” isn’t backed by the full faith of the people. This is clearly incorrect, else the government of those people would rapidly cease to exist”
Right, AND voting makes a difference. There are some 200 million voting age people in this country, of those 110 million voted last Nov, of those Obama got 60 million. He barely received 25% of the people’s faith. And we have no idea how many of those were legitimate votes.
How many polls show that majority of people are dissatisfied with congress yet congress continues to exist as does the president and all his men.
Legitimate ability and legitimacy of the act are two different things. It’s the difference between ‘can they’ and ‘just because they can, is it right’
A thug has the legitimate ability to beat your ass, but it’s still wrong.
I should have put a smiley face after “I’m picking a fight”. I’ve read lots of your posts Don, I wouldn’t want to really fight with you. In England we call it “taking the piss out of yourself”.
You’re right that the government in the US doesn’t represent the majority in terms of votes, but it still represents the majority in terms of opinion; the people who didn’t vote tacitly approve the current government, which literately robs them blind on a daily basis if you assume it does not have consent.
The fact that they’ve been able to pull off this robbery for over a century indicates they have consent and have always had consent. That turns the meaning of your assertion they are stealing the money; they aren’t. The people want to give that money. They agree to being “robbed” which doesn’t make it robbery anymore, it’s a voluntary contribution. If it wasn’t voluntary, 350 million people would be kicking some serious ass.
So yes, I think it’s OK for them to pay me to live the rest of my life on a south pacific island in exchange for me staying out of their business in return for me shutting up and going away.
Make sense to you?
Hi Badger,
“The fact that they’ve been able to pull off this robbery for over a century indicates they have consent and have always had consent. That turns the meaning of your assertion they are stealing the money; they aren’t. The people want to give that money.”
You’re kinda-sorta right.
What the system has succeeded in doing is conning a large percentage of the population – a majority, I’ll concede. It’s worse than a con, actually. Because the victims aren’t (for the most part) in on the scam. They have been conditioned from infancy to accept such things as “democracy” and all that goes with it as ethically legitimate without ever stopping to examine what they’ve accepted. Many are beginning to wake up to the truth.
One must also avoid lumping the non-consenters in with those who do consent (or who “go along” out of unquestioning passivity). I certainly do not consent. The millions of people who are consciously anti-authoritarian do not consent. But we have no real choice other than to comply.
Compliance is a very different thing than consent.
I do what the thug cop orders me to do, not because I accept his authority as legitimate, but because I fear his authority. I have no real choice. It’s either do what the fucker says, or get a wood shampoo (or worse). Sure, I could defend myself. And I’d be right to do so. But that’s neither here nor there as regards what the consequences of that would be.
So, I bide my time. For now.
One day, the equation will be different. And so, the result.
There should have been a semi-colon between “business” and “in return” in the sentence that reads as follows:
“in exchange for me staying out of their business; in return for me shutting up and going away.”
Morning, Blue!
This (Steelyard Blues) is a new one for me; I will order a copy from Amazon today – thank you for “hipping” me to it!
Yeah, I remember that movie, having seen it for the first time, of all places, on a Greek TV station back in the early 80s. I’ll have to see if I can find it on DVD and watch it again. I was too “young and immature” politically and ideologically to have understood its libertarian/anarchist undertones back when I first watched it.
Crossing the street… at the town festival last year or the year before last I am ride my bicycle to the festival area. I dismount and walk through the first part. I get to the major street crossing, the second part being on the other side. Some crossing guard insists I don’t cross because the light is about to change. I walk fast. I can make it. Since he’s being the authority, I get on my bicycle and ride the major road in the direction to my right. This is legal and he can’t do jack. The look on his face was priceless. No safety-clover would ever think of riding this arterial road.
This is a road I don’t like to ride on but have done in short segments along much of length over the years. This one I’ve done numerous times because that traffic light… well sucks. Timed properly and moving quickly makes it easy and often car free. So I ride down to the next light hang a left go around the block and appear on the other side before the next walk signal.
BlueRoses, good day. Thanks for the tip on the movie. I missed it trucking most likely. I was a year late seeing Easy Rider too, busy doing my own thing I guess. I have known more people than I can count who have had DWI’s not even in a vehicle or in a stationary one on private property. It’s easy to give a ticket and you must prove you’re innocent, not the other way around.
“a year late seeing Easy Rider”
What does that mean?
it was twenty for me, but that doesn’t answer the question.
… just a question. Nothing more.
Besides, I’m tired from avoiding all the cops out giving tickets today. You know, first bit of warm weather after the Winter and the cops are hopping to get out of their cars.
I think I saw more cops out giving tickets today than I have all Winter,… and most of Fall. But I digress.
Dear Roses,
Sounds good. I’m a film freak, but that one must have fallen through the cracks for me.
I’ll check it out. Some might be bothered by Hanoi Jane’s participation. I can usually keep such matters separate. Usually.
“Some might be bothered by Hanoi Jane’s participation”
Yeah, but I usually avoid her films for another reason: she can’t act. She never could and hasn’t improved with age. Her brother Peter is even worse, though a few movies he was in were kinda OK.
The Fonda kids were red diaper babies. Their dad, Henry, was red through and through. His film, “The Great Smokey Roadblock” was purely pukey. His character was an elderly trucker, dying of cancer, who named his rig “Eleanor” after Eleanor Roosevelt, and had a framed portrait of the ugly old cow on the dashboard.
Naturally, one of the characters was a Christian who was portrayed as being an idiot, which is de rigeur in most Hollywood films. A Christian has to be written into the script and shown to be an evil lunatic or a retard of some stripe or other.
The Fondas are/were all shitty actors, besides being statists, which is why I don’t usually enjoy their roles in films. They have no redeeming qualities.
I have to admit I enjoyed “The Limey”.
“I have to admit I enjoyed “The Limey”.”
So did I, but I enjoyed it as a Terence Stamp vehicle. Fonda played an asshole, which was probably an easy part for him.;-)
I’m no fan of Fonda’s, either. But Once Upon a Time in the West is a classic.
Dear Eric,
“Once Upon a Time in the West.” One of the greats.
Also you got to see Charles Bronson, aka Paul Kersey, the architect vigilante and civilan gun rights champion in “Death Wish,” blow away Fonda in the end.
LOL!
Eastwood was supposed to be the lead, but was unable to take the role due to other commitments. Bronson did the job superbly, I thought!
Bronson was fine in the role.
As was Claudia Cardinale!
Who can forget her.
You’re absolutely right about Peter and Jane Fonda. Two absolutely talentless hacks who would probably be working in anonymous government jobs somewhere (or some similarly useless field) if they were “mere mundanes” who weren’t the offspring of a famous actor daddy who “got them in the door.” It just goes to show you that Hollywood is as incestuous as most other “Establishment” institutions.
yeah…but somebody had to drive the cars in “dirty mary, crazy larry”.
sarafian was forced to do a favor owed by higher up. his response was to make the car the star. vanishing point. the flick didn’t vanish, but the flick driver pretty much did.
“Two absolutely talentless hacks who would probably be working in anonymous government jobs somewhere”
I can see them as TSA gate rapists. ahaha
“Interfering with an adult’s efforts to have fun – to enjoy himself – by partaking of whatever he wishes to partake of (be it a T-bone steak or a bong hit or a shot of heroin)… is a vicious assertion of ownership of other people’s literal bodies. And that is as criminal – in the proper sense of the term – as it gets.”
I always find it amusing whenever you hear feminists and progressives claim that abortion rights must be preserved because the state has no business telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Yet invariably such people are happy for the state to dictate what people can and cannot do with their bodies in all sorts of other areas. These are often the same people who want to ban large sodas. While I agree that the state should not be able to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term if she does not wish to, I do wish that pro-choicers would actually grant people more of a right to choose in other areas of their life also.
It is even more hilarious to hear such people claim that women should vote largely on the basis of preserving legal abortion, when the likelihood that abortion rights will be wound back regardless of who wins office are miniscule. But meanwhile, all sorts of other rights are constantly being destroyed and yet people are seldom exhorted to vote in order to preserve those rights. Just keep people distracted with phoney dangers and threats, so they never deal with the real threats.
When abortion/reproduction comes up I have lots of fun with left-statists. Why? Because they are the most against self-ownership on every other topic. So I just mercilessly hammer them on this. 🙂
Ayn Rand hammered them and so do I.
Does a woman have the right to be fetus free? How can one forcibly assert the so-called right to life of a fetus without violating the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness of the unfortunate woman carrying it?
Can’t be done, so the right of the living trumps any imagined right of the potential.
tgsam
Put another way Tinsley, must a woman become the donor of life?
Wonderfully snarky there Tinsley, but there is an actual purpose to fucking. My guess is Ayn may have missed it. All my friends who knew here suspect the same.
@NickS–
I. Am. An. Idiot.
I can’t believe I’ve never thought to use that–“well, if you believe a woman has a right to her body why can’t she drop Ecstasy on the weekend?”
Genius; so simple.
I shall go forth and sin no more, and use this new shiny tool at my first opportunity; thank you Nick!
I don’t understand what Nick was getting at, but I see you mentioned the chemical Ecstasy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
I’ve never used it that I’m aware of. This is what it is said to do:
MDMA can induce euphoria, a sense of intimacy with others, and diminished anxiety. Many studies, particularly in the fields of psychology and cognitive therapy, have suggested that MDMA has therapeutic benefits and facilitates therapy sessions in certain individuals, a practice for which it had formally been used in the past.
I would guess that the real threat of taking it is, you don’t know for a fact what you are taking is even MDMA, nor do you know what impurities are in it, nor how it was manufactured.
The problem with drugs seems to be one of information and inability to know the facts of the situation. When you drink a can of Red Bull, or take a shot from a bottle of Jack Daniels, you are 99.999999% confident of what you are getting.
If MDMA were legal, then it wouldn’t seem to be any worse for a woman than any other substance. What is the difference between “dropping” a cup of coffee or some MDMA on the weekend, I don’t see any difference whatsoever.
Absolutely wonderful stuff, MDMA. It was used in the psychotherapy community for many years, between about the early 70’s until the late 80’s when the “Analog Act” came out and the DEA decided anything that looked like or felt like something fun was illegal.
They went after the synthetics tooth-and-nail, because it cuts into the lucrative import market–their market, the government’s and bankster’s cash cows cocaine, heroin, and cannabis.
They’re also dangerous to the PTB; the hallucinogens, taken in the appropriate setting, induce or reveal insights they don’t want you having.
We used vast amounts of Ecstasy in college, my friends and I. It had just become illegal when I started school but we weren’t concerned. When we worried about adulteration as the original supplies of pharmaceutical-grade dried up, I did some research.
Turns out, it’s a pretty straightforward molecule. The synthesis is a little more tricky than the totally simple methamphetamine–with which it shares 90% of its structure but with totally different effects.
So, I made it. It was a little dicey getting supplies, but the noose wasn’t quite as tight back then.
As far as the supposed terrible, ghastly side effects–like everything else government tells us, were lies. There’s definitely a hangover with over-indulgence, but then again who doesn’t feel a little out of it after staying up all night?
There’s probably a risk of depression with chronic use. But it’s not something you want to use often, because it’s self-limiting; the euphoric effect doesn’t work if taken more than once or twice a month. I and a group of six close friends probably had over three hundred doses each over the course of college and med school; none of us have any issues. Well, besides being libertarian.
Just between us though–it’s a fantastic experience. Instant, total, perfect empathy; everyone’s suddenly your best friend. Very good mental clarity, not like the drunken bonhomie after 6 or 10 beers. Mild hallucinations–more like bright halos, nowhere near LSD-level. The universe is your home and it’s beautiful.
Highly recommended; its main use in psychotherapy was for couple’s therapy and for that alone worth the legal risk.
Fascinating history, too; look up Alexander Shulgin. The wonderful Krauts (Merck) invented it back in 1914 but shelved it when it wasn’t a suitable appetite suppressant for their troops; given its effects, had it caught on with the troops WWI would never have happened 🙂
Safety tip: Don’t bother with the aluminum amalgam synthesis, the sodium cyano-borohydride reduction works much better.
Quick note on side effects: a single weekly dose of MDMA has a far superior safety profile to most neuroleptics…i.e. “anti-psychotics”, which are known to cause permanent brain damage.
The Wikipedia article you pointed to has a very even-handed discussion of the research into its potential harm; which is to say, very little.
Some early studies were done by known DEA shills; one famous one that showed gross brain damage turned out to have used methamphetamine, not MDMA, as the study chemical. It, of course, is still the study quoted by the DEA heroes.
“Yet invariably such people are happy for the state to dictate what people can and cannot do with their bodies in all sorts of other areas.”
Top drawer, Nick – thank you for that!
Eric, the only problem I have with pro-choice liberals and feminists is that for them, the right to choose begins and ends with women and abortion. On pretty much every other issue, they are happy to dictate at gunpoint what people do with their property or person. I just wish they could be a bit more pro-choice, that’s all!
At least when everyone is in FEMA camps, they can rest assured knowing that the hard won right to terminate one’s offspring will never be taken away. Don’t tread on my reproductive rights, but go ahead and destroy every other hard won liberty.
Conservatives are just as morally inconsistent. They claim to be pro-life, until you’re born. Then your life belongs to them and they will imprison you, send you off to war to kill and be killed or just kill you themselves if you don’t play by their rules.
It’s all nonsense.
right-statists however claim that the state owns the person always. life or death is really just minor inconsistency in their policies of ownership. All their prattle is about the policies of the state owning everyone. How much in taxes etc and so forth. Thus they are much more consistent than left-statists.
It is left statists that outright claim self-ownership when it comes to reproduction, but everywhere else the state owns us according to them.
You’re right Coop; but nonsensical or not that’s how it really goes in this giant prison camp called Amerika that the PTB are putting the finishing touches on. I think it goes back to the premise of the Church at Rome: You must have as many kids as you can. Even effective birth control is off the table, because you need as many “church members” as possible to feed the Vatican’s coffers.
The same thing applies to the Amerikan imperial death star: The more ground pounders, tank crewmen, drone pilots, technicians, logisticians, linguists, etc. the better. And for those who can’t do, teach or supervise, there are still plenty of openings available in the FSA to keep the middle class scared of the under class and begging for more and more police statism at home.
I can certainly understand why the money grubbing, power lusting among us want to perpetuate this. What I can’t understand is how so many of my fellow countrymen can be completely blind to the truth. Ron Paul quotes scripture and the so-called Christian Right excoriates him? Neither Huxley nor Orwell imagined it being this bad and the vast majority apparently thinks this dystopia we’re living in is the greatest show on earth. Coop I really do understand why you drink.
“Coop I really do understand why you drink”
Cool, I was afraid I was misunderstood.
Ron Paul quotes scripture and the so-called Christian Right excoriates him?
They were incensed at the fact that he, unlike them, actually reads, absorbs, lives by, and UNDERSTANDS the Scriptures.
It’s funny, isn’t it? No, sad. Tragic, actually.
Liberals are “pro choice” …. except when it comes to anything other than abortion.
Conservatives love the 2A…. but don’t seem to give a shit about the 4A or 5A (and increasingly, the 1A).
“Conservative” and “Liberal”: simply interchangeable synonyms for the terms “hypocrite” and “control freak.”
Great post, Nick. Another aspect of this issue is the “it’s a matter between a woman and her doctor” line. If that one is true, why is undergoing treatment for, say cancer, forbidden unless approved by the government? Isn’t treatment for any illness a matter between a woman and her doctor (or a man and his doctor)? The very same privacy and individual rights arguments that prevailed in Roe v. Wade would put the FDA out of business, if SCOTUS came within a light-year or two of such a thing as intellectual honesty.
Dear Nick,
As a consistent libertarian, I support the right of a woman to have an abortion.
As I see it, a fetus is clearly not an independent human being. It could become an independent human being. But it is not yet an independent human being. It is merely a part of a woman’s body. Therefore biologically speaking, consistent with natural rights theory, it does not yet have human rights.
I have no problem with any of that.
But, the jargon that abortion rights activists use always gets me. “Pro choice.”
Wow. They are “pro choice.”
Or are they?
Are they “pro choice” about a woman’s right to defend her own life from rioters or looters, using an AR-15???
Blank out.
“They will say that the pot smoker is “supporting” the violence of drug dealers – etc.”
It never seems to occur to such people that the drug trade is dangerous precisely because it is illegal. It is not illegal because it is dangerous. Whenever you force any industry to operate outside the law, you ensure that criminals will capture more of the market. And when an industry operates outside the law, people are more inclined to take other liberties with the law, such as arranging for the murder of a commercial rival etc.
Yet supporters of the War on Drugs are incapable of being reasoned with. There is just a switch in their brain that says ‘evil, evil, evil’, and that is it.
Nick, I remember in the 60’s my friends would sometimes swim a raft of pot bricks across the Rio Grande, load it up in their El Camino and go to Lubbock. They were just really nice guys. They never thought of using violence, never owned a gun except for the shotguns and rifles they hunted with but never carried except for those expeditions(hunting). They had trouble(car)more than once(bricks starting to burn near engine), getting stopped for having long hair mainly, but were nice enough they never had any Real problems. We never even thought of violence back in the day….until Tricky Dick and his Drug War and then everyone stopped smuggling and let the people of desperation(narcs and Mexicans)battle it out, literally. It was never the same again. I totally missed the MDMA thing and never knew it was Ex for a long time. Never had any but it sounded interesting from the research I’ve done and the few people I’ve spoken with who have done it. Could the health risks be any worse than speed or coke? Probably no more(probably much less) than those “legal” black mollies, huge amounts of caffeine, a most powerful drug.
Hi Nick,
Having “autopsied” several of my “conservative” ex-friends – all fierce shock troops in the war on (some) drugs – I have come to the conclusion that their ethical-intellectual dualism (they all drink and think that’s ok) derives from their incapacity to think critically. It’s a fascinating (if depressing) phenomenon.
They simply have rote ethics. Their society – and families and religion – have told them that alcohol is “ok.” And thus it is ok. But pot? Other unsanctioned “drugs”? Oh no. They are bad.
It’s like trying to communicate with ducks that talk. Words come out, but there is no thought behind them.
“rote ethics”
That’s a keeper.
Auswendigethik. I’ll have to try that on my old friend Inge Fucke’ to see if it works. (Inge’s late husband changed the name from Fucke’ to Fouche soon after arriving in America in 1963.)
tgsam
Ever read Wells’ “Island of Dr. Moreau?”
The recent movie (with Brando) was campy but had some great moments, if viewed from a certain perspective….
Ya’ll already know, I’m sure, that H.G. Wells was deep inside the Fabian Society and a major player in the early New World Order.
War of the Worlds–with that signature quote:
That’s how the “Elite” see us; it’s false of course, borne on a boundless narcissism for in reality they’re inbred psychopaths as pitiful as neurotic poodles.
The Island of Dr Moreau is another insight into their plans–plans they’re actually carrying out today. Turning humanity into servile beasts through propaganda, drugs, foods, and genetic manipulation.
It’s all out in the open, documented endlessly in fiction and their own white papers.
People are figuring it out….slowly. But it’s coming.
Methyl, that’s what I wanted to express about Moreau, it’s that different species theme of Wells’ work.
Eloi and Morlocks.
I really should have kept the copy of Stover’s book on “Things to Come”. I sold it after I had completed the course.
Long ago Eric. I would have to reread it to discuss it intelligently.
tgsam
Dear Meth,
Wells was a “scientific socialist” and as you correctly noted, an early champion of the NWO.
One of Well’s most revealing works was “Things to Come.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0pNV2gjhMQ
It was probably his most explicit political statement ever, championing a technocratic NWO ruled by scientists and engineers. It was sort of a scientific socialist’s take on Galt’s Gulch. The “Wings Over the World” attack in the film bears an eery resemblance to Obomber’s drone attacks.
I have to confess I loved that movie when I was younger. I was impressed as hell with the high tech future depicted. I failed to connect the dots. Fortunately my Classical Liberal core values held firm and eventually led me to see the disconnect.
World government
His most consistent political ideal was the World State. He stated in his autobiography that from 1900 onward he considered a World State inevitable. He envisioned the state to be a planned society that would advance science, end nationalism, and allow people to progress by merit rather than birth. In 1932, he told Young Liberals at the University of Oxford that progressive leaders must become liberal fascists or enlightened Nazis in order to implement their ideas.[35]In 1940, Wells published a book called The New World Order that outlined his plan as to how a World Government will be set up.
from Wiki
@Bevin:
As with each such movement throughout history, its progenitors–while evil–may actually have believed it would be for the “betterment of mankind”.
Or perhaps they were just sublimating their core evil, hiding it from themselves.
Now, when the plans are close to fruition, the latter generations of those inbred psychopaths know it will produce hell on earth–for us. They are either so deluded by their narcissism that they think they’ll still enjoy a high standard of living, or such psychopaths they don’t care…as long as they have CONTROL.
Because any idiot can plot a line through the course and see that destroying liberty will destroy its fruits–and the high technology will disappear.
We’ve had this discussion twice on the forum; BrentP had some excellent points on the fragility of our high technology society.
At present they’re fixated on the lead-up to the “Singularity”, their apotheosis, and they believe that robots will replace humans. Who will build and fix the robots you ask? Why, MORE robots!
The sheer lunacy; the sheer ignorance of the quintillion subtle arts that MAKE those robots are lost on the “technocrats” as they call themselves. But they’re not “techno” in any sense; they’re not doers, they’re not makers, they’re not creators. They’re parasites, vampires, manipulators and destroyers.
We’re going to beat them because their only strength is US. I just wonder how far toward hell they’ll drag us…under our own power.
“Things to Come” Is an order out of chaos story. War followed by pestilence followed by the ‘airmen’ who bring order back to the world. The airmen being the surviving technology class that aims to rebuild the world. It is not a man is obsolete story.
The idea that the most creative and productive people would take over and guide human society. To stop the squandering of resources and human labor. To guide things into advancement, into progress, creativity.
I am not sure this was to sell people on it or just wishful thinking. Because that is not what the order out of chaos systems aim for. They will impoverish most of the human population. There will be no division of labor remaining. There won’t be any ability to create these the undergound cities or go to the stars as envisioned in “Things to Come”.
The technology will be broken and the impoverishment will stop it from rising again. Man will loose anywhere from a 100 to 2000 years of progress. It is designed as a boot on the face of humanity, not a way to the stars.
But this anti-progress is represented in the movie by those who aim to revolt against the system. Those who wish to stop and destroy the space gun. (A rail gun to send a craft into space) The revolutionaries are all killed in the end by the concussion of the space gun.
In the end it is discussed how fragile humans are.
It’s an interesting movie to try and figure out just what the message is.
I should have kept Stover’s book, I have forgotten so much of his analysis.
Hi Brent,
Do you place Wells in the malicious – or merely naive – category?
I very much enjoy his novels and have read about his personal views; he seemed to me to be one of those Fabian socialists types who never understood the necessary evil (authoritarian collectivism) that socialism contains. I wonder whether, had he lived to know the reality of the Soviet system for instance, he’d have perhaps changed his mind…?
Dear Meth,
the “technocrats” as they call themselves. But they’re not “techno” in any sense; they’re not doers, they’re not makers, they’re not creators. They’re parasites, vampires, manipulators and destroyers.
Yes!
Example: Algore. Self-styled technocrat who “invented the Internet.”
Gore enrolled in Harvard College in 1965, initially planning to major in English and write novels, but later deciding to major in government.[22][23] On his second day on campus, he began campaigning for the freshman student government council, and was elected its president.[23]
Although he was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories,[23] he did not do well in science classes in college, and avoided taking math.[22] His grades during his first two years put him in the lower one-fifth of the class.
The guy was a political animal, a second-hander, from Day One.
Hi Bevin!
The techno “vampires” are indeed universally ignorant when it comes to technology. Yet they’ve got no compunction whatsoever about dictating technological outcomes. A good example here is Obama demanding that all cars average 35.5 MPG – just like that! The arrogance of this creature. This … hack politician. A man who knows next to nothing either theoretical or practical about what a car actually is – much less what makes it go. Dictating to those who do.
I’ve discovered a pretty solid Narcissist (Psychopath) Detector:
When you encounter a person who “knows it all” – who is contemptuous of those who do know and shows no compunction about lecturing them and absolutely never will defer to them – you have found your “NP” (narcissist-psychopath).
Dear Brent,
I really should have kept the copy of Stover’s book on “Things to Come”.
Just googled it. Apparently Leon Stover was a “China watcher.” Don’t know how good. Many “China experts” are experts in name only. Hard to say without more info.
“Things to Come” had its good points. Wells was right in his opposition of reactionary primitivism, and his advocacy of technological progress.
He was no Luddite.
But where he went waaay wrong was to champion a top down, central planning, command economy model for a technologically advanced society.
As we know only too well. The politicization of technology invariably undermines that very technological progress.
Wells seemed to think that the ‘right people’ would run such a world. The peaceful, progress minded, creative types who did things themselves. In our world the so called elite and the rest of the ruling class don’t put their children on the line. Yet who took the first flight out of the space gun?
The fundamental flaws of top down are the devastation from having the wrong people and the horrors from errors the right people can make because they can’t know everything. Wells seemed to think that the wrong people could be kept out for generations and that the right people would not make errors.
Eric, I really don’t know where to put Wells. At some points he seems to be cheerleading a just the right people benevolent dictatorship and then in the next work it appears he’s warning people of horrors and the loss of civilization from another portion of the same belief system.
What I end up drawing from it is the playbook and belief systems. The eugenics that leads to the morlocks, the animal people of Moreau, the order out chaos of things to come, and so forth.
Fair warning.
I may start using the term!
Ach Eric! Dammit protein shake came out my nose when I read:
“It’s like trying to communicate with ducks that talk. Words come out, but there is no thought behind them.”
Expect to receive a laundry bill for my shirt! 🙂
Just by the wave of the high priests hand a drug dealer becomes a pharmacist. The drug dealer’s house becomes a pharmacy. The drug becomes good not bad.
The whole gov’t run drug scene is packaged up real nice, and cleaned up to look spic-and-span so as to give everyone a feeling of safety and security.
A drug is a drug. Hell they flaunt it right our faces. A druggist sells drugs at the drug store! Don’t get no clearer than that.
Yet some will never put two and two together. “Drugs” are only the outlawed ones, the ones the Pharmacist gives you are medications!
Don-
Have you paid any attention to the most recent allegations regarding the use of “performance enhancing drugs” by Ray Lewis and Ryan Braun? Have you listended or read how the electronic media (ESPN, ESPN.com, CBS Sports, CBS Sports Radio, NBC, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, major local sports talk stations et al) have covered the stories?
If you have, I am sure that you would agree that the scribes and the talking heads have abided by the cognitive dissonance narrative to which you refer in their commentary and reportage.
Near as I can tell, food and water are both performance enhancing drugs.
meth, I used to run a courier route delivering drugs to hospitals and drafts and money(yep, they did although they weren’t supposed to)from banks to the airport. They’d sometimes screw up on the drugs(heavy stuff, mainly OR and big time PK’s), panic and call me to verify I had or didn’t have said drugs. I could have ripped them off countless times but just wanted to get the job done. I was recounting one of these episodes to my 40 year CCU specialist sister in law when she stopped me and corrected me saying They aren’t drugs, they’re meds” to which I replied “No, they’re really strong drugs and that’s what everybody concerned calls them and that’s what they are, antibiotics are meds.” She shook her head and everybody laughed at me but I’m here to tell you, I delivered drugs and people would call freaked out wondering if they’d lost “drugs”, their language. I just wish I could have completed the circle by hauling firearms too.
“Ducks that talk” !! 🙂
I really like that.
I take serious issue with the idea often stated by libertarian pundits that the consequences we see from the War on (Some) Drugs are “unintended.” Quite the opposite is true; the outcomes we now see were the very ones TPTB intended from Day One.
It is simply impossible to believe that the consequences of prohibition –prohibition of anything— have not always been obvious to those who rule over us. There is no one alive at the time the WOSD began, especially those responsible for kicking it off, who had lived through the Prohibition Era of a generation earlier who could have not learned the lessons of that failed experiment.
The fact is, TPTB learned very different lessons from Prohibition than the one that most of the rest of us did (the one Nick cites above). They learned that the chaos caused by Prohibition provided the perfect pretext to ratchet up government power, to seize extra-Constitutional powers in order to resolve a crisis that government itself created. They also learned that adhering to the Rule of Law (i.e., formally amending the Constitution to enact laws and assume powers previously outside the constitutional purview of the federal government) is for chumps and weaklings. Next time such power expansions would be done by Executive fiat (after such fiats were properly crafted by the real powers behind the Puppet Throne and put into the mouth of the current Puppet Emperor, whoever that happened to be at the time), and Boobus Americanus, the majority, would not only not complain, but would welcome these new edicts. After all, America’s first fascist president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, issued just such edicts on frequent occasions during the other crisis the government created to give itself extra-constitutional powers (a.k.a. the [First] Great Depression). So how could Boobus complain if any other “great decider” followed suit?
This also explains why, when the next “false flag” event happens in the very near future, one so obviously a false flag event that even a toddler wouldn’t be fooled, Boobus is still going to beg his Mommy and Daddy (a.k.a. the Godverment) to fix things for him – then bitch and moan about the “unintended” consequences.
God help us.
You have nailed it, liberranter. The WOSD is producing precisely the intended results, first and foremost an atmosphere in which boobus clamors for the government to do more to “keep us safe.” I also suspect that many politicians, bureaucrats, and LEOs are making a very nice living on payoffs from the drug cartels…quid pro quo for keeping their profits flowing by means of the WOSD.
Similarly, government schools are not failing. They are wildly successful at turning out masses of young boobuses who can’t think for themselves and are conditioned to accept authority without question. And that is the sole purpose of the school system.
God help us, indeed. Though I rather think it’s going to be up to us.
I also suspect that many politicians, bureaucrats, and LEOs are making a very nice living on payoffs from the drug cartels…quid pro quo for keeping their profits flowing by means of the WOSD.
You bet they are. Sometimes these payoffs are in the form of “tributes” extracted from the producers and dealers (think: cops who “help themselves” to money and/or ‘evidence’ [i.e., confiscated drugs]seized during raids), outright bribes (you had better believe that the narco-cartels have lobbyists on Crapitol Hill, although these lobbyists are certainly hiding behind some organizational facade to mask their clients’ real identities), or just “looking the other way” by letting the narcos do business as usual underground and letting the attendant violence spiral out of control – inevitably resulting in the government justifying more power for itself.
Excellent article! It is this same logic that I use when discusses the issue of same sex marriage. Many will ask if the government should ‘allow” or legalize same sex marriage. I will then return with, “Why should individuals have to get the government’s permission to get married anyway?”. The government shouldn’t be defining marriage. It should be left to individual couples as long as they’re not forcing themselves on someone else.
Exactly! Marriage should be a cultural or religious affair, not a legal construct. The whole idea of having to obtain a marriage “license” is preposterous.
States began requiring marriage licenses as a racist measure…couldn’t have whites marrying blacks, Asians, etc. Racial purity was very important to the collectivist movement known as the Progressives. This LRC blog on the subject a couple of years ago has some interesting links and commentary: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/89927.html
Your basic point is an excellent one: there is no objective reason why people need permission from the state to marry. If left as a private matter, marriage would not create the kind of controversy we see today.
No. You’re being U.S.-centric. It actually started far earlier, for reasons having to do with maintaining property. For instance, the Elizabethans wanted to stop heiresses eloping with seducers who were only after family estates, so marriage licences were brought in in England about then.
I think there is an impasse of ancient racial difference in roles of male/female/marriage between “African American” culture and “white” majoritarian culture. Forcing values on others, is pointless and damaging. You’ll never make everyone right-handed by legal statutes.
http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701778/
The Egyptians appear to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind. Women attend markets and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving! Men in Egypt carry loads on their head, women on their shoulder. Women pass water standing up, men sitting down. To ease themselves, they go indoors, but eat outside on the streets, on the theory that what is unseemly, but necessary, should be done in private, and what is not unseemly should be done openly.
(Herodotus II: 33-37)
– – –
Ancient Jewish Marriage
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_and_Partners/About_Marriage/Ancient_Jewish_Marriage.shtml
As a rule, the fathers arranged the match. The girl was consulted, but the “calling of the damsel and inquiring at her mouth” after the conclusion of all negotiations was merely a formality.
Not only is it despicable that government “licenses” marriages, it also (again) befouls the principle of equal treatment under the law. Because married people are treated differently by the (tax) law than singles. Sometimes, you get screwed more if you’re married – sometimes less.
It’s just another way they screw with us, though.
Eric, your challenge to the lawfulness of licensing is daring and worthy of respect. You have dared to apply Critical Thinking to bullshit that has been taken for granted since Day One.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
I’m trying to be absolutely rigorous (and merciless) as regards that!
I admire your success in being widely read. Would that I could do as well.
tgsam
Shades of Harry Browne. Enjoyable and pointed.
A PHILOSOPHICAL LITMUS TEST
by
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
Where do you stand on Drug Prohibition?
This simple, straightforward question quickly eliminates the half-hearted, the hopelessly ill-informed, and the Stealth Statists. Simple is best, so keep it simple by insisting upon an across the board repeal of de facto Drug Prohibition. There is no more logical place to begin enforcing respect for the principles supporting the Unanimous Declaration.
Interfering with an adult’s efforts to relieve his personal suffering is morally equivalent to inflicting the suffering. Deliberately inflicting suffering is intrinsically criminal. The insane and intrinsically criminal Drug War has brought, and continues bringing, dreadful suffering to millions. The Drug War is a Power Precedent that has been instrumental in the legislative and judicial nullifying of the Bill of Rights.
Without Bill of Rights protection for the Individual, the United States is merely another totalitarian country that systematically inflicts Draconian punishment for legislated offenses that are not real crimes. Nothing endangers the American Ideal* more than whimsical lawmaking and judicial ukase that bypasses Bill of Rights restraint. No foreign enemy could have damaged America as deeply as our own lawmakers and judges have succeeded in doing.
*The American Ideal is expressed with incomparable eloquence in the non-amendable Unanimous Declaration ratified by Congress in July 1776.
The Nuremberg Precedent, which introduced crimes against humanity into Mankind’s legal administration of Justice, is morally applicable to the War on Drugs and/or any other government sponsored crime.
WE hold these Truths…
C 1993. Permission granted to copy and distribute
Note: Lawful and legal are not synonyms. There is an ethical element in lawful that is often dangerously absent in legal. When folks beg for the legalization of marijuana they are making a dreadful mistake. Marijuana and other drugs are lawful and always will be. They are lawful because the Individual has the natural right to possess and consume them.
As soon as a person says. “they oughta legalize and tax the hell out of it.” you know that you are dealing with an ignorant dickhead who has the lawful relationship between Government and the Individual reversed in his sorry excuse for a mind.
tgsam
I’ve actually found myself using that argument, hopelessly flawed as it is, as an “interim measure” when talking to Clovers so hopelessly statist that they can’t think of a solution in any other terms. It’s a case of “weaning the addict off of the drug” (to use an apt metaphor) in stages. The idea of outright legalization, without strings attached and interference from Clover’s Omnipotent and All-Knowing State, would probably cause certain Clovers’ heads to explode, much like weaning a chronic junkie off of smack cold turkey could kill them.
Try “Repeal de facto drug prohibition.”
tgsam
Clovers are bad – but they are at least consistent (as regards their authoritarianism). The ones that drive me to crawl the walls are the “conservatives” who, on the one hand, love beer (or wine or whiskey) and frequently imbibe – without harming anyone in the process, I might add – and who would say Prohibition was absurd… yet still support the ff’n “war” on (other) drugs. You know… the “war” on the stuff they don’t personally use, or like to see others use.
I asked one why (no, I’ve asked several why). The inevitable response is that people “abuse” pot (or Ecstasy, whatever; insert here) and thus “society” has the right to forbid (and criminalize) use/possession/sale, etc. They will say that the pot smoker is “supporting” the violence of drug dealers – etc.
I ask whether they are or ought to be held responsible if, say, the guy who drove the truck that brought the case of Bud they bought to the store goes home and beats his wife, that makes them an accessory to the act… I broaden this to ask whether any peaceful individual deserves to be treated as a criminal – to have guns pointed at him, to be thrown in a cage – because “someone” did something to another “someone” that involved the same category of substance as the peaceful person was caught using/possessing selling.
I always get the same evasive answer. Well, that’s different.
Really? How, exactly?
The Punishment
The local cobbler in the small town of Chelm got into a heated argument with one of his customers, and stabbed the unfortunate man several times. He was then brought before the judge, who sentenced him to death.
However, the townspeople, upon hearing the judgment, cried out, “Herschel is the only one cobbler in this town. If we kill him, who will mend our shoes?”
“Well,” replied the judge, “you have a valid point. We can’t kill the cobbler. Therefore, I propose that we kill Chaim the roofer instead — after all, we have four other roofers!”
Tor, I think you just described too big to fail.
When people complain about “Obamacare” and the GovCo “takeover” of medical treatment I ask them if they support the Drug War. Inevitably they do. I then point out that Obamacare is the logical end of drug prohibition that started with the idea that you need a “prescription” from a licensed, GovCo approved, doctor that you take to a licensed, GovCo approved, pharmacy to have filled.
I usually get blank stares in reply. However, every now and them a light comes on and they start to break the brainwashing.
Indeed.
I also like to point out to drug war supporters that in “unfree” counties such as Mexico, anyone can get whatever medicine they need by simply going to the pharmacy. No permission slip required.
Unlike here in the (cough) land of the free.
Yep, and in Mexico, despite the ease of obtaining “hard” drugs, as well as the “state-approved” variety, over the counter and without constraint, Mexico has a drug addiction problem that is infinitesimal compared with that up here in El Norte.
Drug addiction is not always a problem. Hell, I’m addicted to Hydrocodone without which I would be even more worthless because of the distraction caused by chronic pain.
tgsam
I am a heavy user of caffeine. A drug. I drink about six large cups of coffee every day. I may not be “addicted,” but if I don’t have my coffee, I am not quite right.
Yet no one bothers me about it. Because caffeine – like alcohol – is socially acceptable.
The imbeciles who cannot see the obvious hypocrisy disgust me to no end.
eric, having been to Mexico many times and having made a trip to the pharmacia every time, I can tell you they don’t have the same things there as here. I can’t tell you why but finding oxycontin(my hair just stood on end)hydrocodone or one of the many more potent painkillers is not done in my experience. They have some make believe products that don’t work but you’ll need a doc to find you a pharmcia(and I don’t know where one is and I’ve used more than one doctor there) with the strong stuff. I can’t recall the name of the closest thing to hydrocodone but it’s not even close to being the same thing. You can get things like valium and some mild forms of uppers. And you can find a pharmacia that will sell you as many thousands of valium and such as you want but they just don’t have the potent painkillers. Dang, my wife just walked in with some “illegal” tortillas, no govt. intervention. If you could buy them like this in the store she’d be out of business but it’s not happening. This lady makes some killer tamales too.
Living in Europe for many years, we were able to get antibiotics, codeine and many other drugs over the counter.
I experienced “the light coming on” in the eyes of a lady in a Military Surplus store yesterday. As it turned out she is a fellow chronic pain sufferer and by the time I got through with her she was furious about having to get permission to treat her own suffering.
Admittedly she was fairly well informed to begin with. When I asked for an M-43 cap with an Edelweiss insignia she knew what I was talking about.
tgsam
Mark, Eric et al,
The only way a monopoly can exist is through government manipulation of the marketplace. Thus, the limited supply of medical services brought about by liscensure of doctors due to interference by the AMA, brings us expensive, substandard medical care. Same goes for food, pharmaceuticals and so on. This observation springs from application of the NAP. Further ALL government is implemented through slavery to the state, however innocuous some people believe that control to be. Anytime the government (at any level) interferes with the free exchange of goods and services between two un-coerced parties, then that amounts to an act of enslavement….e.g. the implicit underpinnings are that we, the government, own your bodies and your very lives. There can be no justification for that, other than to admit that supporters of such support the implementation of slavery. Two blatant examples are public education and making the sale of raw milk illegal. Anyway, back to the grindstone…..
Agreed, Giuseppe!
“Interfering with an adult’s efforts to relieve his personal suffering …”
Hell, I’d take it farther than that…
Interfering with an adult’s efforts to have fun – to enjoy himself – by partaking of whatever he wishes to partake of (be it a T-bone steak or a bong hit or a shot of heroin)… is a vicious assertion of ownership of other people’s literal bodies. And that is as criminal – in the proper sense of the term – as it gets.
You don’t have to like what someone else is doing – and may consider it ill-advised, even destructive. But provided the person isn’t causing harm to others – not “society,” not intangible constructs – but actual, real-life, specific others who can demonstrate they’ve been materially harmed – then hands-off. Leave him alone. Well, don’t use force against him. (I’ve got no issue with people stating their views, or offering counsel, etc. Because you can always tell the person, “thanks, but I’m ok”… and if they persist, to piss off – and that’s the end of it. It’s the use of force that’s the line that cannot be crossed.)
That’s liberty.
Damn, I miss it.
If you where sleeping any where and an individual came up to you and started shouting at you you would tell them to fuck off if they continued to shout and began to accost you you would defend yourself simple easy peasy. So why the fuck does a costume make you shit yourselves? Why do we allow or put up with this shit? I dont get it. I tell you this if any human costumed or not trys to kidnap me im fighting to the death. I’m over the bull shit, ive figured it out you simple have to at the first signs of aggression and before back up arrives attack with all your might with intent to kill. there is no other way. Thugs are thugs no matter what. If ppl dont start standing up they never will.
f you where sleeping any where and an individual came up to you and started shouting at you you would tell them to fuck off if they continued to shout and began to accost you you would defend yourself simple easy peasy. So why the fuck does a costume make you shit yourselves? Why do we allow or put up with this shit? I dont get it.
There’s a practical reason why most of us tend to “shit ourselves” in such a situation. It boils down to the fact that, while most of us could pretty easily dispose of Officer Oinky by ourselves in a one-on-one, either with our fists or our guns, he has the capability to summon a posse of armed paramilitary thugs as backup. And he nearly always does so nowadays, even in situations that don’t call for it. (This is because Oinky knows that he’s nothing but a bully who is despised by nearly everyone who crosses his path and that we’d sooner kill him than look at him, but that’s fodder for a whole ‘nother rant elsewhere).
So, while I agree that logically we truly should not be “putting up with this shit,” we do so because, in any given encounter with Oinky, we’re outnumbered and outgunned. I sincerely hope that, as Oinky and his pals “ratchet up” the aggression and it becomes so obvious even to the densest of the Clovers that he is anything but a “hero” who “protects and serves, this imbalance will change. For the moment, however, we’re still forced to pick our battles carefully and the best way to do that is to go to the most practical lengths possible to avoid any encounters at all with Oinky and pals.
Your right i was just overstimulated this morning. I really wish all the guys on this site would start brain storming on ways for us to start our own posses so when these bastards try and fuck with us we can have a real stand off and start sending a message to these punks that were mad as hell and we aint gonna take it no more. If any of you brilliant fellas got any good ideas im all ears. Most of you fellas are pretty smart so i figure yall can come up with somethin this simple country boy can understand.
I love that posse idea. The problem most of us liberty lovers face, though, is that we’re too widely disbursed to come to each other’s aid in a timely manner. If I’m the only liberty lover in a neighborhood full of state-worshiping Clovers, I’m going to have a hard time summoning help when Officer Oinky and his militarily-armed band of PTSD-addled Iraqghanistan alumni kick down my door on a no-knock warrant at 2:30 in the morning and start opening up on me with semi-auto fire.
While most of my neighbors know that something is wrong with the status quo, most still aren’t yet ready to see Oinky and Pals as anything other than selfless protectors of the weak and innocent. Let’s hope that enough of them are disabused of that notion, up close and personal, in the near future. Maybe then the posse you suggest will become a reality.
We need to start local. I’ve mentioned before the idea of having a group of people who protect others from the local LE.
Consider this: someone is pulled over by a cop, that person dials a number on their cell phone before porky reaches the car. Within minutes a “Fast Response Team” arrives with 4-5 armed men. They confront the cop and asked him what his business is with this person.
If the answer is ANYTHING other than trying to help them change a flat, then the cop is disarmed, handcuffed, read the Bill of Rights and asked if he understands it, his pants taken, his tire stems cut, his radio disabled and left to ponder the error of his ways.
Soon, ALL cops will be thinking twice about pulling people over for frivolous citations.
Here’s the hard part: we have to be willing to do this, all the way, with conviction and at the same time with reserve. If we pull it off then we’ll have the moral battle won. We’ve done nothing but protect the citizenry’s rights from the biggest violator of those rights: the state. And we did it non-violently.
I think the liberty movement is just dying for a leader. An example that they can follow. Who’s going to give it to them.
I think there are people on this site that are more than capable, physically and intellectually to do so.
Cirlce the wagons?
“if any human costumed or not trys to kidnap me im fighting to the death.”
In the words of John Ross, “The time to resist is BEFORE they put the handcuffs on you”.
You have it right. I agree with you on that.
Resisting the Trick or Treaters #101
1 Obtain or manufacture large numbers of candy pails. Ones like the orange plastic jack-o-lanters with a carved pumpkin face. You need ones that look like policemen, soldiers, major politicians, local high school mascots.
2 Always hand out candy to them throughout your neighborhood. Tell them you like their costume as you hand them a piece of candy. Bonus points if you design a second candy wrapper with a non-aggression –principle message on it.
3 Approach their vehicles. Enter their buildings. Reinforce the fact that they are different. They wear costumes. Since their “job” is to enter your neighborhood and demand that you give them a treat; “here you go”; “don’t think we don’t know about your tricks.”
Great article. I would contend you DO have a contitutionally guarenteed right to drive. If you have the right to peacably assemble you have a right to drive. It is the fault of the government that they, yes THEY, design, maintain and own the roads that make it impossible to live in most areas of the country WITHOUT a car.
About 15 years ago the Commandant(yes, that was his title) of the NC DMV stated it was a privilege to be on the roads of NC. What this means is, anything other than house arrest is a “privilege”.
This game’s been rigged for years, the sheeple are just now seeing the barbed wire that surrounds them. The Clovers, however, will note how the wire glistens like spun gold in the morning sun.
Absolutely–travel is a fundamental right no different than free speech and self-defense.
Take it to its logical extreme: if the State were to restrict travel completely, it could confine you to your home. Or a room within your home.
There’s a term for that, I believe it’s “imprisonment”.
I promise I will vomit on the pants and shoes of the next person who tells me in that lilting, anencephalic collectivist voice “driving is a privilege!”
Absolutely–travel is a fundamental right no different than free speech and self-defense.
Exactly. That is the crux of the whole matter. The real challenge, of course, is to assert that fact in practice in the face of resistance from TPTB, who have made it very clear, in both practice and words that, AFATC, there are no rights for us Mere Mundanes, only privileges granted by they themselves, revocable at their every whim.
Oh don’t get me started on the “privilege” thing. This is what every knuckle-dragging moron who defends the TSA says whenever someone starts complaining too loud about the abuse so that their slavish minds have to shout us, the sane ones, down with that “(insert mode of travel in question) is a privilege” bullshit. WTF!? Where and when did that pop out on the scene? Would someone mind telling me where in the hell that’s printed. Because if that’s so then you’re nothing less than a slave. A mere animal on the Federal Farm. And if our overlords say it’s so then the simple act of leaving your front door is a “privilege”. The “privilege” of drawing your drapes to keep the police drones from spying on your family dinner or it’s heat signature sensors from identifying where and what you’re doing in your own home/cell. But, of course, they’ll use “privatization” software to make you into mere humanoid blobs so they don’t actually “violate” your rights while you whack off in the bathroom. And to think they are actually working on devices that can read your thoughts! The stuff of science fiction has become a hellish reality. No joke. So now even the plantation between your ears is being watched by the bulls.
WTF!? Where and when did that pop out on the scene? Would someone mind telling me where in the hell that’s printed. Because if that’s so then you’re nothing less than a slave.
Of course whenever you demand from the typical sheepletard some tangible proof that the authoritah that the State claims for itself is lawful, they’re likely to respond, usually with aggressive attitude, that “that’s just the way it is. If you don’t like it, move to Russia (or China, or Cuba, or some other nation equally irrelevant to the discussion at hand).
It’s at this point that I’m more tempted than in any other situation to toss the NAP aside and close the gap between my closed fist and that other idiot’s mouth.
That old “If you don’t like it….” retort just torques my jaw. I don’t give a shit about what the laws are in China, damn it all to hell, I’m only concerned with what’s going on HERE. This sort of “suck it up” dialogue is well deserving of a slap to the face. And, indeed, you want proof for what they claim to be “just the way it is” and all of a sudden it’s YOU who are the problem. It’s disgusting. In fact I was just sharing something this morning with a nice woman and she used that same line, though not directing it at me, and I said, “It is the way it is because people have swallowed the lie that this is the way it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be this way.” So long as you go along with the lie you’re feeding it.
In fact I was just sharing something this morning with a nice woman and she used that same line, though not directing it at me, and I said, “It is the way it is because people have swallowed the lie that this is the way it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be this way.” So long as you go along with the lie you’re feeding it.
I’m dying to know what her response was (wait, don’t tell me: it was either a blank stare, a burst of indignant attitude, or she just walked away without saying anything).
Oh, she’s o.k., what I was remarking on was how the words “that’s the way it is” creeps into our conversations for even the most mundane subjects. That’s the bane of typing over speaking face to face: the lack of nuance.
Re: being done for drink driving while sleeping it off in the car. So you have a situation where the police can stop people without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Moreover, they stop people not because they may uncover evidence of real harm to anyone, but simply because they may uncover evidence that an individual presents with one of a range of physiological variables that may impact on their driving competence. But if that wasn’t hard enough to swallow, they now have the right to stop and test people in their cars who are not even driving, but simply on the basis that they may have driven.
At what point do people pull the wool from their eyes and see this for what it is, nothing more than an extortion racket with little to do with real safety concerns.
There might be a semantic problem here. Contrary to what government worshippers say, we all have a right, not a privilege, to drive. But all rights are either conditional or bring just retribution if abused. Thus a 97-year-old nearly blind man’s right to drive is conditioned on whether he can pass certain requirements necessary for safe driving. A driver’s license is proof, hopefully, of a driver’s adequate ability to not destroy lives or property while motoring about.
So while we have the right to drive, we also have the right to ensure that not just anybody in any condition whatever shares the road with us.
Hi Ross,
Well, one obvious problem with this is simply that it doesn’t work. I encounter clearly past-it (but still duly licensed) old coots and other incompetents literally almost every day. I expect you do, too. We all do. People who seem to have difficulty keeping their car in one lane; people who drive significantly below the flow of traffic yet who refuse to yield to faster-moving traffic; habitual tailgaters; people who come to a stop on freeway merge lanes, then pull out at 5 MPH into traffic that’s running 70; people who cannot deal with snow – yet go out anyhow, invariably putting their and everyone else’s life at risk. Etc.
The driver’s license requirements do almost nothing to weed these people out. The plain fact is the driver’s license has very little to do with any demonstration of competence behind the wheel. It is primarily about documenting us – with the “safety” stuff providing a plausible excuse.
I can attest from personal experience that the Commonwealth of Virginia, in particular, has no real standards of performance when it comes to issuing driver’s licenses to first-time drivers (or drivers who have had their licenses revoked and are seeking reissue).
When my physically-disabled daughter,at the age of 26, finally decided that she was tired of relying on others to get her where she needed to go and that it was time to learn how to drive, she got her learner’s permit and I took it upon myself to be her “behind-the-wheel” instructor (my wife has neither the patience nor the courage for such a task and refused to do it).
One thing I discovered over the course of two months of training was that, despite all of my attempts at guidance, correction, and intervention, she was brazenly reckless when it came to speed and vehicle control. I constantly had to remind her to slow down, maintain safe distances between surrounding vehicles, and, in bad weather, reduce speed to maintain control of the car. All of it fell on deaf ears.
When she finally decided that it was time to get her license, I refused to go with her to the MVA to get it. I believed that she just wasn’t ready for it and that any halfway competent examiner would fail her. So, she had a friend take her to the MVA to take the test.
Imagine my horror when she came home with a brand new Virginia driver’s license! I asked her friend if she had watched any part of my daughter’s road test. Her friend said “Yeah, I saw her slam on the brakes before even getting out of the parking lot. I thought she’d through herself and the test monitor through the windshield and that she’d have failed for sure.”
But no. Apparently just being able to breath, talk, and keep one’s vehicle from smashing into another object is sufficient grounds in Virginia for issuing a permit to use the state’s roads. I’m certain it’s the same way in just about every other state. Scary.
Hi Lib,
Yup – I live in VA – and vouch for the accuracy of that.
The motorcycle license/test is even more absurd. Think about it.
A guy who rides his bike to the DMV…. is by definition able to ride. He at least has already mastered the basics. Balance, gear changing, etc. This alone involves a great deal more skill than “driving” (cough, hack) a car – a car with an automatic transmission.
Yet you still have to go through all their folderol. And of course, pay another god-damn fee.
And of course, pay another god-damn fee.
Which is of course the whole goal all along. It’s the same thing with licensing of building and services contractors. The license doesn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the person’s competency at their craft. It’s just a receipt for having paid the State a tribute for being allowed to do what natural law already allows you to do anyway without asking anyone’s permission.
Well, they must take lessons from Utah and New Mexico because those have been the worst drivers I’ve ever been forced to deal with.
Except a DL has nothing to do with safety in practice. Instead what happens is everyone becomes limited to the slowest ship in the fleet. That 97 year old nearly blind man that you use as an example becomes the basis of the system. No turn except on green arrow but I can see two miles down the road and nobody is coming… why? Speed limits that can often be safely doubled or close to it. Advisory limits that can be tripled.
In another forum years ago there was cross over with a group of road engineers. I learned a few things. It appears they do everything based on tables written I think sometime in the 1920s or 1930s and then add a factor of safety. Thus as I always put it, they set upper bounds so a 90 year old blind woman in a broken down model T can handle it.
That’s the american solution, limit everyone else to be ‘fair’.
The rest Eric has already covered.
In 2011 I got my 3rd DUI while I was sleeping on the side of the road in my pickup. They confiscated my truck, and sold it even before I had plead guilty. I went to treatment at a veterans hospital and paid all my fines. I lost my license for one year. I recently went to get it back. Costed a total of $703.25 after I passed the ‘DUI test’. They then tell me I need to produce 5 letters from people in the community that vouch that I haven’t drank, produce records from 6 months of steady AA meetings and then meet with a driver evaluator and plead my case to him. I told them to fuck right off and give my money back (I had just paid her IN CASH). No, she said, you have to send in this form and give a reason why I wanted it back. I have now divorced myself from the state. As my old grand dad used to say, “fuck those fuckin fuckers”. I hate the state.
Hi TF,
Your case could easily have been my case – so I sympathize mightily.
Back in the ’80s, when I was in college – before all this idiocy came to pass – I slept it off uncounted times in my car. In the front seat of my car. Cops not only never bothered me, they had no legal ability to bother me. One had to be driving to be in peril of a driving while intoxicated bust.
Then they changed the law – courtesy of the same harpies at MADD and their cuckolded lickspittles in the legislature. Now, they can – and will – arrest you for DUI/DWI even if you’re sleeping it off in the back seat. After all, Officer Oinky thinks you could have just scampered back there when you saw him coming…
It matters not that you clearly weren’t driving – since the car is parked. You’re still charged with driving under the influence. Not the less outrageous – because at least factually correct – public intoxication. No. The evil bastards charge you with something you haven’t done – which they don’t even have to attempt to prove you did. In fact, even if you can proved it’s impossible you were driving at any time proximate to your kidnapping (what they call “arrest”) such as the fact that the engine is stone cold, for instance… or even that you didn’t have the keys on you… it doesn’t matter because it’s legally irrelevant.
After all, Officer Oinky thinks you could have just scampered back there when you saw him coming…
Speaking of Oinky, another one of my recurring fantasies is to make a citizen’s arrest of Oinky when he violates the very DUI/DWI laws he’s charged with enforcing. And Oinky and his badged buddies are without peer when it comes to DUI/DWI.
I get blank stares and “Are you crazy?” when I tell people how I drove without a license for over 7 years.
“I don’t think I should have to ask for permission to drive my own car”.
I didn’t go and get one until I was told that I would be kidnapped and imprisoned at gunpoint by costumed thugs if they caught me doing it again. Even then, I never asked for it. I was coerced into it.
It’s easier for me to go along, since I still get what I want. (I want them to leave me the hell alone). But, the moment they decide they do not want to give me permission, there will be no amount of coercion that can get me to ask for it.
Comrades no need to worry about DL’s as we (and our illegal friends) are removed from our earth-killing ever-more-expensive-to-own cars. Our masters (NGO’s and local government councils that really make the laws while we look at puppet politicians) are now herding us cows into the new planned central city cracker boxes. Everything we do will be less than 5 miles from your 200-500 sq. ft. multi-story gulag condo, no car needed or wanted by the young adults. Only the rich and connected will live in their own home. Checkout ICLEI and all “model cities” “redevelopment” and “sustainable” agenda 21 projects now approved and funded all around you. But your building permit gets harder, more restrictive & expensive. This matrix plan has been in motion for 30 years, and is accelerating. The brainwashed IPad generation are taught they are saving the earth, and will moo and love the loss of freedom.
The guv’ment produces this situation because they “own” the roads. Therefore, you need a license to drive on “their” roads. This is fine if the roads were owned in the private, and real, sense. But because they’re not, this situation is impossible to resolve. I do not have a right to travel freely. I do have a right to property. I’d love to own some roads, in the real sense, of course.
You beat me to it Keith. The problem is the public ownership of roads. Public ownership of anything is a problem. That’s why they can tax you for using roads, parks, forests, lakes, mountains, schools, and everything else they own.
The U.S. gov’t is the largest land owner in the country.
The tragedy of the commons is…the commons.
GENIUS! Wish I could have thought of that myself, but thanks for the knowledge!
Thx. Its a bumper sticker. Be fun to slap one on every prius, or anything else sporting political propaganda slogans. ☻
No, it’s the dilution of the commons: letting anybody at all use any common (singular) without limit rather than letting the commoners of each common keep others off and police each other by stopping any commoner from using more than what was allowed by local custom (google “by hook and crook”).
dilution? yes. of ownership.
relate your tweaked “commoms” to “minarchism”. same defect.
billhooks & shepherds crooks are merely exhortations from without. mal-incentive.
Dear Keith,
This is fine if the roads were owned in the private, and real, sense. But because they’re not, this situation is impossible to resolve.
The existence of any sort of “public sector” is the thin edge of the wedge used to justify endlessly expanding the “public sector” until it encompasses everything, and justifies clover control over everything we do.
It’s no accident.
shared
Thank you for writing this essay
Doc Ellis 124
no need to post
Babylonian Law in effect 3,784 years ago
Excerpt of translation of the Code of Hammurabi
Encyclopedia Britannica 1910:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hammpre.asp
The Code contemplates the whole population as falling into three classes:
1st Class (Choosers) – A patrician, the man of family, whose birth, marriage and death were registered, of ancestral estates and full civil rights. He had aristocratic privileges and responsibilities, the right to exact retaliation for corporal injuries, and liability to heavier punishment for crimes and misdemeanours, higher fees and fines to pay. To this class belonged the king and court, the higher officials, the professions and craftsmen.
2nd Class (Beggars) The term for this class meant “a beggar.” The Code does not regard him as necessarily poor, he may have been landless. He was free, but had to accept monetary compensation for corporal injuries, paid smaller fees and fines, even paid less offerings to the state. He inhabited a separate quarter of the city.
3rd Class (Slaves) The slave, his master’s chattel, formed a very numerous class. He could acquire property and even hold other slaves. His master clothed and fed him, paid his doctor’s fees, but took all compensation paid for injury done to him. His master usually found him a slave-girl as wife (the children were then born slaves), often set him up in a house (with farm or business) and simply took an annual rent of him. Otherwise he might marry a freewoman (the children were then free), who might bring him a dower which his master could not touch, and at his death one-half of his property passed to his master as his heir. He could acquire his freedom by purchase from his master, or might be freed and dedicated to a temple, or even adopted, when he became a 2nd Class Beggar and no longer a 3rd class slave. Slaves were recruited by purchase abroad, from captives taken in war and by freemen degraded for debt or crime. A slave often ran away; if caught, the captor was bound to restore him to his master, and the Code fixes a reward of two shekels which the owner must pay the captor. It was about one-tenth of the average value. To detain, harbour, a slave was punished by death. So was an attempt to get him to leave the city. A slave bore an identification mark, which could only be removed by a surgical operation and which later consisted of his owner’s name tattooed or branded on the arm. On the great estates in Assyria and its subject provinces were many serfs, mostly of subject race, settled captives, or quondam slaves, tied to the soil they cultivated and sold with the estate but capable of possessing land and property of their own. Slaves sometimes became a type of serf, when their master no longer exerted control over them for some reason.
Citizens Enjoy Full Ownership of Property
The state and the king, never disturbed tenancy. They were content with fixed dues in naturalia, stock, money or service. One of the earliest monuments records the purchase by a king of a large estate for his son, paying a fair market price and adding a handsome honorarium to the many owners in costly garments, plate, and precious articles of furniture.
The Code recognizes complete private ownership in land, All land was sold subject to its fixed charges. Religious officials and shepherds in charge of flocks were exempt. Special liabilities lay upon riparian owners to repair canals, bridges, & quays.
The state claimed certain proportions of all crops, & stock. The king’s messengers could commandeer any subject’s property, giving a receipt. Further, every city had its own octroi duties, customs, ferry dues, highway and water rates. The king had long ceased to be, if he ever was, owner of the land. He had his own royal estates, his private property and dues from all his subjects. The higher officials had endowments and official residences. The Code regulates the feudal position of certain classes. They held an estate from the king consisting of house, garden, field, stock and a salary, on condition of personal service on the king’s errand. They could not delegate the service on pain of death. When ordered abroad they could nominate a son, if capable, to hold the benefice and carry on the duty. If there was no son capable, the state put in a locum tenens, but granted one-third to the wife to maintain herself and children.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hammpre.asp
That’s almost 100% accurate, apart from one (rather serious) error: the misuse of the word “feudal”, a bit like people misusing “literally” as though it just meant “very” or something like that (e.g. “he literally exploded!”, which has only ever happened in rare circumstances like accidents in decompression chambers). “Feudal” actually means something very different and entirely incompatible with any sort of centralised administrative framework that sets up and enforces things (which is how absolutism was able to destroy it, albeit while keeping the name for PR purposes).
Thanks for that correction, you’re completely right. The word could just be deleted, and the sentence still works without it.
Ganshof (1944) – feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs.
Bloch (1939) – a feudal society includes not only warrior nobility but all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clerics, and the peasantry bonds of manorialism.
Adam Smith(1776) – the term “feudal system” described a social and economic system defined by inherited social ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations. In such a system wealth derived from agriculture, which was organized not according to market forces but on the basis of customary labour services owed by serfs to landowning nobles.
feudal (adj.)
1610s, from Medieval Latin feudalis, from feudum “feudal estate,” of Germanic origin (cf. Gothic faihu “property,” Old High German fihu “cattle;” see fee). Related to Middle English feodary “one who holds lands of an overlord in exchange for service” (late 14c.).
Yale News – Feudalism in the colleges
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/04/10/revesz-feudalism-in-the-colleges/
American Acceptionalism – a vast reservoir of misused terms and inaccurate hackneyed phrases that are “accepted” as proper American English, just because.
We have to be licensed or people would just do what they want…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-do-we-need-licenses.html
I mean the government has to be in charge of something, like maybe who owns guns…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-there-reasonable-gun-control-law.html
Maybe the government should be in charge of morality…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2009/07/government-issued-morality.html
Who am I kidding? The government just wants its piece of the action…
If you follow Molyneux then you are familiar with the argument that the State is an effect of the Family, and things won’t fundamentally change until we demand that children are recognized as people and treated in compliance with the NAP.
I hope you will take Stefs lead and spend some time discussing the importance (prerequisite?) of respecting children in achieving a free society.
The question there is how you balance the rights of children with the responsibility of exercising those rights. One cannot have rights without an accompanying responsibility to go with them.
In some sense a child’s rights are limited by their lack of understanding of the responsibilities that go with those rights.
Parental Neglect – One of the roots of societal decay:
Storm Clouds Gathering On Children
Storm Clouds Gathering On Shooting Epidemic
One of the primary reasons my wife is a stay at home mom and we homeschool our children. For the first few years it was every tough financially, however we are starting to see how it’s paying off by the comments from people on how polite and well behaved our kids are (even though sometimes I have my doubts at home).
Tom, you have probably done more for the cause of Liberty than anyone else on this forum. I hope you are embracing the ideals of Peaceful Parenting and not using violence or the threat thereof to control your progeny. It’s all about negotiation, keeping our word (both parent and child), and win-win scenarios.
The way to achieve freedom is to raise non-domesticatable human beings. You don’t see many wolverine farms out there…
I constantly negotiate with my children for them to get things done and point out that since I do the myriad of other tasks around the house they can do some to offset everything else.
It’s very rewarding to see children learn the value of hard work. My oldest is convinced that he wants to build houses when he gets older since he enjoys helping me with home improvement projects.
This is an interesting question.
They have the right to their life, but do they have a right to get a job, for example, without their parent’s permission? Making it a privilege.
Some would say that a child is an adult when they are able to provide for themselves, and some kids mature faster than others.
So if a 14-year-old wants to get a job, do the parents have the right to say ‘no’?
Rights are grounded in ownership. Do parents own their kids? If they don’t then they have no right to dictate anything to them.
Where is the line drawn?
That is indeed a tough one!
Let’s begin with the obvious arbitrary silliness of “adulthood” (well, partial) being conferred upon reaching the age of 21. Rendered even more arbitrary by the fact that at 18 one is also partially regarded as an “adult” by the system. Well, which is it? The 18 year old is “adult” enough to be conscripted and to be held accountable for his actions in court… but he still can’t legally drink beer for another three years!
Or, this:
19-year-old has a 17-year-old girlfriend. Legally, it’s statutory rape – and the poor guy can be branded a “sex offender” and have his life ruined.
Absurd!
But, where do we draw the line? I think 18 is probably too old – or rather, old enough for a kid to assert self-ownership and independence. But how about 10?
Or 15?
“19-year-old has a 17-year-old girlfriend. Legally, it’s statutory rape”
I love statutory crimes. What statutory rape means is that you didn’t rape anyone. If you had they would have charged you with rape. What a disappointment for the state. What to do?
Well if you’re not going to cooperate and commit the crime yourself then they’ll just say you did. It’s your choice. So be a man and commit the crime because you’re going to be charged with it anyway.
Statutory rape is projection of the behavior of those who operate and desire the state.
Why? Because it is based on the premise that the older person, usually thought of as a male, manipulates the younger person usually thought of as female, into doing something not in her best interests and something she wouldn’t do otherwise. Such law assumes it is always this way. But what is this behavior? It is what those in government do every day.
They manipulate people. They get people to consent to things they otherwise wouldn’t consent to. They take advantage of people who aren’t as knowledgeable, not as savvy about things. They do it every day. So of course they can only see such a relationship that way. It is a projection of their own behaviors.
With the public at large that becomes outraged, well that varies. They may generalize, they may think in terms of what they do socially. Or what they do to get ahead at work. What have you. Whatever it is enough of them support this.
Age is just a probability of a level of maturity and social ability. There are men who have gone to prison for statutory rape because the younger woman, or girl even, manipulated them. These men were on the lower end of the bell curve and the girls on the higher end. Sure they are rare cases but they do exist. But what is more probable is that a 19 year old and a 17 year old are equals in development. The closer the ages the more the bell curves overlap.
The responses to my comment illustrate how far away we are from achieving a free society. It is clear that even those who are “liberty minded” believe that people must be owned by those who “know better” and punished when they “misbehave”. Do you folks not see the parallels to the State? Do you not see that it is the process of conditioning children from childhood that they must submit and obey to (often arbitrary) authority that sets up EVERYONE’s acceptance and complete compliance with the State?
There is a vast middle ground between physically, psychologically and emotionally punishing people (children) in response to “undesired” behavior and a complete free-for-all child-dominated chaosfest. In this middle ground lie empathy, reciprocity, negotiation, deal-making – in other words, all of the win-win interactions that we all undertake on a daily basis.
Eric obviously still does not recognize the personhood of children. Please, Eric, watch some more Molyneux, or really anything in the Peaceful Parenting / Unschooling movement. Here’s a few videos I found with a quick YouTube search:
More here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/stefbot/videos?query=parenting
Might be a good place to start. Eric, this is not what people want to discuss or take a stand on, but please believe me that it is the only way to achieve freedom. Please please please take some time to look into it. I wish there were an easier way – there isn’t.
“Eric obviously still does not recognize the personhood of children.”
Obviously? Really?
How so?
I think questioning when a child has a right to do something is an appropriate philosophical discussion Tony.
Children are not adults and do not immediately have all the same rights as adults simply because they do not in fact understand the responsibilities that go with those rights.
Would you let an untrained 6-year old child have a gun because they have a right to self defense? If you can’t answer that with an affirmative yes than you must agree that children are a special case and not the same as adults.
My apologies Eric, it is not obvious to me that you do not recognize the personhood of children, it’s just that it is not obvious to me that you do. It is obvious to me that most libertarians do not recognize the personhood of children, and have no interest in exploring their position or apply the NAP to it, but it is not fair to lump you in with my experiences in general. Perhaps you’d care to clarify your position? I haven’t seen many posts on your site about the issue, and as you strike me as someone who is obviously passionate about advancing the cause of liberty, this surprises me, because as I said I believe emphatically (based on, I believe, very clear and convincing evidence and research), as does Mr. Molyneux, that things cannot and will not change until we recognize and rectify how unconscionably people in our society treat children (including us, both as victims and abusers). We cannot end the Fed, we cannot change foreign policy, we cannot stop the gun grabbers, we cannot stop the wars, but what we can do is espouse freedom in our personal relationships, and we can raise a generation of children, for the first time, without aggression or coercion.
All that being said – I am a big fan of your work and I merely hope to contribute to the conversation and hopefully direct it towards topics that will actually achieve freedom, regardless of how difficult or unpopular the topic may be.
Hi Tony,
This is a tough subject!
I agree with Brent’s general point (and yours) in re the exercise of arbitrary authority; the issue as I see it as regards young children is they’re not yet capable of being reasoned with. This doesn’t mean I favor abusive treatment – physical or psychological. Of course I do not. But on the other hand, when a small child begins to scream and yell in a public space, disrupting the peace, then I see no violation of the child’s rights if the parent scoops said child up and removes him to the car – or takes him home. Nor in handing the kid clothes and telling him to put ’em on (irrespective of whether the kid prefers “high fashion”) … etc..
In time, the parent will be able to explain to Little Johnny that it’s not nice to shout/scream/interrupt others (and so on). But for now, all the parent can do is try to make it clear on a pre-verbal level, that certain behaviors and actions have negative consequences. I see no tyranny in that. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I’m not a parent, but if I were, my goal would be benevolent guidance. Doing what I could to help the child develop its awareness and capacity to think critically. A sense of empathy for others. To provide a stable, safe home environment. To expose the child to caring, patient adults. To answer their questions (or try to) when they are able to ask them.
But children are not adults.
If a toddler decides he wants to play with Daddy’s pistol, it’s not a violation of his rights to tell him no – or to take the gun away from him. In part for the obvious reason – but also because it’s not his gun.
Eventually, this can be explained to the child. But up to a certain point, all a parent can do is say “no!” – such that child grasps that it is not acceptable for him to do whatever it is. Not on an intellectual level. Because that’s just not possible with a young child. I see no tyranny in a parent setting boundaries for a child too young to understand and to take an informed, adult decision.
Children up to a certain age are dependents by necessity – because of biology. The difficulty is defining at what point the child is capable of asserting his rights – and having them respected.
A five year-old probably isn’t capable of comprehending “rights” – let alone exercising them. He just wants (or doesn’t want) with no real thought, as we understand it, behind the wants. A child this age is also incapable of taking care of itself. This fact necessarily limits the full expression of natural rights.
But, at some point, the child is capable of comprehending “rights” – its own and those of others. He is also capable of working – and providing for himself. At say 16, most children are at least near-adults. They certainly have the cognitive capacity to reason and may well be physically able to care for themselves independently. I personally have no issue with a teenager declaring his right to do as he wishes – to work rather than stay in school, to marry, if he wishes. Provided, of course, he can do so independently (i.e., provide for himself).
I guess I’m trying to say this is one of life’s gray areas. As with driving a car (some are better than others; the good drivers shouldn’t be held back by one-size-fits-all laws) some kids are smarter than others, mature sooner, etc. than others. Some 16 year olds are more mature and “adult” than some 22 year olds. We all know this. It’s a case by case thing.
Ultimately, it’s not for the government to decide. Parents aren’t perfect, either. But I suspect that for the most part, they at least care and are trying to do right by their kids. Up to a certain point (age) I don’t see much in the way of alternatives, since it is parents who produce children and who therefore are responsible for their well-being up to a certain point.
That’s my devalued $2.50 at any rate!
Just to add two quick sources, check out Lloyd DeMausse and The Association For Psychohistory, as they have been doing absolutely atounding work:
http://www.psychohistory.com/
Additionally the ACE study puts some real numbers behind the effects of childhood trauma:
http://acestudy.org/
Again, exploring how children are treated and how it impacts society is not what most libertarians, myself included, had in mind when they started learning the ideas of liberty; however, to ignore it would be, in my opinion, a catastrophic mistake.
Thanks again, Eric.
Tony, I haven’t really explored personhood of children, but I know one thing and from your comments I think we are in agreement:
The way children are raised in this country has to change. I don’t have children, but unlike most adults I remember my experiences as a child and try to understand them with the knowledge I have now. Thus this comes from my experience as a child. I feel I have to say that as some when I go into these things think that because I don’t have children I have no valid opinion.
Anyway, the problem is IMO that people are raised in a dependent manner. To follow instructions. To do as they are told. To obey authority. So when they become adults they are still looking to authority. They want to be cared for. It’s a conditioning. I catch it in my own behavior. It will happen -before- I can think when I am in a socially stressful situation. It’s just conditioned, robotic, like a reflex. It was put in me in childhood.
It is children being raised this way that the state becomes so powerful. Childhood needs to be more feral or independent and instead it is getting less and less so.
Just my two devaluated dollar cents on it.
It’s just another example of the one-size-fits-all government approach that doesn’t make a whit of sense.
More like a lease. Responsibilities. And, hopefully, benefits. But not ownership.
“Rights are grounded in ownership. Do parents own their kids? If they don’t then they have no right to dictate anything to them.
Where is the line drawn?”
No, it isn’t a given that rights are grounded in ownership. Rights are grounded in one’s very existence, in the fact that one is alive.
Of course you don’t own your children. Your children have rights and must be taught that their rights must be defended. We teach children to defend their rights by teaching them to honor their responsibilities to themselves so that they don’t fall into the trap of dependency.
That’s only one example, of course. As to “dictating” to our kids, I’ve seen how that fails absolutely. We may influence our children’s thinking, and try to instill into their attitudes some of our own morals, but we aren’t really able to dictate anything with any real degree of success.
“Rights are grounded in one’s very existence, in the fact that one is alive”
Correct, so you own your life so you have a right to your life. You own your labor so you have a right to it as well. You own your car, your home, your money so you have the right to those as well.
A right is something you get to do w/o anyone else’s permission so you must own it. If you didn’t it then that would mean you would need the true owners permission to use it, or take it.
The axiom upon which rights are philisophically, and reasonably based is the natural ownership of one’s life and labor due to nothing more than he exists. Everything then obtained from that life and labor is naturally also owned by that person.
As a parent I feel a responsibility to teach my kids and keep them safe from things they don’t understand: cars, fire, high places, guns, stray dogs etc…
So do I have the right as a parent to tell my kids not to climb a tree b/c I understand the inherent dangers and they don’t? Is it a violation of that child’s rights if I force him down out of the tree and put him in time out. Something you and I rail against every day right? Unwilling detention.
It’s not an easy question and I don’t know the answer. All I know is when my kids fuck up they get punished. 🙂
I think you should adjust your premise somewhat, TonyWonder. You should apply the NAP to child rearing as best you can, but it doesn’t follow that you should “negotiate” with them. Discipline is maintained by merely raising the “price” of your affection.
More time in a parents life doesn’t appear due to a “whim” of what amount of time a parent “should” be giving to their children. Daycare will create more problems than it solves unless you have a way to ensure your will and beliefs are maintained by your parental proxy.
Why is it a given kids should be little moochers and second-handers? Isn’t it advocating altruism, to say parents should allocate more time to their children. What about children earning additional attention, by providing value.
Adults will give kids the amount of time they feel they are worth, and no more. As John Galt approximately said: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another person, nor ask another man to live for mine.
It’s not only violence that needs to be thrown in the woods regarding child rearing. It’s also all the neo-Platonic and neo-Kant impossible to achieve inhuman ideals that need to be discarded there as well.
Dear Tor,
Well said.
Tony is right about not raising future sheeple. Many of us have noted that psychology determines politics. Hence gubmint skools to inculcate obedience.
No argument there.
Statists falsely equate the government-citizen relationship with the parent-child relationship.
No argument there either.
But… libertarians who treat their own children differently than they treat other sovereign individuals are hardly being inconsistent or hypocritical.
That’s because the parent-child relationship is not identical to the sovereign individual to sovereign individual relationship. The parent-child relationship is an asymmetrical relationship consistent with natural law.
Nature, not parents, makes children dependent upon their parents. Libertarian parents do not kidnap their children, then hold them as prisoners. Nature makes children dependent upon their parents until maturity.
Parents do not violate the NAP when they bear children and raise them according to their own best judgment.
In some fundamental natural way, women and children choose to cede a part of their sovereignty to the Head of Household. If that breaks down, and you’re not “master of your domain” of course you should adhere to the NAP while trying to rectify things. Top down authoritarian regimes held together only by violence are miserable for everyone involved.
Most American men seem to want to live in some type of extended childhood where they cede their sovereignty to the State, Church, or their Inner Fantasies. They are a clear majority now, and they want the whole world to be just like them.
That is why America is becoming such a nightmare to us. Parasite Politicians & Crony Corporations are more than happy to engineer a new reality for these fraidy cat wet noodles that think its a type of slavery to have to wear the Daddy Pants and take responsibility for the indignities and ugliness of real life.
No doubt. While I appreciate the “Peaceful Parenting” approach, you will not always be able to negotiate a 3 year old, who has other ideas, into a car seat. Sometimes it is “Sorry dude, your ass is going in there.”
It does get easier as they get older, though.
Dear Iberns,
Right.
One simply cannot treat children as sovereign individuals in every respect.
In most respects, yes. In terms of their right to life, of course.
But nature has not provided infants or pre-adolescent children with the physical, emotional, or intellectual wherewithal to be fully sovereign individuals.
Civil society, not “The Government,” can and will work out rational market anarchist solutions to the knotty problem of when a child becomes a consenting adult.
The short answer would probably be sometime after puberty and adolescence, when a child can leave home, survive on his own as a sovereign individual, without becoming dependent on some surrogate parent.
So-called “primitive” societies actually get this right, with their initiations into adulthood at around that time of life.
So-called “advanced” societies, especially “liberal democracies,” are actually less evolved, in that they turn everyone into children under the Nanny State and Big Brother.
“It’s not only violence that needs to be thrown in the woods regarding child rearing. It’s also all the neo-Platonic and neo-Kant impossible to achieve inhuman ideals that need to be discarded there as well.”
This site doesn’t let me recommend a post so I guess I’ll just have to reply with my utmost agreement. Well said.
Great article, Eric!
I’ve tried to have this conversation with some of my friends, but the blank stares I receive in response have proven quite discouraging. Frankly, most, ahem, “citizens” cannot grasp the concept that they’re being forced to beg for permission to move about freely.
“Driving is a privilege, not a right”. Ugh. I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but I’ve heard that response all to often as of late.
Michael, I have heard it credibly argued that “driving” is indeed a privilege not a right. That was based on the (unsubstantiated, but plausible) claim that the term “driving” was derived from the *commericial* practice of “driving a team” over the public roads for hire. Now this would be using the public roads to haul other people’s stuff at a profit, which is deemed (by the state, of course) to be a licensable activity. However it was understood that travelling is a right. And that right includes traveling on the public roads in or on your own private conveyance transporting your own property.
Without going into too much detail, the state (as usual) has tricked us into reliquishing our rights in favor of state sanctioned privilege (much in the way one gives up direct ownership of a business by incorporating and accepting state regulation in exchange for limiting their personal liability). Motor vehicles, much like real estate, are subject to various taxes. If you don’t pay those taxes (i.e. rent), then you are not allowed to use the public (i.e. government) roads. Never mind that you and I pay for them every time you fill up anything (on or offroad) at the gas pump. It’s just one more avenue of control that folks like Clover are overwhelmingly in favor of.
So as usual, where lawyers are involved, the devil is in the details of verbal trickery. Travelling is a right, just like owning arms (the Second Amendment doesn’t specify guns, so the probition of bearing a sword, mace or a Howitzer is an infringment). Driving, on the other hand, is an artful word allegedly denoting a commercial activity. Driving a car is commercial; travelling in a private conveyance is arguably a private activity. But try explaining this to (a)Officer I-barely-have-an-sixth-grade-comprehension-of-the-law, (b) your employer that wants you to be licensed to use company “vehicles” or (c) the other “drivers” around you that expect you to follow the herd like a good Homo Bovinae. I really wish I was in a position to challenge the system. But like Eric pointed out, I have to make a living and “driving” is part of that. Spending time in the pokey isn’t on my daily schedule, so I am compelled to acquiesce, just like Don Cooper had to. And I can assure you that it chaps my ass every bit as much as it does his. But as Elizabeth so wisely pointed out in another thread, once must exercise wisdom when picking one’s battles.
As long as the State owns the roads, they can require anything they darn well please for the privilege of using them. State owned roads are socialism.
Privatize!
I’m going to re-post a video link someone else–I think Iberns–left on another thread.
This video is so excellent, and explains our best strategy so well, we should be spreading it to everyone who thinks like we do.
And per Eric’s article: it’s up to us to re-awaken in every American the understanding that they are the sovereigns–not in some goofy Sovereign-Citizen, UCC straw-man spaghetti-bowl argument, but in the clean, succinct language of the founders. The consent of the governed. Public servants–NOT “officials”, or the “authorities”.
Learn to fucking say “No!” again!
Watch this guy.
Dear Rafterman,
It’s funny because it’s true.
Doug Stanhope is right. The reason I read so much news? Because the truth is, nothing of significance is ever going to happen to me in my entire life.
http://www.youtu.be/9Oww4Ap3YZA
http://www.youtu.be/l76IjT6Guaw
http://www.youtu.be/Pv1AqwzRkeE
I’m Doug Stanhope, and that’s why I drink!
Everybody here has to watch this video!
Thanks Rafterman for recommending it.
Doug Stanhope – Word of Mouth 2003
http://www.youtu.be/_kc3hhsd5JM
Doug Stanhope – Deadbeat Hero 2004
http://www.youtu.be/iBXL36TOTYo
Doug Stanhope – No Refunds 2007
http://www.youtu.be/2noFZhLAVvU
An important message. Indeed.
“to frighten us and set us against one another (so as to prevent us from recognizing our common foe)…”
Yep, there it is. That just reminded me of a film I saw years ago by uber-leftist John Sayles, “Matewan”… One character, an anarchist, speaking to a labor organizer who said that black strikers weren’t welcome in his union, responded that a tactic of the ruling class is to keep their subjects stirred up, black against white, foreign born against native born, locality against locality to distract them from the central fact that, “We work….They don’t”.
That’s true, even if it was from a heavily fictionalized socialist propaganda film. We work, and produce everything they have, which they take from us at gunpoint. Bureaucrats don’t work, not even the ones who supposedly hold jobs such as cops and military service weenies.
It comes down to what actually qualifies as ‘work’, and my definition of work is something one does voluntarily that produces something that benefits others enough that they would gladly pay to get it, whether it’s a product or a service.
Nobody who pays me for my service does so because they are forced to do so under penalty of fines, prison or violent assault. The “services” provided by bureaucrats, cops and service weenies aren’t wanted enough that anyone would seek them out to pay them to perform those services, so they don’t actually work. As the old Dire Straits tune says “Ahhh, that ain’t workin’ ”
That’s how I see it.
a tactic of the ruling class is to keep their subjects stirred up, black against white, foreign born against native born, locality against locality to distract them from the central fact that, “We work. They don’t”.
Exactly. It’s the time-tested “Divide and Conquer” strategy in action. It’s the simplest and most effective way to exercise control and has been the core strategy of almost every government in history. The fact that the majority, in any civilization in any epoch of human history, has consisted of mindless Clovers who can’t see what’s going on right before their very eyes makes this a fail-proof tactic. Sadly, even in today’s relatively advanced (technologically) and enlightened age, I don’t think human nature will change.
Ed,
Agreed –
It’s a point that must be constantly hammered away at. If your “living” comes as a result of threatening other people’s lives (whether you’re doing the actual threatening or not) what does it say about you as a person?
Now, granted, many have never been made to confront this harsh truth – and see themselves as (and may actually be) “nice people.” But once they have been confronted with the harsh truth – and know (really know) where their “living” comes from, they must choose. Either stop living a life based on violence – and atone for your previous sins. Or, not. If the person acknowledges his error – and strives to never live by the sword again – then I will call him friend. If not, then he is my enemy.
That’s harsh, but I cannot get around the truth of the thing.
Hi Eric;
Decades ago they tried to mandate cyclists register their bikes here in Oz, on the pretense that they could be easier to locate if stolen. Thankfully that didn’t happen. I would assume (rightly) that after some dozen years a number stamped under the frame would magically transform into a perfectly camera-visible plate front and back to satisfy the shrieking MADD’s or “they flout road rules too” crowd.
Assuming the cyclist has a driver’s licence, then knowledge of the road rules can be assumed and charges may legally be raised. However, a cyclist without a DL is somehow in this country (and yours) required to know the road rules without any formal testing having taken place and competency certificate (DL) logged and issued – irrespective of age.
This creates a problem for the lawmakers. Further, I could easily argue my way out of a bicycling speed ticket as no law or Act of Parliament (statute) exists for bicycles requiring speed measuring devices fitted, tested and approved by any certified body as any other personal . That’d fuck ’em. Any bicyclist that actually pays a speed ticket has the brains of a turnip and deserves to be suckered like that.
I’ve seen arguments here for 1860’s style justice. No offence, but some people have no sense of fair play and they could justify shootings for almost anything. It would never end, which is probably why we have thousands of laws on single subjects alone considering the malleability of the English language and the infinite arguments that can be created. My best answer is this:
Irrespective the age or heritage of our various Constitutions, they were written to protect the people from tyrannical government, not for government to control its people.
The Federal and State Parliaments are not sovereign bodies; they are legislatures with limited powers, and any law which they attempt to pass in excess of those powers is no law at all, it is simply a nullity, ENTITLED to no obedience. The question whether those powers have in any instance been exceeded is, when it arises in a case between parties, a purely judicial question on which the courts must pronounce.
Considering that the exercising of a Right cannot be converted into a crime, there need only be one law – “The Right to any person’s life, liberty or property shall not be infringed.”
Don’t forget that other form of social parasite, the government contractor.
Your mea culpa on this topic is appreciated.
Excellent post Eric. Critical thinking is indeed the answer. Unfortunately, not only do the gun-vernment skules fail to encourage critical thinking, they apparently do everything they can to thwart and discourage it. Zero tolerance covers a lot more than little boys pointing their finger at one another and going bang. When I encounter my contemporaries making comments to the effect that this or that is illegal, I challenge them to show me the law. They are never able to and usually get pretty pissed because I dared challenge their belief. The responses typically range from “well there must be a law” to “I’m not a lawyer!” They can’t begin see how inane these own responses really are; they just *believe*.
I went to the gym with my son last Saturday and encountered a man who typified the mindless cattle we seem surrounded by. He inquired of a young man in the locker room about his interest in football. When the 20 something responded favorably, the older fellow went into a tirade about how he had encountered someone recently that…gasp…didn’t know which Sunday the Super Bowl was on! A veritable crime against humanity it would seem. I had limited conversation with this same 50 y.o. fuuuuhtballl evangelical in the weight room earlier. I can assure you that the concepts of self ownership and the right to travel would be lost on him. I am afraid this is still the case for the majority of Homo Bovinae Americanus and not something that’s likely to change in the foreseeable future.
I lived w/o my papers for about 2 months but in order to work I had to renew them all. I hated it. I felt like I was regressing.
I was off the grid completely: no bank account, no home address, no DL, no Passport but unless you can find a way to work off the books and support a family of four then you gotta get back on the grid.
Same here.
I’d have to quit my main gig (writing reviews of new cars) because the car companies would not loan me press cars for evaluation without a DL.
We each have to decide, based on our own situations, how much we’ll put up with – or rather, have no real choice but to put up with.
I’ll put up with the order to have a DL.
But I will not put up with any order demanding I surrender my firearms.
While living in Japan I never owned a car. No bills, no insurance, no maintenance. God! It was so liberating but only because I didn’t need to. Once I returned the whole panalopy of statist rules and laws kicked in once more. Land of the Free? You’ve got to be kidding!
Same here when I lived in Europe. 10 years no car and didn’t miss it for a minute! Public transportation, ride a bike and walk everywhere. I even lived w/o a car for a while once I came back. Then when I did break down and buy one, I gained 10 lbs. overnight. :))) I would gladly give it up if I could live somwhere that didn’t require it.
Imagine being able to own – really own – your vehicle. It’s yours. Which means, you’re not forced to pay regular tributum in order to be allowed to retain possession/limited use of said vehicle. Once you’ve paid the previous owner – private party, dealer or lienholder – the thing is 100 percent yours.
Not only that, you’re free to use it, too – so long as your use of it does not result in harm to someone else (or their property). In which case, you’d have both an ethical as well a legal obligation to make the person harmed whole again.
But absent harm, you’re free. That means, no at-gunpoint requirement to purchase insurance – which may end up costing you more than you spent on the car, even though you’ve not caused anyone any harm. No at-gunpoint inspections. It’s your responsibility to see to it – for your own protection – that the car is in good operating condition and safe to drive.
Now you can afford to keep – and use – the damn thing!
Cars are enjoyable again – not another debt albatross around our necks.
I did some rough calculations to put this in some perspective. Many of you know about my two Nissan pick-ups. One’s a ’98, the other a 2002. Together, they cost me about $500 to insure. Just over the past four years, that’s $2,000 out the goddamn window. After eight years, I’ll have thrown away $4,000. I only paid $7,000 for the ’98! For the vehicle itself!
Now add in the annual “personal property tax” I am forced to cough up. It’s about $150 every year. Over eight years, there goes another $1,200 – so we’re now up to $5,200 – within $1,800 of what I paid for the damn truck.
Put another way, the real cost of owning my truck is about double what it actually cost me to buy.
And my trucks are used cheapies. People who buy $30,000 new trucks really get reamed. (My neighbor had to pay $800 in “personal property taxes” on his new F-truck. That’s just for one year.)
This is why it’s become a drag to own a car. And I suspect it’s why so many kids are deciding not to.
Think about WHY exactly you have to continue paying “registration” and “insurance” on “motor vehicles”. Although self-propelled, it’s because they have a “motor”. It’s pretty stupid really, considering horse-drawn carriages injured and killed far more people per carriage owned simply due to the lost control of the horse itself.
You need a DL originally because the roads were publically owned, and therefore permission was required to gain profit from them. Over the decades, gubberment, in collusion (rather, blind acceptance or brainwashing) with generations of left-winged and largely infantile clovers, evolved the meaning and use of “drivers licences” and “motor vehicles”.
Now, a DL is required whenever a private conveyance with a motor is travelled in, irrespective of the original meaning and requirement. Black’s Law Dictionary (if not most others) defines “Driver” as a paid profession. Have a look for “Charlie Sprinkle” on YouTube. He’s been “travelling” in his “private conveyances” for decades without a DL. Sometimes, you just have to stick your neck out and fight.
My family don’t understand this. They’re a bunch of clovers (pussies). They also refuse to learn and rolleyes every time I remind them. They simply accept the gubberment can do what it likes, irrespective of their freedoms. They don’t understand that the more they allow such control, the closer the end-game becomes until there’s nothing left but complete submission.
Dear Olaf,
They also refuse to learn and rolleyes every time I remind them. They simply accept the gubberment can do what it likes, irrespective of their freedoms.
It’s the old “Death and Taxes” mindset, which falsely equates Nature’s laws with man’s laws.
Plus… the “If I had lived in Salem during the Witch Trials, I would have spoken out in the name of reason” delusion.
No they wouldn’t have spoken up. They would have been among those screaming for blood.
We know this how?
By their sheeple behavior today.
The irony of sheeple is that are never sheeple in the past. They are only sheeple in their own lifetimes.
The irony of sheeple is that are never sheeple in the past. They are only sheeple in their own lifetimes.
This seems appropriate:
Message to the Voting Cattle – Larken Rose
Hi Olaf,
True –
And: They are also very interested in requiring bicyclists to obtain licenses. They already de facto do. For example, a cop can pull (and cite) a cyclist for “speeding” – and the charge will be applied to his driver’s license, assuming he has one.
“The irony of sheeple is that are never sheeple in the past. They are only sheeple in their own lifetimes.”
That is a key idea poster!
You will notice how all movies made by propaganda mill Hollywood, shows and teaches us that the Germans were inferior sheeple, but if only we had been there! We would have been resistors and too superior to go along. Likewise the era of slavery etc etc.
Dear Lberns,
Yes!
Rose really nails it.
That particular point has always ticked me off to no end.
Dear gold,
You will notice how all movies made by propaganda mill Hollywood, shows and teaches us that the Germans were inferior sheeple, but if only we had been there! We would have been resistors and too superior to go along.
Exactly!
They denounce 9/11 Truthers as “tin foil hat nutjobs.”
Had they lived in Nazi Germany, they would have denounced Reichstag Fire Truthers in essentially the same terms.
The thing about the people who drive without license or plates is their lifestyle allows them to train a very limited number of cops and departments. Also they see judges who actually will be bound with the right magik in the temple.
If I were to try this you wouldn’t hear from me again. Why? I travel through the territories of something around 12 police departments on an ordinary day. Two counties and countless judges. Many of those judges will just disregard arguments that require such understanding of the law and where it comes from. They see themselves as the law. I know. I have mistakely tried to use the written law twice. I was told point blank once that he ‘knows the law’. Yet the law plainly stated there was no violation. Clearly. Without doubt.
It doesn’t take much here to see the real racket. Just put up a little fight and they make it clear they can use violence and you can’t.
One person can no longer stand up it to it where I live. If it annoys them it isn’t much of a bother to add another person to the thousands in the system on any given day. If Charlie Sprinkle drove through C(r)ook county Illinois his magik wouldn’t work. The only thing that might save him is that he is from another state and they would simply expell him. That’s best case.
You know this makes me really think about driving responsibility and guns. Like Olaf said people used to drive carriages around without licenses and insurance. But one thing is missing today that wasn’t in 1860.
Let me put a stereotype down there and I mean no pun against good hispanic drivers. But driving around San Jose and getting hit twice by illegal mexicans really pisses a man off. The first time my wife is driving in a five lane freeway and the Mexican next door decides to take a siesta ramming his front fender into our rear tire (pit maneuver) nearly flipping us upside down if it weren’t for my wife’s excellent driving skill. The second case about 3 months later we are driving a 400 mile trip from southern LA to San Jose at 5AM to get to a contract and the Mexican behind me with cruise control on going 80 mph falls asleep and takes the rear fender off a nearly new car of mine. The second case was nearly fatal but I got a glimpse of him coming in my rear view and made a lane change aleit not quick enough to keep him from plowing off my side fender.
Now in both cases I pursue the offenders who initially plan to ignore their act of sloppy agreesion, and finally get them to pull over. To hear them say “No Comprendas?”. You know play fucking stupid to me. So I say “Si Yo comprendas”. Both cases they couldn’t pay the damage. Both cases nothing could be done so I had to fork out the damages myself. I say this of course because you ask me what does driving with insurance do for me when the state requires it and these irresponsible turnips still take siestas at my expense and possibly take my life and property without any concern of responsibility? The answer is nothing! The police state doesn’t stop this from happening.
But I tell you what I’d prefer over insurance for an automobile is something they had back in 1860. And that is the firearm and then the right to shoot someone who just put my life and property at risk. That’s right some irresponsible guy nearly kills me, maybe I should go point blank and fire a round in his face and be legal just like in the old west. I bet you that would stop lazy agression right in it tracks if people understood that there was liablity to acting like a dufus and dink on the road. The system we have now is just a big attempt at using sleepy and careless Pedro for no fault driving and responsiblity. Is it just me or is this obvious that the more gun control a state has (like California) the more likely to meet irresponsible and dufus like drivers?
And I don’t mean to pick on illegal Mexicans because this also goes for soccer mommy who can’t shut up (cell phone) and talks while driving through intersections without a glimpse around for other traffic.
Yeah I know what I’m saying sound brutal but something needs to be done and this insurance and registering scam is just costly and doesn’t work. People need to feel the brunt of their personal actions or least understand the worst possible case of what could happen to them when they don’t respect other people?
Go ahead I’ll take my abuse from all those who would call me a psycopath for asking for road retribution without pushing for state mandated insurance and registration. But its obvious the latter has failed.
I still remember the woman who was making a right turn coming at me, who was sitting in the center turn lane waiting to make a left, and she was simultaneously yacking on the phone that she had up to ear right ear with her right hand, and was “waving” at somebody behind me with her left hand! Where in the hell was her third hand? Oh, that’s right… she didn’t have any hands on the wheel. must have been steering with her big thighs.
LOL
Oh and I forgot to mention the accident chasers. You know those who intentionally look to create an accident to collect off your insurance. My wife and I foiled two attempts against us in California, one would have cost us our lives.
The insurance collecting vultures and they do exist. Again a loaded revolver would work very well if it was 1860’s at solving this kind of road rage.
Hi HR,
You’re right – ethically entitled – to be outraged by a system that imposes endless obligations on Responsible You but does nothing about Irresponsible Pedro (or Sailfawn Sally).
The solution is simple: When someone harms you, or causes harm to your property, you’ve got an ethical right to demand recompense. That you be “made whole.” If someone hits you and hasn’t got insurance or money to pay you for the damages, that should never mean they can just smile, shrug and walk away. If it means they have to be your lawn boy for the next six months in order to work it off, then so be it. I see no difference between a person who steals $1,000 from your wallet and a person who incurs $1,000 in damages to your vehicle and then refuses to cover it. They both owe you – and you have every right to collect.
“The solution is simple: When someone harms you, or causes harm to your property, you’ve got an ethical right to demand recompense. That you be “made whole.” If someone hits you and hasn’t got insurance or money to pay you for the damages, that should never mean they can just smile, shrug and walk awa”
@Eric
I agree and that is where I think guns make a polite society, in driving as well. Growing up in the old west and understanding the philosophy of real anarchy as lived by my grandparents I must say I detest the so called Marxist anarchist idealogist. Basically these are people who believe that without a government all man’s problems would simply dissolve and go away. There would still be problems like analogy of a drunk driving carriage operator who in his stupor would run over young children. In real market anarchy (like existed in frontier) though centered around indivdualism, this behavior was strongly discouraged by victims who would demand individual retribution. Sometimes the life of the perpetrator by the way. It wasn’t always fair nor always forgiving without government funded jury of 12, but it did encourage a strong self responsiblity and general politeness not to offend.
Often times I hear of people who got DUI complain against the injustice of jail time for their behavior. The truth is that alcohol, like talking on cell phones, like driving tired do divert attention from the road. These making for statistical higher outcomes of children/populace getting killed or maimed. Should government have alcohol limits for driving? No, but that is not a blank check for driving drunk.
In the old west these people would have got a bullet between their eyes. Like marxists many anarchist generally believe that the world would be utopia without a government, this just simply isn’t true. But it would be alot more efficient and polite. The reason I can embrace market based anarchy is because I see it as the ideal on one side of a bipolar world. The other side being pure authoritarism and nothing except the government. Market based anarchy bringing the fruits of more production and less destruction. However, I can tell a local anarchist tyrant when they think that life without government means they are unaccountable to do whatever they please. God, the universe, and the free market do not allow such unchecked behavior. And in any economic decision including driving drunk there is a risk versus reward judgment that should occur with the individual. In free market anarchy there would still be a risk. Our founding nation understood this when they armed the average person as just another reason for establishing market order. It works on the highways as well. I’ve almost flipped people off on the road and my wife told me not too, lest they be loonies and with a gun. The fact that I had a gun as well did not matter, I took my wives information serious and let the road rage inside me subside. Go to Wyoming or Montana and just see if people aren’t more courteous on the road say compared to California, and in those states the rancher has his rifle in the rack of his pickup truck on display.
As far as illegals driving I believe that most of them use the state as a shield when driving. Ever met a serial apologizer? The kind of guy that screws you over and apologizes everytime but keeps doing it? Local tyrants.
Not all illegal aliens of course are tyrants but they play the serial apologizer when they fuck you over or destroy your property. Of course not all illegals are immoral or bad drivers but under the current administration its a low risk versus high economic reward for them to do whatever they please. Again guns go hand and hand and one cannot reverse society in one area (1860s) and not respect all the other areas of what made society work back then.
I just came back from DMV to renew CDL because I may be out of state and unable to renew while on the road. Just trying to keep a step ahead of the game. First I got raped for the renewal and then, because my address had changed, they were going to fuck me for about $90 on the background check! I said, “What?”… I passed on the HazMat until I saw there was going to be a reason to keep it. The last time I did it I had the loot to spend and thought it would look good on the applications. What a pain in the ass.
I gotta know where you buy insurance for two vehicles for $500/year! Dang, we’d in heaven if we could pull that off.
My first visit here, loved the article, Eric, nice introduction to you. Thank you.
Thanks, Kati!
On the insurance: The quote mentioned is for a minimal, liability only policy on two older trucks (1998 and 2002) owned by a married driver over 35 with a “clean”” record (no accidents, no tickets) who lives in a rural area.
Location matters a lot, insurance wise. If you live in a city/suburb your rates will usually be higher – even if all else is equal. Apparently, another factor they’re using now is your credit score. Even if you’re accident-free, if you have less than good credit, they’ll charge you more.
The real problem, of course, is that you have to buy their services. And whenever that happens, you always pay more.
Had I been a young German in the Third Reich I would probably have done what the others did.
tgsam
And may the “farmers” end come soon,amein. This is another great article Eric,bravo! I’ve been living without license, or numbers of any kind for five years now. I know first hand why its so hard to give up those “hooks in the flesh”. Its a hard life out here constantly threatened with the possibility that if i run into a costumed thug without (PAPERS PLEASE !!!!). That I run the serious risk of being kidnapped, thrown in a cage, or murdered!!! GOD BLESS AMERIKA.
Land of the sheep home of the slave