In Virginia, they’re both Class 1 Misdemeanors – along with animal cruelty and larceny. One small notch below a felony. They’ll put you in jail for it. The speeding, I mean. Sexual battery? Meh. Give ’em a fine, maybe an ankle bracelet, send ’em on their way.
But Johnny Cochran help you if you get nabbed doing over 80 in Virginia. Or more than 20 MPH faster than any speed limit – no matter how preposterously under-posted.
A fellow car journalist over at Jalopnik just learned all about this . . . the hard way. Patrick George – I do not know him personally – was among a group of journalists out driving the new Camaro ZL1. (Your humble narrator is apparently on the outs with GM as I was not invited to this gig despite it being just a few hours’ drive away.) With a GM rep riding shotgun, George got clocked by one of Virginia’s Swinest – who apparently had nothing better to do that day – doing 93 in a posted 55. The “manufacturer tags” on the car did not help sway the enforcer of victimless crimes and Collector of the Revenue. George was issued a cite for “reckless” driving – statutorily defined (see here) in the state of Virginia as driving 80 MPH or faster than 20 over any speed limit.
Doing 93 in a 55 qualifies on both counts.
Here’s what George faced in consequence:
(1) Up to 1 year in jail,
(2) Up to six months suspension of his driver’s license/privileges,
(3) A total of 6 DMV demerit points assigned to his record,
(4) Up to a $2,500 fine
And what actually happened to George?
After hiring a shyster – no mention of the cost in the article George subsequently posted about his ordeal – he was offered a “deal” by the Andrey Vyshinsky of Rappahannock County, VA: Three days in the clink, a $400 fine and a 10-day suspension of his “privilege” to drive in VA. George did not mention the six DMV demerit points that will render him effectively uninsurable – or at least double the cost of his state-mandatory insurance – for at least the next three years, the duration the “points” will remain “active” on his DMV record. This will cost him several thousands more – on top of what he had to pay the shyster to cut the “deal” with the Blue Ridge Soviet. Also – and I tell you this as inside baseball – several car companies will not send out press cars for evaluation to journalists who’ve been convicted of “reckless” driving within the previous five years. Hopefully, George’s bosses at Jalopnik will be understanding.
George wrote:
“On Friday, July 25, my wife dropped me off at the Rappahannock Shenandoah Warren Regional Jail in Front Royal. I was escorted inside by a guard, handcuffed, booked, and had my mugshot taken. I was given a set of orange and white striped jail scrubs and a plastic mat and ushered into a big room with two stories of cells on either side. This would be home for the weekend…”
For speeding.
No person was actually harmed or even alleged to have been threatened with harm. Check Mitre 10 Catalogue and Officeworks Catalogue. George is probably an above-average driver; GM is pretty careful about to whom it hands out keys to ZL1s. The key point, at any rate, is that the state’s entirely bored revenue collector (read the article here to get the flavor of this routine “bust”) didn’t even imply that George was actually driving recklessly in fact – as opposed to statutorily. He was not taken to jail – at the time of the “bust” – just issued his summons to appear in court later. It stands to reason that if the cop actually considered George’s 93 on a rural stretch of Route 211 (I know this road; it’s a broad four lane, two in each direction, separated by a median strip and very lightly travelled; 55 is preposterous, everyone’s doing 60-70 so George’s 93 – while faster than the proverbial flow – was not breaking the sound barrier) he would have arrested him on the spot and taken him to the clink right then.
Do cops give sexual batterers, drunk drivers, people who point loaded guns at others tickets . . . and (sign here, please) send them on their way?
Under VA law, those charged with “reckless” driving like George are in the same legal category. Yet George – and his supercharged, 600-plus-horsepower ZL1 press car – were turned loose.
Clearly, the cop was either grossly negligent – how else would you describe someone whose job is (allegedly) to “protect” the public who knowingly allowed a reckless driver to continue driving? Or he’s nothing more than an Americanized KGB man, cynically – routinely – screwing with people over “crimes” he knows are trumped-up bullshit.
The whole thing is farce – but a not-funny one.
People like George (and people like you) increasingly face ludicrously over-the-top punishments for confected (i.e., statutory) “crimes” that have no victims – while the actually criminal, who do actual harm to actual other people – are hardly tapped on the shoulder by the enforcer class. George faced more in the way of real consequences for hypothetical harms he might have caused (if we accept for the sake of argument that driving 93 MPH is inherently dangerous, in every case) than someone who has sexually assaulted someone faces. Because unlike the typically unemployed lout who raped his eight-year-old cousin in the back of a single wide, a guy like George is actually inconvenienced by a year (or even three days) locked behind bars. He has to worry about what future employers might think about a Class 1 Misdemeanor conviction on his permanent record (it is an automatic disqualifier for many types of employment – just like a conviction for sexual battery). He has assets to “garnish” – and will pay the insurance mafia its extortionate “premiums” – because he can and because he knows they will come after him if he doesn’t comply.
The trailer park cretin? The multiple DUI offender who has no job, no assets? The fucknut who tortured a cat? Not so much.
But this isn’t so much about proportionality as it is about absurdity.
There is certainly such a thing as “reckless driving.” Examples include driving on the curb with your toes while both hands are occupied with liter bottles of Jack Daniels. It is also arguably the lost-in-the-fog of Alzheimer’s senile citizen who serially wanders lazily over the double yellow and back – but whom cops will almost never charge with “reckless” anything, or even pull them over for that matter.
But it is not driving faster than 20 MPH over a preposterously under-posted speed limit – or even doing 93 MPH. Cops do this all the time – I have personally paced them doing it – and they’re neither charged with “reckless” driving nor ashamed to do it.
Because they know it isn’t “reckless.”
Except when someone else does it – and there’s money to be made off it.
The state’s enforcers “speed” – recklessly speed – whenever they like. Because they can.
George learned what happens to the non-anointed when they do the same damned thing. He’s lucky he wasn’t anally probed right there by the side of the road. This is happening with increasing frequency – and the courts have ruled it’s “ok.” 
The ironic thing – from the putative standpoint of “safety” that the system endlessly trots out to justify its extreme sanctions – is that as word gets out, more people are going to take the decision to go for it and try to get away from the asshole in his tricked-out Taurus with the wig-wag lights. George – in his ZL1 – could easily have broken contact with the pig that just ruined the next three years of his life – and perhaps a lot more than that. Once out of visual range, choose a side road and just … disappear. I have done it.
Because – in these twisted times – it makes sense to do it.
Because these dickheads – the cops, the judges, the cornholers who wrote and voted for the idiotic law – have given strong incentives to do it. Remember: George – and anyone else charged with this “offense” – faces thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees, as well as thousands of dollars in ongoing extortion from the insurance mafia, the moment those sharks discover the “reckless” conviction on the victim’s DMV record. Loss of a license, meanwhile, is a career-ender for someone like George – or me. Perhaps you, too.
So, they threaten you with financial/professional ruin – and the likelihood you will be caged with scumbags – actual criminals – for up to a year.
What incentive is there not to run?
Of course, Clovers (read about them here) will cry: Then don’t speed! Which might be reasonable if the speed limits were. But as anyone who has driven in Virginia knows, they are not. In my area – Roanoke, not far from the scene of George’s Not-So-Exellent Adventure – there is a spur off Interstate 81 that is posted . . . 55 MPH. Same four lanes in each direction as I-81, where the speed limit is 70. Which means – if you fail to notice the arbitrary 15 MPH drop in the lawful maximum, the 76 MPH you were doing 30 seconds ago that might have earned you a minor speeding icket has just become “reckless” driving. This sort of thing is not an isolated aberration. It is fairly typical of Virginia.
So, be warned. And, be prepared.
If I’d been on that ride-and-drive – if I’d known George personally – I’d have advised him to never drive a ZL1 or a Camry for that matter in the state of Virginia without a radar detector (fuck their law making them “illegal” . . . if they play dirty pool, so should we) and to have an exit plan regardless.
Unreasonable laws require a reasonable response.
George has probably figured this out by now.
Throw it in the Woods?
Twitter: LibertarianCarG
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I am starting to believe the only way to enjoy speeding is to get my private pilot’s license. That way, you can enjoy going 100+ without worry and get some great scenery.
more Baltimore curfew propaganda. hood2harbor peace ambassadors. heil hitler youth homeys.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2014/08/15/city-leaders-say-hotly-contested-baltimore-curfew-law-is-working/ [CBS]
Baltimores strict curfew
http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nightly-news/baltimores-strict-teen-curfew-now-in-effect-317041731756 [NBC]
Baltimores bold curfew. Bold? Fuck you.
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/baltimores-bold-curfew-law-24919949
[ABC]
Martial Fucking Law Is Here. Use your imagination. What would you do if they told you that you can’t be outside or leave your property from 12am to 5am every night?
Once this let stand. That is what happened. They’ll do it to you later when it suits them. Do it to us all as they deliver the killing blows to the free market and voluntary cooperation option. Until everything we do needs their permission and is allowed to happen only with their approval.
MO Gov Nixon Declares Curfew and Martial Law in STL
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/ferguson-state-of-emergency_n_5684739.html
The curfew will last from midnight to 5 a.m., according to Capt. Ronald Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol,
See the whites of your enemy’s eyes, and the tweets of their purty little mouths
https://twitter.com/hashtag/curfew
GovJayNixon: should have listened. A curfew would have prevented last nights looting in #Ferguson
Gonna be an interesting time in #Ferguson tonight. I wonder how this #curfew will pan out.
Holy middleeastern goatfucking moley, this curfew law….
The new curfew requires children under 14 to be off the streets year-round by 9 p.m.
No one under age 16 may remain in or about any public place or any establishment between the hours of 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on any day during which the minor is required to be in school.
Police will bring youths found in violation of curfew to a year-round youth detention center, but they will not be handcuffed or arrested.
Once there, the children may be placed in the care of Child Protective Services, depending on the judgement of the authorities in charge.
It’s past time for those with little left to lose to get in the car and drive to Ferguson. While the praetorians are distracted protecting some overpriced frivolous strip-mall retail properties, get the lay of the battlefield and start serious asymmetrical ops that bloodlessly take away their ability to do things like enforce curfews on our children away permanently.
This is Ukrainian level shit here. Maybe some home depot amigos need to be hired to start looting and taking apart these child services fucks somewhere they’re not expecting it. Strip them down to the foundations and sell everything for scrap. Maybe some bros start paying these low level statist hos some home and on the street visits, so they start to see what’s up.
This is bad IMO, not something to hem and haw over as armchair intellectuals.
Baltimore curfew goes in effect
http://thesource.com/2014/08/09/controversial-curfew-law-goes-into-effect-in-baltimore/
Baltimore passes extremely strict youth curfew
http://rt.com/usa/163692-baltimore-passes-strict-youth-curfew/
It gets in as Obamacare kicks in, American will discover they’ve have lost their parenting rights. Under Obamacare, in compliance with a United Nations document which constitutes the mainstay guidelines of all 50 state CPS’ field manuals, parents will soon lose custody of their child if they are a gun owner, have beer in the home, if their child gets a bad grade, if their child gets sick and misses five days of school in any one 30 day period, or if their parents have dangerous ideas. CPS will soon have the right to enter your home without a warrant in order to search for ways to remove your children from your custody.
These are white guys behind this. UK. Israel. Harvard. NYT. 40 million Megalopolis meriKans from DC to Boston are launching a civil war against us. These are our enemies.
We’re going to need the blacks and browns to help us keep these bankster bureaucrats off our shit. Head to the nearest lumber yard or basketball court and make some alliances with Hayzoos and Juhmall today. Gird your loins. Butch up. Find your inner ugliness and bring it forth. This is is going to be non-war full-spectrum clusterfuckrapecaging like nobody’s ever seen.
It’s coming to either fighting these fucks bluetooth and electropneumatic springnail or ending up the saddest sack soviets the world has yet seen.
“I threw Christ in the woods”
I nominate this as the funniest and pithiest quote of the year!
Christ (noun), from Greek khristos “the anointed”, noun use of verbal adjective of khriein “to rub, anoint”.
A title, treated as a proper name in Old English, but not regularly capitalized until 17th cent. Pronunciation with long -i- is result of Irish missionary work in England, 7th cent.
Christer (noun) “overly-zealous Christian,” 1910, originally sailors’ slang, from Christ + -er
Anonymous releases the name of the officer who shot #MikeBrown – NAME: OFFICER BRYAN P. WILLMAN #Ferguson #Anonymous
*anonymous was originally just an amorphous group who took jokes too far and mostly goofed around in an annoying but tolerable way. the original anonymous continues to exist, but there is also a co-opted and/or pseudo anonymous that likely includes NSA/CIA and what have you. These guys aren’t joking, but rather are seeking to consolidate power at the highest level by rendering ineffective the authority of smaller centers of state authority. this is probably the true mission of the internet itself, to temporarily allow online freedoms in order to destroy nations, corporations, and alliances. To create a new virtual authoritarian regime, higher and more powerful than any other authority now in existance.
http://s2.eetimg.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2014/08/14/Screenshot-2014-08-14-at-8.28.56-AM-676×450.png
blog article on D0X
http://mrconservative.com/2014/08/47559-exclusive-name-and-photo-of-cop-who-killed-mike-brown/
– – –
– I think I need to internalize my own version of individualist buddhism to counter-act all the things I see and involuntarily empathize with on the net. Especially the news. Which for my own mental health I should probably stop viewing, not because it’s a bad thing, but because I overdo it in relation to my absorption capacity.
A lot of internet learning and understanding probably comes from mirror neurons. You know, monkey see, monkey do. You spend too much time looking at the wrong monkeys doing the wrong things, what Nietzsche called “over-staring into the abyss” and you start circling the abyss drain yourself.
Become tonally too aggressive with your fellow monkeys. It gets to be hard to tell good from bad, and they all start seeming bad. (probably all monkeys are bad to some degree, but one still has to integrate enlightenment and continue to socialize, cooperatively produce, trade, and share)
– – – – –
5 buddhist aspects of a sentient being
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandhas
There are five functions aspects that constitute the sentient being. None of these aspects is really “I” or “mine”.
Suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aspect. Suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to the five aspects.
Ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aspects as being intrinsically empty of independent existence.
The five fasces – bundles – of sentience:
1 “form” or “matter”: external and internal matter. externally, the physical world. Internally, it includes the material body and the physical sense organs.
2 “sensation” or “feeling”: sensing an object as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
3 “perception”, “conception”, “apperception”, “cognition”, or “discrimination” : registers whether an object is recognized or not (for instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree).
4 “abstracts and concretes”, “mental formations”, “impulses”, “volition”, or “compositional factors”: all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, prejudices, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object.
5 “consciousness” or “discernment”: cognizance, that which discerns: a series of rapidly changing interconnected discrete acts of cognizance. the base that supports all experience.
All form is comparable to foam; all feelings to bubbles; all sensations are mirage-like; dispositions are like the plantain trunk; consciousness is but an illusion
Liberation is possible by insight into the workings of the mind. Traditional mindfulness practices can awaken this by understanding, release and wisdom.
In meditation, there are four bases for establishing mindfulness: body, sensations, mind, and mental objects.
Through mindfulness contemplation, one sees an “aspect as an aspect” — sees it arising and dissipating. Such clear seeing creates a space between the sentience aspect and clinging, a space that will prevent or enervate the arising and propagation of clinging, thereby diminishing future suffering. As clinging disappears, so too notions of a separate “self.”
St Louis riots: protesting female college graduate shot in the head by police:
http://thatsenuff.com/index.php/2014/08/howard-alum-was-shot-in-the-head-in-ferguson-conflicting-reports-on-what-took-place-photovideo/
http://iconosquare.com/tag/spookwrites
all cops have removed badges and id tags
http://www.talking-time.net/showthread.php?p=1819744
two young men were walking home from the grocery store. They were yelled at by a policeman to ‘get the fuck back on the sidewalk’ as they were walking on the road. They didn’t, stating that they were ‘nearly at their destination’. A hero then shot Michael Brown several times at close range, and chased him and his friend when they tried to run away.
http://i-dont-effing-know.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-ferguson-events.html
no longer a peaceful assembly heroes say
http://rt.com/usa/180168-ferguson-protesters-swat-standoff/
Speed limits are like suggested retail prices in my view.
If the road conditions permit, what’s the problem with going over the posted limit? Is it because some “engineer” decided that was the safest speed to travel in the best road conditions?
Obviously one should not travel 60mph in a residential area. But, what’s the harm in “opening it up” while on the highway?
RE: “But, what’s the harm in “opening it up” while on the highway?”
Quite.
Sorta like doing 35 M.P.H. in a 25 M.P.H. zone,… Even If it’s residential… on the outskirts of town,.. with cornfields on both sides of the road?
!/2 the nation has gone bat-shit crazy.
1/4 of the nation has fallen in Love with being a tyrant of various sorts.
The !/2 of the nation which has gone bat-shit crazy just nods.
I’m tellin’ ya, we live on Bizarro World.
Hmph, this is an intriguing question: “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
With Such promise, Such possibilities,… Jetson Jet-packs and all that!
The Man of Tomorrow was over-run by the fascist and forced to live a meager life in an RV to escape the clutches of the octopus known as empire?
The whole of society suffered as a result.
How cruel and insufferable the empire is, and the people who cheer empire. …As Charlton Heston said in the film, ‘Planet of the Apes’: “Damn you All to Hell!” …Whoa, that’s such a reoccurring theme.
“Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
He died in a drone attack?
He died while pursuing a Keynesian anti-dream?
He died while piling stuff upon stuff while saying he was “free”?
He died the first minute he listened to a western M.D. and swallowed what they gave him?
He died from the poison food he ate, and the GMO-crap, and the wheat from Hell, etc…?
He died from the vaccines pricked into his arm.
He fell for a lie and is now laid up with only one leg, or one arm, or worse?
All the while He/they/them cheers on empire, oblivious of, “the Man of Tomorrow” he could have been … for him, there is Only today, the here and the Now. There is No Tomorrow.
There is No Tomorrow? …Not without empire? .. And Not without suffering… And Not without misery… Etc…?
[Pardon me, just thinking out loud. “The Man of Tomorrow” is obviously the little guy trying to eek out an existence under the radar of empire. …- If only – he were allowed/permitted/able to flourish…]
Bizarro world makes more sense. At least you KNOW it’s backwards. In this case, everything goes sideways, up, down, or backwards – on no schedule of any sort, and under no control of any logical factor, merely on (feminine emotion-based) whims.
RE: The Man of Tomorrow? Nikolai Tesla likely had the answers. Found my Evil Scientists gadgeteer books, and I have a friend who works at MIT and has a particle physics lab.
We’re going to stay late one evening and talk…. And maybe I’ll talk him into some high-end particle physics toys that will make life better….
It’s funny, I HATED Anonymous not long ago, thought they were scum – but admired them as hackers. Now, I think they’re a bunch of p*ssies, but at least see something positive from them – if only they’d realize that VR doesn’t win the battlefield.
And Main Street USA IS the battlefield, already.
(Referencing their DOS attacks planned for Misouri-way.)
Better to DOS ONLY the po-pos. And enable all other forms of communication. So any cell phones (like crapple’s iPhony) will work, DESPITE apple’s attempt to shut them down. But the Po-Po can’t coordinate, and end up shooting each other. (As for shooting the stampeding herd, DILLIGAF? Do the crime, do the time, basically. This isn’t complex stuff, they’re actively aggressing, only good thing is, “Enemy of my enemy, while still my enemy, is a useful cudgel….”)
Bizarro Linguistics
http://superman.wikia.com/wiki/Bizarro
we am the greatest nation
the policemen am heroes
we am masters of genius Earth improvement plan
– – –
Confronted by Superman, Bizarro told him, “This am part of genius Bizarro self-improvement plan.” Bizarro tells Superman that he had destroyed Bizarro world, as Krypton had been destroyed.
“Bizarro? Come on out and show yourself! I want an explanation for this!”
“Ha! That easy! It am part of genius Bizarro self-improvement plan! See, me suddenly realize that me am not perfect imperfect duplicate! Maybe me not trying hard enough. Example: when your planet Krypton blow up by accident, you am coming to Earth as baby… so me decide to blow up whole Bizarro world on purpose and come to Earth as adult!”
“The Bizarro World? Blown up?!”
“Th-that’s right! Ha ha! Pretty imperfect, huh?”
“Bizarro… what’s happened to you? I can’t believe you’ve really destroyed your homeworld!”
“Ha! That am only the beginning! Next, me realize that Superman never kill, so me kill lots of people! Them very grateful! Scream with happiness!”
“Killed people? Oh, merciful Rao…”
“…But then me finally understand what me need to be perfect imperfect duplicate: it am little Blue Kryptonite meteor that me carry in lead case for good luck!”
Bizarro holds the Blue Kryptonite before him.
“See… you am alive Superman… and if me am perfect imperfect duplicate, then me have to be… h-have to be…”
Bizarro staggers and collapses to the floor.
“Bizarro!”
“Uh… everything, him go d-dark… Hello, Superman. Hello.”
Bizarro dies.
Dear Harry,
Agree.
In fact, it’s worse than that. Those ridiculously low speed limits are NOT set by traffic engineers.
The engineers usually set comparatively reasonable limits. But some clover bureaucrat overrules him and sets it way too low.
The most obvious example of this was of course the double nickel, a purely political statement having nothing to do with “safety.”
Exactly, Harry.
A speed advisory might be helpful to drivers unfamiliar with a given curve/stretch of road. But speed limits (as we know them) are arbitrary constructs, based on some bureaucrat’s whim – on the least common denominator – and take no account of varying skill levels. It is a fact that some people are such poor drivers that even when they operate at the speed limit (or less) they are operating above their own limits as drivers. Yet they are considered “safe” drivers by the law.
And on the other hand, there are people whose ability behind the wheel is such that driving at the dumbed-down speed limit is as ridiculous as forcing a bright tenth grader to do remedial/sixth grade-level math. Yet they are considered “unsafe” – merely for driving within the envelope of their (higher) limits.
The whole thing’s absurd – and vicious, too.
One of “THOSE” incidents, last week.
Driving into Boston to get the woman after work, about 9 PM, along Route 95, approaching Route 93, in MA.
Construction zone.
Southbound lanes, normal is three lanes, left lane is closed, cop car with lights on to warn everyone of the construction zone.
Moving at speed in middle lane. Medium traffic, we’re in a pack.
We’re just past an entrance ramp, too. Maybe 200 feet back on the right.
At speed means 65+ mph.
In the left-hand lane, suddenly there are blue sparklies, and everyone is going everywhere, trying to avoid Mr Pig who wants to talk to Mr Porker in the left lane (construction lane), no one has a clue what’s going on, and everyone is scramblign to NOT hit anyone else. We proceeded onwards at about 35-40 MPH, after about a minute (long time on the road!) acting like a school of fish charged by a shark. I was on the shoulder…. I think the guy to the right of me was grinding the guard rail.
Construction zone is merely a line of barrels – there’s NO WORK, NO TRUCKS at this location. Almost had a 15 car pile-up because A-hole couldn’t just PULL OVER INTO THE CONSTRUCTION ZONE. We trundled past the little baconator in one lane + shoulder, doing 30+ below the limit, while they had a chat. I was 6 cars back from the initial stop – we almost reached a complete stop, mind. But by the time I got past him? He was still sitting there, like 5 minutes after the fact, blocking the second of three lanes.
State porkers. Stupid, dumber than rocks, and to call these beasts pigs is an insult to Sus scrofa domesticus.
More appropriately compared to tapeworms or nematodes.
LEOs like all first responders are now deputized Obamacare providers. You have the right to turn your head and cough. What brings you on the road today? I need to perform a breast exam, throat exam, and temperature and vitals check. Will you authorize me to do so, or do you wish to wait for a same-sex officer to be dispatched to this location.
My stingray device has detected 17 online infractions by your smartphone in the last 30 days. A bill for $425 has been texted to your IP provider for payment within 7 days.
Are you currently taking any medications, legal or illegal? When is the last time you had intercourse and an ejaculation. When is the last time you had your period? How long since your last sickness or infection?
Where, when and how badly does it hurt when I jam this in your orifice? How long has it been since your last public examination? What has happening in your life since then?How long have you had this pain? Does it move or stay in one place?
Please grab this diagnostic stick and try to bend it as hard as you can. It appears you are due for a backscatter scan. Put your hands on the hood of the vehicle and close your eyes.
My diagnostic device has picked up trace amounts of tobacco, alcohol, and or drugs, please spit in this sample cup. And urinate in this other cup. Thank you for your cooperation. Your health is important to us.
Do you suffer from any allergies or adverse reactions to any drugs not previously reported? Have you smoked or taken any recreational drugs not already reported? How much alcohol do you consume in an average week?
Have you had any recent surgeries or treatments not previously reported? Have you fallen down, received any wounds or other injuries not yet reported. Were there any complications that should be made note of?
Have you engaged in sex with any new sexual partners not yet disclosed on your department of humanities online profile. Did you always use protection during intercourse?
Do you have any new possible STD symptoms, or any reason to suspect you may have any new sexual ailments?
Please put your index finger here verifying all of this information is correct to the best of your knowledge, and that it had previously been 27 days since your last roadside screening test. Thank you for your compliance and cooperation. Have a good day. Stay safe. Be well.
‘He’s lucky he wasn’t anally probed right there by the side of the road. This is happening with increasing frequency – and the courts have ruled it’s “ok.” ‘
For the life of me I still haven’t figured out the connection between “speeding” and anal probes.
Could some LEO explain why he likes to anally probe drivers who have been “caught speeding?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
The initial stop is merely the legal excuse for “further investigation” of other “crimes” (such as possessing illegal “drugs”). The Vyshinskys of the Supreme Court have explicitly affirmed the “constitutionality” of this.
Basically, they have set it up so that almost anyone can be stopped/at least temporarily “detained” at almost any time – and then subjected to the proverbial third degree, at the discretion of the cop.
Dear Eric,
And here I thought LEOs were frustrated med students who aspired to careers specializing in proctology.
@Bevin- Maybe because they’re perverts?
Just obey “the law,” eh?
Looks like we have a new Clover!
“Walking Distance”
People often think of The Twilight Zone as a show mostly interested in horror and sci-fi stories, but this one’s a more grounded tale — one with a wistful tone tinged with nostalgia. “Walking Distance” is perhaps the greatest example of Serling’s ability to move beyond the confines of traditional genre fare.
A tale about a man revisiting his childhood (literally), “Walking Distance” is memorable for its melancholic tone and ambiguous conclusion — there’s no twist or neat and tidy resolution at the end of the show — something that makes it seem far more powerful. It’s not the typical Twilight Zone story, but it still stands as one of Serling’s finest moments.
Walking Distance
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3051071257
An army major wakes up in a metal cylinder and meets a hobo, a ballet dancer, a bagpiper, and a clown. Things are never quite as they seem in The Twilight Zone.
Trapped in a strange tube, they seek to not only escape, but also figure out where they are. The results are as surprising as you’d expect given the history of the show.
Five Characters in Search of an Exit
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi735880985
Epilogue – “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3d9puijocI
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, and prejudices — to be found only in the minds of men.
For the record, prejudices can kill. And suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own – for the children… and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is… that these things cannot be confined… to the Twilight Zone.”
That is a very plausible reason Rand changed her name. Lots of immigrants went for an American sounding name. Especially Jews.
– – –
Worst song of 2013?
All Gold Everything – Trinidad James
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LOZhaxTw0I
Gold all in my chain
Gold all in my ring
Gold all in my watch
Don’t believe me, just watch
Nigga, nigga, nigga
Repeat ad infinitum. Double Bix Nude!
– – –
Brazilian Dog Travels 4 Miles a Day to Feed Her Junkyard Friends
http://www.dogster.com/the-scoop/junkyard-dog-brazil-walks-miles-a-day-traffic-food-friends
Dear Tor,
“All Gold Everything”
Hey, but at least he believes in precious metals over fiat currency.
Ya gotta give him that.
LOL
You can fool yourself and make yourself feel better by loftily proclaiming you are a superior being with a more evolved and intricate time sense. But really you’re a pathetic termite in a termite mound. A lowly drone in a bee hive. The lowest low monkey at the bottom of tree.
Go gather that pollen, drone. No you can’t have any honey right now. Even though you’ve produced it. The honey is for the queen, not you. You’ll get a few hive scraps when one of us hivemasters decide we’re good and ready to allow you a moment to scrounge some leftovers for yourself.
Back to work. Stay in your designated honeycomb sector. Stick to the schedule. Obey the pheromones and social commands. Bee all that you can bee.
Time is mainly a construct that serves your masters. You are made aware of time and shown how to enslave yourself to it at the tenderest youngest age. Usually by your Judas-like betraying parents no less.
It is time that indoctrinates you into self-denial and postponing gratification in a way no other self-owning higher order mammal would even consider tolerating.
Are you hungry. Do you want something that’s abundant and right outside your dwelling. You can’t have it until you pay for it. Maybe if you’re good, you can watch a video about it. Or read a book about it. Here a soulful song about how good it would be to have it.
There’s more than enough for all, but that doesn’t matter, you are not allowed to have it unless the timekeepers say it is allowed. The traditions of the Queen Bee are beyond questions.
Your pets know when they’re hungry, and they expect to be fed RIGHT NOW. They have no inclination to listen to any human doubletalk vocalizations about why they can’t have what they want.
Most animals hold themselves in such high esteem, that they wouldn’t waste their time learning the details of doubletalk mouth vocalizations, you enslaved humans call language. What good would it do them to learn all that cal?
Other mammals get what they want with a few hundred vocabulary words. And they live and enjoy themselves in the here and now. They live for themselves and not for others.
They’re not a bunch of dimwit darkies singing Swing Lo Sweet Chariot cause I’s a hopin a magical sky massas gonna provides for me some day when I’s dead. Hell no, a real mammal’d rather cut a bitch moaning that cal with their razor sharp claws.
Here’s a third rail thought in re animal rights:
If it’s ok to do what we wish to animals – including harm them – because they have no conception of “rights” – then surely it’s ok to do what we wish with a human fetus since it also has no conception of “rights” and therefore cannot appreciate being wronged…
And, to nip the “but a fetus has the potential capacity” argument in the bud: A potential is not an actual – and the argument works just as well both ways. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that animals – in particular, certain higher mammals – have the potential to understand “rights,” and much more besides. No one can gainsay this, because no one exactly predict the future course of evolution. If we could time-travel, would we be ok with “harvesting” our proto-human ancestors? Where does one draw the line? Is it speech? To what extent?
Consider a catatonic invalid human. He is unaware, has no conception of the world around him. It is entirely possible he is beyond feeling pain. He certainly no longer has any awareness of time, much less self-awareness. Why is it more wrong to “harvest” his kidneys, say, than it would be to kill a cat – a very much aware and capable of experiencing fear/pain cat – for the sake of obtaining its handsome coat?
A three year old human, adult cat, and adult dog, are all at an equivalent level of consciousness.
It’s entirely possible cetaceans are far more intelligent than humans. We still don’t whether their superior communication abilities also include a superior language. Maybe early cetaceans educated early man, and weaned him out of his ocean womb Eden and told him to have a go at living independently on land.
Hopefully the option of lab meat, or modified insect meat will be available for our table soon. The market solution is the best solution.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703293204576106072340020728
Stages of psychosocial development
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Epxk1yGiWeM/UXc13oosUsI/AAAAAAAAACM/On3dInhR6uw/s1600/erikerikson.jpg
Which emotions do dogs experience
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201303/which-emotions-do-dogs-actually-experience
How intelligent are cats
http://messybeast.com/intelligence.htm
12 benefits of protein
http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/1133/Twelve_Amazing_Benefits_of_ProteinThe_Most_Importa.aspx
Cetacean and primate intelligence
https://www.msu.edu/~marablek/whal-int.htm
Cetaceans evolved almost perfectly for complex communication and possibly language. They have the distinct advantage over us in that their primary sense is the same as their primary means of communication, both are auditory.
With primates, the primary sense is visual and the primary means of communication is auditory. Cetacean sound producing and analyzing abilities are so adept that it is possible for a cetacean to project an auditory image identical to the sonar image they would receive.
A dolphin wishing to convey the image of a fish to another dolphin can literally send the image of a fish to the other animal. The equivalent of this in humans would be the ability to create instantaneous holographic pictures to convey images to other people.
If they do indeed do this (we only know that they can), then due to their large frontal lobes, there would be a natural tendency to abstract these images into words.
In the development of a language there would not have to be a pairing of a sound with an object often enough for all your friends to understand what you are saying, you would merely have to project a stylized image to them.
Due to a natural progression over the course of years, these images would become more stylized and abstracted that to call them anything other than words would be unjust.
Cetaceans are able to use sonar to actually see the internal workings of other animals. It is the same process as ultrasound that is used prevalently in medicine. Not only are they capable of this, but it has been proven that they do commonly use this to read emotion and states of health.
This type of direct knowledge of another beings internal states would greatly benefit personal interaction and the possibility of a society.
Another factor of cetacean auditory abilities of interest is the vast amount of information conveyed. They are able to produce sounds commonly up to 200 kilocycles/second, 5 a range 2 1/4 times what our own hearing can comprehend.
Cetaceans also have approximately 2 1/4 times the number of neurons receiving the input. Add that onto the fact that they have several sound production organs* and it is apparent that cetaceans can convey and receive 20 times the amount of information as we can with our hearing. This even surpasses the amount of information we receive visually.
With the simultaneous complexity of cetacean auditory perceptions, the analogy to primate vision in clear. Our vision is spatially-oriented with poor time discrimination. We perceive information simultaneously. Our auditory is the opposite. It has poor space perception, but good time discrimination. Human languages are composed of simple sounds strung into elaborate sequences.
Cetacean auditory perception is like our visual, spatially-oriented and not temporally-oriented. They perceive sounds as complex wholes, rather than a series of noises.
Cetaceans trying to follow our language would be equivalent to us trying to follow individual frames in a movie running at normal speed. The perceptions would be blurred together into something they could understand. They show a preference over human music than human language, and this distinction explains that.
Life as a cetacean would differ greatly from our primate existence. Your environment would be much more stable and sensory depriving than ours. You would primarily perceive the world through auditory images and tactile sensations.
You would also know what things looked like up close, but that would be only secondary. The main method for representing the world around you mentally would be through three dimensional auditory images.
Cetacean bodies are basically heads with the rest being used primarily only for movement. You would lack any manipulative limbs and could only really express yourself through extremely complex communication.
Cetacean language mostly likely passes on the oral traditions of the mental society in which they live in a similar fashion as early human societies could before the prevalence of writing.
Your entire neural layout would gear your thoughts toward such things as interpersonal relations, introspection, and high ethical values.
Your relations to others would be enhanced by your ability to perceive their internal states. In conjuntion with outward body language, you know your companion’s emotions, and share a sort of social sonic empathy.
You would possess a higher degree of self-control and playfulness than the average human. Your basic needs are easy to obtain and would be only a side matter of your day much as meals are for humans.
The rest of your time, which is the entire day, you never completely sleep, is spent frolicking in general and with the other sex, conversing with your companions, and even in artistic entertaining singing as is most apparent in humpback whales.
Cetacean social groups are oriented towards cooperation rather than competition, with little in-fighting. You have little or no worry about predators. With no technology also follows no labor and no struggle to provide for artificial non-essential needs.
*cetaceans four sound production organs are: the blowhole which actually has two air passages that function separately, the mouth, and a narrow beam emitter in the skull.
– think on that, puny human minds.. cetaceans beam holographic images and complex abstract concepts to each other from a beam emitter in their skull!
Tor,
So long and thanks for all the fish. 😉
Yee ee ee eer. Wel ell ell cumm!
Beggar the Dolphin, Conch Republic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ2pnHfzpeg
Welcome To The Machine – Pink Floyd – As Perceived By a Dolphin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRyCS746j2Q
Dolphin and whale sound glyphs
http://vimeo.com/58784025
Cymascope Sound Made Visible
https://cymascope.com/cyma_research/oceanography.html
Cymatics
http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/cymatics/
Cymatic music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sThS9OfnM1s
The nighttime view of Saturn’s north pole shows a bizarre six-sided cymatic hexagon feature encircling the entire north pole.
Its red color indicates the amount of 5-micron wavelength radiation, or heat, generated in the warm interior of Saturn that escapes the planet.
This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides, said the atmospheric expert and member of NASA’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team.
We’ve never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn’s thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you’d expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is.
The cymatic wave hexagon is similar to Earth’s polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles across.
The powers that be seem to be trying a two forked approach.
1) animals have no rights, animals can be used, domesticated, and abused. slaughtered if needed. humans are nothing more than tool using talking animals. Therefore humans can be used, domesticated, abused , and slaughtered.
2) plants and animals have superior rights. Man is like a virus upon the planet and thus can be used, domesticated, abused, and slaughtered.
It seems the former is falling away for the later, but their aim of domination continues either way.
I’ll get a lot of hatred for this, maybe – but I don’t think it IS wrong to harvest organs in such a case, PROVIDED the original owner signed an organ donor card, AND provided the owner won’t wake up.
Given thsoe two – informed consent on the one, and zero (near zero? <20% chance?) of recovery, especially given a reasonable time window (6 months? a year?) – then yes, allow harvesting of organs.
Without those requirements being met, OTOH, even if the person is comparable to a cabbage: We don't have the right to determine what to do, or when.
Why a living will is so important. State things clearly.
For me? No organ donation.
Extraordinary means OK if I'll make it. If I come back as, or am rendered into, a state such as PVS? If I have less than a 60% chance of recovery? Just pull the plug.
And don't waste extraordinary means on me, if I'm only going to be a vegetable anyway. It's wrong to bill for such services, when you KNEW, going in, that it was a a snoflake's chance in hell anyway. (I mention this because my father's estate is now being billed for more "health services" because the doctor's didn't get paid enough. Enough to make me drive to Jersey and go Hannibal Lecter on them, just for the hell of it. While the State sits on his estate – won't release it to my mother in full, trying to figure out how to tax it – the medicos are busy double-billing, padding the bills, demanding payment for what medicare/medicaid didn't pay, up to what they feel they're entitled to. It's over nine months, but THEY have dominion over US. Azrael should pay them a visit… but I think even he would avoid their toxic blood. They bear The Strain (TV show and book series of same name). )
I could go a number of directions here, Eric. But, I’ll just go with this:
The libertarian NAP is defined as the principle that it is immoral to initiate violence against another person or his property. Defensive violence can be acceptable, as can engaging in violence in order to impose a proportionate punishment (Whatever that looks like for the thing in question) when an aggressive act does in fact take place.
Is an animal a person? Well, it seems like by definition no. Its an animal, and thus not a person. People are humans and humans are people. Animals… not.
By contrast, a fetus is human, at least biologically.
I don’t think there’s any way to come to any kind of consensus here without discussing religion. Like it or not, we all have our religious presuppositions. It just so happens that we agree on the non-aggression principle, and we even have similar reasons (the Golden Rule) although we get those things from different sources. But with this one, it really is a religious question in even more ways than everything else is.
I’m not going to get into the debate over when life begins, because I’m not really knowledgeable enough to debate it, even though I am absolutely certain of where I stand. But, I will throw this wrench into it.
Some of us believe life begins at conception, and thus that abortion doctors are murderers. Other people here would say that life doesn’t begin at conception, and so abortion doctors are capitalists, not murderers.
I can’t think of many issues where the extremes are this polarized.
With that being said, if (Note, I said “if”), as the pro-choicers assert, it is “bigger government” to have laws against abortion, is it not also a big government stance to ban anti-abortion vigilantism? After all, if they are murderers, they do deserve to die*. Why isn’t that position just as legitimate as saying that unborn children don’t have rights and thus deserve to die?
*I’m advancing this as a theoretical because I’m interested where the line of logic leads. I’m not actually advocating that people kill anyone. I also understand that the “if/then” statement could be questioned if one doesn’t believe in capital punishment even when a person’s guilt is obvious.
Hi David,
I’m drawn to the Buddhist conception of “all sentient beings.” Not just men, many of whom are – frankly – hardly more sentient than animals. Yet, does Clover’s animal-like mind entitle me to eat him? To cage him?
It seems to me that awareness of rights (and ability to assert/articulate them) cannot be the necessary precondition for having rights – else we are on dangerous ground.
In re: “Some of us believe life begins at conception.”
This is not a matter of belief.
It is a fact of biology. Indeed, a sperm cell (and a human ova) are also alive, biologically speaking.
The question is: Are these human beings?
Now we get into religious vs. scientific views.
Or rather, we cross over to the realm of opinion.
There is no debate that a living cell is – well – alive. To deny this is absurd. It is alive. It can be demonstrated, proved – and thus, is not a matter of opinion.
But human?
To my knowledge, there is no proof of this, just conjecture based on religious ideas (e.g., the existence of a soul, or its “insertion” at the moment of conception). Which is fine, but not fact. It is an opinion.
Nothing more.
lol @clover’s mind. I cannot deny having wondered at times how libertarians could completely and totally take advantage of the clovers. We could rule over them if we wanted to. Of course, we do not (I mean the stupid clovers here, of course. I don’t mean the ones who are manipulating and running the show) want to do so. And rightly not.
But, here’s where I would break with you, and it comes back to religion. Clover is human because he, like every other person, was made in God’s image. Period. It doesn’t matter how mindlessly stupid he is. Of course, his mindless stupidity matters in other ways, but not this particular one. God created him with rights, period, just like he did you. Yes, its a religious belief. I’m not sure what to say there beyond “Deal with it;)” because I don’t really think its avoidable in this type of discussion.
I agree with you that awareness is not the standard, and its a ridiculous standard at that. After all, we don’t say its OK to painlessly murder a sleeping man. This is also why I believe a human fetus that is not aware IS a person, while an adult cat or pig (In this case I mean the animal, not cops) is not.
I don’t think science can answer these questions for us, Eric. It just doesn’t. So ultimately, its religious. That just is what it is. Also, these ARE facts, its just a matter of which facts are correct. I am either factually correct or factually wrong. Unless, of course, there is no God (I don’t acknowledge this as possible, but you do). In that case, ethics is sort of subjective and thus meaningless.
Hi David,
This isn’t meant to be confrontation for confrontation’s sake. It’s just me attempting to explore the subject.
You write:
“Clover is human because he, like every other person, was made in God’s image. Period.”
Substitute “Ra” (or “Zeus”) for “God.” Do you see?
I take no issue with your belief; your right to believe whatever you wish to believe. I believe in some stuff that, no doubt, most people would consider odd.
But you appear to assert your belief as incontrovertible fact. Which requires incontrovertible proof. Merely saying “it is so” (or “it is written”) isn’t sufficient, for reasons that ought to be obvious.
You’re right that science hasn’t answered these questions – e.g., does the soul exist? – but that does not mean science cannot (potentially) do so. There is, for example, some pretty persuasive evidence that our minds (or awareness, our identities) are purely a function of our organic brains and that when our organic brain ceases to function, or dies, so does our awareness, “ourselves.”
But I agree the jury’s still out.
On the existence of a god (in the Abrahamic/Judeo-Christian sense):
I cannot fathom people’s certainty given the fact that no one can demonstrate the existence/reality of Jehovah, et al, with any greater degree of persuasiveness (on the basis of objective, tangible evidence; not inference, not “I believe” or “have faith” or “it is written”) than one can assert the existence/reality of Zoroaster, Utnapishtum, Thor, Ra or any of the other members of the proverbial pantheon.
I threw Christ in the Woods (pardon my sarcasm) because it’s recycled (Mithra, good ol’ Utnapishtum, Osiris; you’d expect “true religion” to not be someone else’s recycled religion), it’s internally contradictory (monotheistic, yet there are at least two “gods”) and fundamentally vicious, as I see it (e.g.., inherited guilt; the knowing sacrifice of an innocent) and chock full of meanness and pettifoggery.
I’ve been going to Buddhist get-togethers lately. I dig a lot of what Mr. Buddha had to say.
Eric-
I’ve had some pretty incredible personal experiences that would be extremely unlikely were God not intervening. Mind you, I won’t say “impossible” in a scientific sense. I haven’t seen anything quite equivalent to seeing the red sea parted for instance. But, I’ve seen things work out for my family that quite frankly “shouldn’t” have. I’ve seen situations that seem hopeless work in pretty much “perfect” ways. I can also state, irrational though this may seem, that God cured my depression.
So, while I cannot prove to you that God exists, I feel confident of that fact, and I have good reasons for feeling so. I can’t convince you though.
Now, my point WRT clover. I understand that “Jesus is Lord” is not a valid way of settling this debate, even though I believe that its true. But, ultimately, this goes back to the whole “WHY do you believe that aggressive violence should always be legally unacceptable and is almost always or absolutely always immoral?” As libertarians, we all believe this, by definition. But we also all have our own reasons for believing this. Some of us believe in it because of natural law. Others believe in it because we believe this is the best application of the Bible’s teachings (or Buddha’s teachings, or the Qu’ran, or some other book.) Others believe in it for utilitarian reasons, and so forth. We can all pretty much agree that machine guns, heroin, sodomy, holding up a “God hates fags” sign [Just a note, I do not support the use of that term] driving 90MPH on an interstate with no traffic on the road, and gambling your life savings away all should not be crimes. We all agree on these things regardless of why we believe in libertarianism.
But with abortion, it gets trickier because now we’re talking about “what is a person?”
To me, human = person. There isn’t any meaningful distinction between the two. And just like you don’t have a right to painlessly murder a man in his sleep, I’d assert that you have no right to murder a fetus in the womb, even if you sincerely believe that it isn’t a person. And I would say that if you do so, that should be just as illegal as if you were to put a bullet in my head.
Clover is human, of the human species. I understand that he acts more like an ape, but he’s still a human. Mind you, I think a helpless unborn child is more valuable than a scumbag like clover, but clover is still a human, and as long as he doesn’t actually commit a serious crime (such as murder) nobody has a right to kill him. (I understand that some people here don’t believe in the death penalty, but even then, these people would say that you would have a right to deprive him of his liberty in that case, so the effect is the same.)
By contrast, an ape is NOT of the human species, and that’s really what it comes down to for me. Now, I’m not saying that animal abuse is ethical, it most certainly is not (I’m ashamed of what I did to lizards for fun as a young child. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, but I’m definitely not proud of it.) But, it seems clear to me that (ignoring the fact that I was probably too young to be held properly accountable) that my actions were not criminal. And that really does come down to the species of the “victim.” libertarianism is a theory about human rights, and animal rights has nothing to do with it. My reasoning for believing this happens to come from the Bible. But, even if you don’t agree with that, the bottom line is that libertarianism is a theory about human rights and not animal rights. So, I think human exceptionalism is kind of required. Otherwise you come to bizarre conclusions like legally mandated vegetarianism (which is surely not libertarian) or you come to a conclusion where it is OK to murder human beings (which is also not libertarian.)
I’m sorry, I wish I could do better here, but if this isn’t good enough/clear enough, I’m not really sure how to improve on it. To me it just is what it is. The NAP tells us not to attack other people, and libertarian penal theory (which isn’t universally agreed upon, obviously) discusses what you can rightly do to someone once he attacks another person. I see no room for animal rights on that paradigm.
Mind you, I’m not THAT upset by laws that ban animal abuse, after all, I definitely think torturing a dog is a far greater vice than shooting heroin into your own arm, but I still don’t think a dog actually has intrinsic rights like you or I do. Or even an unborn fetus. (I really hate the term “fetus” and I will probably try to avoid using it after this post, just wanted to put that on record.)
The more I read about it, the more I’m inclined to think the parents Own the children they produce. Else-wise; The State owns the children! That’s why parents are getting arrested for letting their children play in a park unattended, etc.,..
Nothing in this world goes “unowned” these days.
Somebody, or ‘some thing’ owns Everything.
Anyway, I keep thinking about hooking a minnow through the lip to catch, ‘The Big One”.
Was that a crime?
I imagine the minnow was quite aware.
I owned the minnow.
…Well, unless ‘The State’ or God stepped in to say otherwise.
Could it be that the fetus and The Minnow are the same?
Seems to me that they are.
It should be up to each family to decide how to treat their family, or minnows.
[I still wonder how David would address the question Walter Block and his friend brought up about the Biblical story of the father slaying the child because God said to do so. Perhaps I’ll never know? I see that Tor would like to resist,… but would he? I mean, it’s freaking God telling you. It’s not just an acid trip. I imagine if it Really happened to you,… you’d know.] But like I said, who owns what?
I guess I’m not totally a Rothbardian because I think the parents “own” their children until the children seek emancipation.
Otherwise; it seems to me that “parenthood” means next to nothing and is easily usurped by The State.
Ownership: “By what right”?
Let me put it this way: [as much as many people didn’t like it at the time] the old saying, “As long as you’re living under My roof, you’ll do it My way!”
Is that ownership?
Some might try and call that a trust or some shit, but, imho they are wrong. Calling it a ‘trust’ is a half-assed measure that does Not cut it.
A father either owns his household and what happens in his house, … or he does Not not! There is no middle ground, no sharing, no ‘trust’ or guardianship with others like the gunvernment. Otherwise; it’s a sharecropper kinda deal with a master.
The basics of Libertarianism roots from natural law.
Are humans exempt from natural law?
A baby bird is owned by it’s parents until it learns to fly away from the nest and fend for itself, no matter if it’s a peacock, mocking bird, cuckoo or Cowbird.
I don’t see why the sacrifice of an innocent is a problem in this case considering Christ did it willingly. He wasn’t forced to do it. He did it willingly. It would be like if you owed a million dollar fine for assaulting a judge (let’s just assume that it was an honest judge so we don’t have the vigilante justice angle at all… assume the action was unquestionably unjustifiable) and the judge’s son decides to pay it for you. In that situation you’d be free to go under current law, and I see no issue with that state of affairs. The fine was paid.
As for the “two gods” issue, the issue is that God, though three persons, is of one essence as is completely unified with himself. The three persons of the Godhead are of one common purpose.
Hi David,
Let’s take it a step farther back, for openers:
A tenet of Christianity is that the “sin” of Adam transferred to all humanity; in effect, intergenerational punishment. Worse than that, actually. Because (if you accept the idea) you and I are doomed from birth – no, from conception – because of something some guy (Adam) who died thousands of years ago did.
A pretty vicious doctrine, as I see it.
Ok.
Now we have this other doctrine. That egregious moral guilt (as distinct from a monetary debt) can be “washed away” by the blood sacrifice of an innocent.
Monstrous. The product of a sick, sadistic mind.
Then we slide into mere incoherence. The Bible very clearly has a “son” talking to his “father.” These are not permutations of the same being. That’s the sort of tortured Talmudic bullshit that turns me off to the whole Judeo-Christian rap. It claims monotheism, yet there are “sons” and “fathers” – as well as us who make man in our image. Hard to sweep all those gods under the rug.
The evil genius of Christianity is its hazy double-talk and imprecision. The “word” can be parsed to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean – and all such meanings are equally valid to those who adhere to them. None can prove that their interpretation is any more (or less) valid, either.
The average Christian’s faith dovetails with this: Be nice. Try to follow the golden rule (sort of). “Believe” in Jesus. He’s this really nice guy, who will “save” you… just don’t ask too many questions!
@Eric- You still need an objective basis for calling certain doctrines, such as Adam’s sin being passed down, “evil.”
For starters, we all would have done the same.
And second of all, we all HAVE done the same.
And third, who are we to talk back to God? Mind you, I know you don’t believe in the Christian God, but assuming he did exist, your word (And mine) would be far more arbitrary than his.
To be clear, I’m not trying to convince you to become a Christian. I think it would be wonderful if that happened, but that isn’t what I’m going for. For one thing, you wouldn’t really appreciate that on your site, but for another thing, I can’t convince you anyway.
But, I do think that your thinking is logically off here. And unfortunately, I don’t really think the abortion issue can be answered without religious presuppositions, regardless of which side you take.
And frankly, the same is true for the meat eating issue. As much as I find it repulsive, you could probably justify a ban on meat eating based on certain religious presuppositions.
Hi David,
Surely.
But that doesn’t mean “so, Jesus.” Or – to be fair – “so Mohammed” or “Zeus,” etc.
PS: I don’t like the idea of “sin.” There is right – and there is wrong. This business of Adam having “sinned” against his massa for not abiding by his rules – for seeking to know (awareness of good and evil; “eating fruit from the tree of knowledge”) strikes me as paternalistic and authoritarian. Adam harmed no one; he certainly didn’t kill anyone. He “disobeyed.” And for his “sin” – Adam – mankind – are dished out some pretty extreme punishment. Ol’ Yahweh is a pretty mean bastard, as I see it.
You write:
“who are we to talk back to God?”
This presupposes “god” exists – and that he demands servility.
I agree that the Abrahamic deity – as presented by the arbitrarily selected writings in the Christian Bible – is arbitrary.
On the abortion issue:
Scientifically (that is, on the basis of facts that can be demonstrated) we know that while a human cell (germ cell or otherwise) is “life” we do not know that a human cell is possessed of a soul.
Take away the soul – a religious idea – and I see no harm done in preventing the development of a fertilized egg into a human being. The notion of “harm” is predicated – minimally – on someone being deprived of something, or injured. Is a human ova, hours after merging with a human sperm cell, a “someone”? The religious person says yes – based on the doctrine that a soul has been created (or inserted) at the very moment of conception. But this is not scientifically (that is, factually) supportable. It may be. Just as it may be true that – someday – a man will (somehow) walk on the surface of the sun. Almost anything is possible.
But absent facts – evidence that can be checked/verified by objective standards – opposition to abortion is fundamentally an emotional (and religious) thing. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. Provided the feeler/believer does not insist that his feelings/beliefs entitle him to do violence to others who may feel/believe differently.
@Eric- When an earthly master, whether it be the government, or a literal slave master, demonstrates the ability to make me out of absolutely nothing, then sure, I’ll do whatever he says.
It isn’t going to happen.
God is unique precisely because he did this for me, and for you.
Mind you, again, I know you reject this. But if its true, you must worship him. And you cannot rightly refuse to do so simply because you do not like him.
I do not think the NAP applies directly to God. God created and thus owns all human beings.
WRT the comment about parents owning their children, I disagree, and I see no reason why every thing that exists must be owned. Children still own themselves, although their right to exercise that ownership is temporarily restricted (I would justify this by divine command, as much as I know you guys won’t agree) and thus a parent has the right to restrict their children in certain ways that they would not be entitled to do to anyone else. But, they don’t actually own their children. It is not immoral to use violence to stop someone from raping, beating (note: I’m talking about serious harm being caused, not “spanking”), or murdering their children.
I’d also recommend against posting lines of blasphemy on the website. I’m not talking about the moral discussion, but I think referring to God as a “mean old bastard” is unhelpful and going to drive people away and foster the idea that being libertarian requires one to reject Christianity. Unless that’s your intention, of course. But, I think that sort of thing is really going to tick any Christians who might be “on the fence” off…
Ok, so let me get this straight —
it’s a horrible crime against humanity for a high performance vehicle in perfect condition (that’s capable of cruising well into the triple digits comfortably and with safety) to be driven by an industry pro at 93 mph on wide and straight roads…
BUT it’s perfectly ok to operate a thirty-year-old rusted out POS with bald tires, poor brakes, ruined alignment and two bad cylinders at 70 mph on that same road?
Makes sense.
That’s the logic of american ‘speed kills’ in a nutshell. It’s also the basis of many other laws, driving or not. If you exceed the capabilities of the slowest ship in the fleet, you are to be punished.
JD: “I’m not a tenured academic. I drive a truck for a living. Sorting through this material takes a lot of work.
Donovan appears to be a man-lover in the Ancient Greek, bonobo-esque sodomy is just one item on a full menu, sort of way, however that works.
Jack Donovan is a known queer
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1000883/
Although Donovan is a homosexual himself, Androphilia, A Manifesto is a polemic directed at the gay community and contemporary gay culture. In Androphilia, Donovan employs the word androphilia to distinguish his own experience of homosexual desire, which he defines as a “Mars/Mars” attraction between two men
Androphilia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Donovan#Androphilia
Jack Donovan’s free downloads
http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/no-mans-land/
No Man’s Land
Reimagining Masculinity
Misrepresenting Masculinity : The 49% Majority
Violence is golden (doesn’t look NAP compliant lol)
http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2011/03/violence-is-golden/
― Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
“Men cannot be men—much less good or heroic men—unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men.
Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that.
A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors”
“Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. It comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction”
“People can talk tough without having to do the primitive math of violence, because they believe that law enforcement will either intervene and stop or punish an attacker.”
“When someone tells a man to be a man, they mean that there is a way to be a man. A man is not just a thing to be—it is also a way to be, a path to follow and a way to walk. Some try to make manhood mean everything. Others believe that it means nothing at all. Being good at being a man can’t mean everything, and it has always meant something”
“When men evaluate each other as men, they still look for the same virtues that they’d need to keep the perimeter. Men respond to and admire the qualities that would make men useful and dependable in an emergency. Men have always had a role apart, and they still judge one another according to the demands of that role as a guardian in a gang struggling for survival against encroaching doom. Everything that is specifically about being a man—not merely a person—has to do with that role”
“It’s tragic to think that heroic man’s great destiny is to become economic man, that men will be reduced to craven creatures who crawl across the globe competing for money, who spend their nights dreaming up new ways to swindle each other. That’s the path we’re on now. What a withering, ignoble end…”
― Jack Donovan, The Way of Men
No secret that Jack Donovan is gay, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I believe there’s some truth to what is said – and the violence, as I recall, isn’t necessarily directed at conquest or murder. Violence entails also hunting, taming the elements, climbing such things as trees, mountains… Kilimanjaro, Everest, etc. Because only by DOING these forms of violence can you also be able to inflict violence – including self-defense – effectively on others.
I believe violence is outside the good/evil range, by itself. Like money. Money isn’t inherently evil, in and of itself. It’s an exchange of value. Whether that value is of time, power, or other value, it is merely a medium of exchange.
It is our moral compass that determines that aggressive use of violence is wrong, even evil, yet defensive use of (potentially greater levels or more brutal) violence is morally acceptable.
To illustrate, a bar brawl, where a bunch of drunks take offense at your private conversation, at your table. Assuming you’re not screaming it, they had to look to overhear you. If they assault you, it’s wrong. In my view, especially in such a situation (you’re outnumbered), if you kill two or three? So what. They went looking for trouble, they found it. If you pulled your punches or were too careful in applying force, you might well be the one getting buried. You can’t take one opponent to the ground and wrestle him without the others kicking the cr@p out of you.
But drop one, and he might well serve as a warning to the others. If they keep coming, they obviously intend to kill you – you weren’t out of line in the first case (their intent was to beat you, possibly to death, in the first place.) And any subsequent damage or injuries, they instigated.
Think in terms of our ancestors, who had to work to till the land, to raise a flock, to establish themselves and a place in society. Even the Spartans, or the Samurai, or the ninja, etc – they all fought when needed, but they didn’t go around trying to prove they had the biggest dicks in the world. They might’ve subjugated an area (Spartans), or the world (Macedonians, Mongols, Romans), but they didn’t JUST go around looking for a war or a fight. Those things were costly, and many more died from minor wounds then, than do now. Not to mention famine nor the frequently high cost of war (supply lines, women and children, starvation, leaving the home front unguarded, etc.)
But there are times you don’t have a choice, you MUST stand and fight – even far from home, E.G. Leonidas, in order to make a greater good come from the current events (including your death.)
Economic man will currently stand for anything, by kneeling and bowing, and even crawling in the mud, in abject supine submission, rather than face the enemy, and his fears. Economic man is solely the Sycophant and Psychopath above. He has no intrinsic value, no internal control, no principles, no character. He would barter his body, literally, to eat gruel, rather than take a stand and face his oppressor – so that he might at least eat meat, in his own home. Better to lick the hand that beats you, than to bite it and run…
It is possible I am reading too much into this, or projecting too much onto the writing – but I agree, that by forsaking violence, even in our daily lives WRT survival, foraging, trading aggressively (IE, bartering, haggling, etc.), protecting ourselves from predators – we’ve LOST something, some PRIMAL requirement that keeps us sane and balanced. It’s a key pole of masculinity, we have merely sublimated it into something else: Wrenching a car, or watching “our team” on TV, or trading stocks – or controlling others.
All passive violence.
Passivity is not a MASCULINE trait. Being ACTIVE is. Making decisions, taking action, being in control of our lives.
There is an inherent need for violence, for struggle. Without it, we aren’t really human – it’s like the “danger” of a roller coaster, simulated, safe, under control. Like before, comparing the 70s muscle car to today’s “safe” monster road cars: it’s a bronco-busting trip in the first one, and a merry-go-round in the second, even though the second is faster and performs more efficiently and more safely.
You’re still only half-driving the new breed, whereas it took WORK to understand and control the original.
Tor, IIRC, you’re an OTR trucker.
Did you ever do time in cubeville? It sucks the life from you, and an idiot boss, or an obsessed business (IE, “LEAN” until we’re a skeleton), working 8-12 hours a day just to stay in one place? Lots of STRUGGLE – mostly to NOT kill the SOB making your life miserable.
We are turned inwards, fighting ourselves, and our natural impulses.
This is no way to live.
Sorry Jean,
I just see JD’s whole episteme as something irrelevant. Threat of lethal violence and dominant power is the ultimate currency.
I think he’s set up a false dichotomy with a missing middle.
What he calls economic man, I would call the Ralph Nader consumerist mindset. I don’t subscribe to it either. I prefer to create my own property. I consider every molecule on this planet my servant, it is my challenge and responsibility to know how to be their master.
What he calls, being a real man, the fighting and laying of hands on one another and all manner of strangers in some kind of primitive animal contest, I find infantile.
I also hate all knife work and martial arts, except watching the pros perfoming in MMA. And any castratus calisthenics and aerobics that doesn’t involve sex or the possibility of same, is of no interest.
Women especially need exertion to retain their beauty, and I enjoy spending time watching them exert themselves and doing the same if they are a partner or a potential partner. Pumping iron with the dudes? No thanks.
My kind of martial art, is driving or running to safety. And then to keep on moving, all the way down the road, and never returning to the scene of the near-conflict. I’ll just start over.
JD’s visions of “facing the enemy” is anathema. My strategy is to be the rabbit. To hide in plain sight and never communicate with aggressive beasts or mystic enslaving beasts. I try to be invisible to them.
My way of being active, is to avoid like the plague, both these species of utterly detestable losers. These twin terrors both seem well represented in high density USA. I consider both to be diseases of Yankees and Coastal Califaggots.
Who I would consider most manly, is the first nation or non-urban rugged individualist who simply lives off the land, and would have no conception of what JD is even talking about. Or for that matter, me and my market anarchist sentiments.
As a panarchist, I consider these types indispensible alpha-species of natural humanity, and would do all I could to ensure they were completely left alone to thrive, were I ever to have any success in thwarting the state.
JD’s penchant for comparing dwellers of the dust and mud to the urban metrosexual law-minded types I am surrounded by is a non-sequitir. Cliven Bundy doesn’t need nor want me as his cheerleader. He wants to be left alone to Clive On in his own way. Some people are ill-suited to intellectualism.
Scientists are concluding, that increased frequency of homosexuality in many socialized humans and animals is highly correlated with overcrowding and confinement.
So don’t forcibly overcrowd or confine anyone, it’s easy to accomplish, there’s plenty of room, and you’ll get the “optimal” amount of natural homosexuality, and all will be well.
Salvation is like wearing our Seatbelts:
The idea for this lesson came while I was driving on an interstate highway coming into the State of Tennessee from the State of Mississippi. I saw a sign that said, “TENNESSEE CARES, BUCKLE UP, STATE LAW.”
The message was clear and very simple: “We care about your physical safety, therefore, we’re telling you buckle your seat belt, but it is really not an optional thing, it is state law.”
I believe there is a spiritual analogy we can see as we look at God’s plan for saving man and the simplicity of it, as we compare it to the seat belt.
God says to us, “God cares, buckle up to the blood of my Son, Jesus Christ.” And, He reminds us, “That’s my law—it’s not an option.” We must be saved by coming into contact with the blood of Jesus Christ; we must buckle up to the blood, or come into contact with the blood of Christ.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Now, is that belief alone? How do we come into contact with the saving blood of Christ? Is the fact that the blood was shed enough to bring about forgiveness of sins? We could not say the simple fact this seat belt was manufactured according to federal standards would mean it would save my life in the event of an accident.
Just the fact this seat belt is in existence does not bring about salvation in the event of a wreck. The mere shedding of the blood of Christ does not bring about remission of sins. That would be the doctrine of universalism, the idea that all men, at all times, for all times would be saved just by the mere fact the blood of Christ was shed.
Universalism cannot be valid, because God says to us we must believe in His Son in order to have everlasting life.
But is that “faith alone” if I get into my automobile, my wife is at my side, and she reminds me to put on my seat belt, if I respond to her by saying, “Well, I believe very strongly in this seat belt. I believe in its power to save me, and if I reach around me and put it on, then I’m really failing to show my faith.
I believe this seat belt will save me, but I can’t put it on, because then I would be seeking to work out my own salvation apart from my faith in this seat belt,” she might question my sanity and say, “Let me drive!”
How would I show my faith in that seat belt? The only way I could possibly show my faith in the seat belt is by putting it on. When I put it on, I’m not doing something that negates my faith in the seat belt, I’m doing something that demonstrates my faith in the seat belt.
It’s the only way I can demonstrate my faith in the seat belt—by reaching for it and putting it on. I’m not trying to save myself apart from my faith in that seat belt.
I showed my obedient faith in the seat belt by putting it on. “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” Do you realize that the only time “faith only” is used in Scripture is in the negative sense, “not by faith only”?
Just as my faith in this seat belt has to be shown by my putting it on, I must put Christ on in baptism for the remission of my sins, based upon an obedient faith that leads me to turn from my sins in repentance, confess that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and be buried with him in baptism for the remission of sins.
Baptism is that integral part of obedient faith by which I demonstrate to God that I love Him enough, trust Him enough, to obey what He has commanded me to do. The apostle Paul reminded Christians that they had been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him to walk in newness of life.
The blood of Christ was shed in His death. Remember, the soldiers came to break the legs of those that were hanging on the crosses to hasten their death before the Sabbath. But, when they came to Jesus, they realized He was dead already, so they did not break His legs.
We find that one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and the Scripture says “…straightway there came out blood and water.” Paul clearly says, “Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” It is in baptism the blood of Christ is contacted. By our obedient faith we work together with God who saves us by His grace when we trust Him enough to obey His commands.
We are baptized into Christ and put Him on in baptism. Once we’ve been baptized into Him and have put Him on, we are in Christ. Notice: If I put on this seat belt, I am in this belt, am I not?
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.” Can I be saved out of Christ? No, I must be saved in Christ. Baptism is the final step of faith that puts me into Christ.
The subject of salvation is as simple as the operation of the seat belt. I work together with God, not earning salvation, but, by obedient faith, appropriating the wonderful, marvelous, amazing grace of God.
We are saved by God’s grace, which has made possible the simplest plan ever given to man for salvation: Believe in the only begotten Son, repent of our sins, change our mind about our life of disobedience, and confess Him with our lips, and, be buried with Him in baptism.
Then, we are in Him and He adds us to His church, of which we read in the New Testament, the pattern for which is clearly seen—the worship, work, organization, and every aspect of the Lord’s church over which Christ is head. Then I am buckled to the blood of Christ, because I’m cleansed continually by that blood.
But how do I stay buckled? Once I’m buckled, am I always buckled? There is a doctrine that says, “Once saved always saved.” The Bible clearly says I must do certain things in order to remain tied, or buckled, to the blood of Jesus Christ.
First “but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
I must confess my sins because I’m not perfect. I must confess my sins, not try to say I have no sins. I must also continue to live a faithful Christian life.
I can have security as a believer in Christ, but it’s not unconditional security. It is conditioned upon my continued obedience to the blessed will of God and my willingness to confess regularly my sins and my shortcomings.
Finally, let’s ask this question: when should I buckle up? The time to buckle my seat belt is when I first get into my automobile. The time for you to buckle up to the blood of Christ is when you first learn the truth.
When one hears the truth is the time to obey it: to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, to fully repent of sins, to confess Him as the Christ, and to be buried with Him in baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
Salvation and the Seat Belt – Truth for the World
http://truthfortheworld.org/salvation-and-seatbelt
Seven Psychopaths Movie Review – by Christian Answers
I chose to review this film based on my desire to see Christopher Walken, who I think is a great actor and often very funny.
I was hesitant, because of the R-rating, but I was willing to give it a chance. I hoped to give readers of this Web site a proper review, in case, like me, they were willing to overlook the rating and perhaps find the film’s quality worth it.
Less than 17 minutes into the film, I heard at least 17 uses of the F-word. D*mn must have been considered too mild, as I only noticed it once. D*ck once; c*nt once; b*tch once or twice; sh*t at least 3 times and a*s twice.
Within this same 17 minutes, two throats were slashed by their owners, two would-be killers shot in the head, and two other bloody bodies were shown long enough to be disturbing.
All this took place, as I said, within the first 17 minutes, at which time I stopped watching.
http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2012/sevenpsychopaths2012.html
Principles with Hannibal Lecter. What is the nature of the statist. Remember your stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius.
“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?”
What is the statist’s nature?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f33ieCWRWlI
What need does the statist serve by calling for the caging and killing of his betters? The statist covets. The statist begins by coveting what he sees every day.
[In nature, without the state: A human is a molecule. Molecules seek out stability. When we seek female companionship. Or to drive fast. Or to alter our consciousness with drugs and alcohol. We are seeking to satisfy our wants and needs, and to enjoy the molecular stability that comes from satisfaction.]
The statist seeks to use others as a means to his stability. He is weak and unable to get what he wants on his own. He looks to the state to bring him stability and satisfaction. The state preys on the statists by creating artificial scarcities. By decreeing prohibitions.
The purpose of so many laws, is to introduce a permanent dissatisfaction and instability. One that only the state itself can mitigate and satisfy. The bonds of the state are not the laws themselves, but the statists who covet the property and abilities of others. Who need the state to provide them the things they need. The things that make them go.
Actual Translation:
This, what is it in itself, and by itself, according to its proper constitution? What is the substance of it? What is the matter, or proper use? What is the form, or efficient cause? What is it for in this world, and how long will it abide? Thus must thou examine all things that present themselves unto thee.
Lecter starts by asking about a thing “in itself”, which recalls the ding an sich of Immanuel Kant. The Greek word used by Marcus Aurelius is noumenon – an object that can be known independently of the senses.
Kant argued that the “thing in itself” is ultimately unknowable. Lecter continues by asking not what the thing the man) is in itself but what it (the man) does.
To know the statist. Is to know what such a man does. Which is to covet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_covet#Ancient_usage
[You shall not covet (lust after, strongly desire to the point of initiating aggression and violence) your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.]
[Is the love of money, or of women, or of glory, or of any one of the other efficient causes of pleasure, the origin of slight and ordinary evils? Is it not owing to this passion that relationships are broken asunder, and change the good will which originates in nature into an irreconcilable enmity? And are not great countries and populous kingdoms made desolate by domestic seditions, through such causes? And are not earth and sea continually filled with novel and terrible calamities by naval battles and military expeditions for the same reason?
— Philo]
There was no coveting in the early Americas discovered by Columbus. It was demanded of one that one always traded with a neighbor who asked it of you.
You simply never held onto your property when another asked of you, “what can I bring you, so that I make trade with you for that which you have and I find pleasing.”
More of this meditation from Marcus Aurelius
Generally, wickedness does no harm at all to the universe; and particularly, the wickedness of one man does no harm to another. It is only harmful to him who has it in his power to be released from it, as soon as he shall choose.
To my own free will the free will of my neighbour is just as indifferent as his poor breath and flesh. For though we are made especially for the sake of one another, still the ruling power of each of us has its own office, for otherwise my neighbour’s wickedness would be my harm, which God has not willed in order that my unhappiness may not depend on another.
Tor, a minor nit-pick with a substantial revision:
The statist seeks to use others as a means to his stability. He is weak and unable to get what he wants on his own. He looks to the state to bring him stability and satisfaction. The state preys on the statists by creating artificial scarcities. By decreeing prohibitions.
The purpose of so many laws, is to introduce a permanent dissatisfaction and instability. One that only the state itself can mitigate and satisfy. The bonds of the state are not the laws themselves, but the statists who covet the property and abilities of others. Who need the state to provide them the things they need. The things that make them go.
First off, the conclusions are amazingly accurate, but we need one more understanding in there – that The Statist is actually a psychophant and/or a psychopath.
If I may demonstrate:
The psychophant and psychopath seek to use others as a means to stability. The psychopath is weak and unable to get what he wants on his own. He looks to the state to bring him stability and satisfaction. The state, composed of the psychopathic (power-hungry or power-lusting) side, preys on the psychophant by creating artificial scarcities. By decreeing prohibitions. Thus everyone is as needy and weak as the psychophant. The strong are weakened, made impotent, by the psychopath, all for the “strengthening” of the psychophant class. Thus the weak may attack the strong, and as the psychopaths have written laws to their own advantage, even the strong must come to the psychopath, hat in hand, to beg for Statist “empowerment.” This is also where we see the psychopath and the psychophant intersect: the power is an end in itself, for the weak (by definition) psychopath. His psychophant side is seeking approval and adoration, which he cannot achieve on his own.
But by humbling the Strong, he achieves adulation and adoration of, and power over, the psychophant herd, and – by adopting the veneer of civilized man, he also achieves adulation and adoration of the Strong man, who – being civilized – believes in using his strength for betterment of all. The Psychopath and Psychophant both envy the Strong man’s self-control, his self-mastery – as they cannot control their own appetites. These two mechanisms, psychopathy and psychophancy – one hungering for power, to gain adulation and adoration, and control over others – the external counterpart to the Strong Man’s internal source of (self-)control; the other, hungering for adoration and adulation, seeking to excuse, or be free of, his fear of others, his lack of self-control (ie, power), wishes to palce all his trust in a “better” man – but then seeks out those who will praise him for the smallest of “correct” actions, and despises those who actually ARE better, by din’t of being under control – this psychophant must have EXTERNAL controls enforced, to counter his lack of internal control – thereby completing the circle between the two.
The psychophant and psychopath are two modes of expression of the same disease. They are unstable even without other entitites in the mix, as the psyhopath and psychophant prey on each other’s weaknesses in an ever-tightening sprial – like water going down a drain. They eventually hit too tight a cycle, and go in a completely new direction. Water goes down the drain; the society of Psychophant and Pyshopath will follow the same path.
This shows purpose of so many laws: to introduce a permanent dissatisfaction and instability, which only the state itself can mitigate and satisfy. The bonds of the state are not the laws themselves, but the psychopaths and psychophants who covet the abilities of others, and use their property and even their body and soul as currency. Those who need The State to provide them the things they need and want, the things that make them go. As they imagine it to be a zero-sum game, the psychopaths and psychophants can only manage to appease each other by taking what the Strong Man has: Peace of mind, by a thousand cuts: Strikes on property, gouges on income, stabs on how one’s property may be used, slashes on when the property may be used, mangling of words, mashing of rules, misuse of religion, and finally perversion of the very law, declaring its intent to be opposite of what is says in plain words. They seek equality: the equality where all animals are equal, but some animals are MORE equal than others.
The Psyhcophants and Psychopaths are MORE equal, because they can meet each other’s wants. Therefore, The State and the two breeds of Statist create equal misery for all, since were either side to find another means to meet their needs, the gravy train ends for both. The Strong Man, meantime, believes all is civilized still. HE doesn’t realize his civil society has a cancer of Authoritarian butchery growing inside, like a parasite that takes the host’s shell, eating out the host until only the shell remains. By the time Strong Man realizes what has happened, he has been perverted himself, into coveting his neighbor’s things, or wife, or peace of mind – because the Strong Man, beseiged by the laws designed to make him weak, and thus part of The State system, have decayed his soul, fomenting avarice, hatred, envy, and lust.
Which was the whole purpose from The State’s forming.
The Strong must be humbled, so that the Psychopath and Psychophant can have their internal needs met – by an external source. The only way these external-facing creatures can meet that need, is by taking from the Strong Man, who is controlled internally. Strong Man does not NEED P & P’s external control. P & P cannot survive without it. So P & P ensure Strong Man cannot achieve his internal control, and delude themselves that they are happy in their self-imposed physical misery, and emotional, mental, and spiritual poverty.
If anything, Statists are the walking, talking, acting arguments for birth control abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide.
Like a virus, they destroy all they can, consuming all they can, to fill the emptiness inside.
Since it can never be filled – it is a longing they must look inside to correct – they destroy everything and everyone, consuming everyone and everything eventually – and finally feeding on each other.
+++
Your thoughts, sir?
I ened to re-write it to be succinct and clearer, perhaps, as it won’t lend itself to soundbytes, but more to scholarly and esoteric discussions. We need something so sweet that Boobus Amoronconus will be compelled to vote for, and to vote for in large numbers, and in many positions…. To reverse the coup with a coup. Make the promises, sell the Productive Classes, institute home defense protocols, allow a Purge….. Break all the promises to the parasite classes, leave them to burn and starve.
Then – as The Remnant – emerge and rebuild.
+++
Further note: In writing the above, I noticed my own weaknesses. Most men are aware, Manhood is an ideal; Honor, Justice, Integrity are ideals. They do not translate well into laws, but that’s the closest we’ve come.
We hold ourselves to these ideals, and when we fail, we admit it, make amends, change course to better achieve the Ideals.
I noticed I’ve fallen far shorter than I thought I could, and I need to address that and correct it.
Of note, the Clovers, the Statists – they celebrate the weakness as strength. We will always be at war, but we can slant the game in our favor by keeping the Psychopath out of office, and by elevating the Psychophant through normal human interactions. Better than culling them, I just am concerned our society is too cancer-ridden to interrupt the cycle(s) before we implode / go down the drain. In such a case, the cycles need to be accelerated, while we hoard what is useful. (Take a cue from the Jews: SKILLS are more valuable, as anything that requires equipment – equipment can be taken. Knowledge cannot be taken. Tools can be replaced. We can talk about how the complexity of society makes – by intent, of course – some skills less relocatable. Knowing US operating systems and troubleshooting doesn’t mean you can relocate to Asia, for example: the machines are different, the software is different. Knowing US cars is good, but knowing US cars when only European cars are in use, not so much. Accounting knowledge, when cash-based, is good. When credit-based, the accounting mechanisms and rules change – and the games begin, too. But still it is transportable, unless you know only single-entry Cash accounting, and work in a world of only Credit transfers…. Etc.)
For those who haven’t read it, I’ll suggest “The Way of Men” by Jack Donovan. Gives us a good starting point, and it’s a quick read.
Jean I am with you, and this seems quite brilliant. I would alter the following:
If anything,Statists arethe walking, talking, acting arguments for birth control abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide.[add in italics]
creatures with a simplistic genome. A hollowed out low-content approach to life. Steal. Oppress. Kill. Replicate. Repeat. They know whats wrong with others. And how to exploit this knowledge. But they have nothing of their own going on.
Like a virus, they destroy all they can, consuming all they can, to fill the emptiness inside. Truly a monotone unfulfilling way to conduct your life, in my opinion.
– – –
The Jews and Chinese are the most ancient continuously existing cultures in the world. Over many centuries, the European Jews were forbidden “manly occupations” and were instead used as a kind of intelligent house slave and gopher.
I would say that the original Rome still exists, though it’s now an Islamic Empire with Instanbul as its capital.
In their lands, Muslims take great pains to be alpha males, and forbid Christians and others from living as a true men among them unless there is conversion to their faith.
The Chinese laborers sold to Americans seem to have been similarly discouraged from asserting their manhood. I wish I knew more specifics.
Truly I think you’re on the right path here. It’s a Tabula Rasa situation. It’s best to start from square one with a blank slate, and re-imagine a more livable and enjoyable world for non-statist men and women alike.
I remember the stupidest speeding ticket I ever got. I was 18 years old, and living in New Hampshire. The cops there, like everywhere else, were evil little bastards who were all about the revenue. I was popped for doing 30 in a school zone (speed limit 15 MPH). Now get this, it was the middle of the night a few days before Christmas (the kids were all on Christmas break) and it was snowing so hard you couldn’t see the road signs.
“Serve and protect”….. yeah, right.
Just the other day, I saw a porker lying in wait. He was parked along a road that’s adjacent to a walking/biking path. The speed limit is 15 MPH, walking speed. Within 5 minutes, he’d found a victim.
Imagine spending your days that way.
Yikes, and I thought I was unproductive, lol!
Stop traveling in the state, stop buying from the state, and simply boycott them.
Tell all your friends to do the same.
I racked up numerous speeding tickets living in VA for six years, four of which were in Blacksburg, VA and the other two in the DC area. I’ve been ticketed on I-81 twice for doing 76 & 78 MPH on a stretch of the road that had a 10 mph reduction in the posted speed limit. There are multiple five mile sections on I-81 where the speed limit is 60 MPH. 60 MPH on a major highway! That’s approximately, $160 each time (not including the increase in insurance premium) and two wasted mornings at the courthouse (I would have never driven back to those middle-of-nowhere courthouses if I had known that judges would show no leniency for people who make the effort to show up).
My first speeding citations in VA came in college on the outskirts of Virginia Tech’s campus. Here, they ticketed a college sophomore, with no money and for what? Harm I MIGHT have caused…doing 35 MPH?
What’s even worse, is your first traffic offenses in VA. You have the ability to remove your first offense from your record if you attend an 8-hour driving course for $150. Naturally, you take that option, so now you’re back to zero. Your next citation after that is considered your first offense and guess what’s mandatory in VA for first time traffic offenders? An 8-hour driving course! I attended that tax-dollar wasting joke twice. Apparently, I didn’t learn because my dangerous driving habits continued while living in Arlington, VA.
It doesn’t matter where you are in Arlington, every speed limit is under posted. Side roads, toll-roads, major highways and not surprisingly, traffic is awful. My worst experience was when I was issued a speeding ticket and the cop wrote 9PM for the time I was due in court. I show up at 9PM and the doors were locked, so I walked around the corner to the police station, knocked on the door for ten minutes and was finally greeted by a cop who suggested I come back tomorrow. Not even considering that people work during the day, his brilliant advice was ‘come back tomorrow.’ I called instead. It took multiple phone calls to various people to get the date changed, they didn’t even drop the charges for my trouble. In a perfect example of incompetence, I was issued a suspended license notice for not showing up in court; the judge didn’t realize the carbon copy of my citation he had in front of him said 9PM!
I finally decided to job search elsewhere and left VA for FL. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Eric,
When I was a pup just out of the Navy (1971), I became a deputy in a large county out west. After the “protect and serve” BS at the academy I was assigned to a veteran patrol deputy who told me to forget everything else and cover my ass and those of my fellow predators. The daily routine was to screw over as many “citizens” as we could. Those are the ones who have something to lose. Unfortunates, drifters, druggies, etc. would disappear into the desert. (Shoot, shovel and shut up…). I quit after eight months. Nothing has improved in the intervening years. Cops are cowards, predators and bullies. Psychopaths is too good a term. I avoid them like the plague they are.
Uncle Bill
24 years ago, at 19 years old, I received a ticket for “speed in excess of 100mph” in SoCal, that ticket was $1200 alone and the cop/judge threw in an “illegal lane change”(for not using my turn signal) charge for an extra $360 or so…probably as a joke(to them).
I had never received a speeding ticket before. The cop witnessed me jump dukes of hazard style over a hill, slide the car sideways across two lanes of same direction traffic(68′ T-Bird with 390 V8) billowing smoke from the rears, only to see me finally hook it up and shoot onto a freeway on ramp like being launched out of a cannon. He was writing a ticket to someone who got lucky at the time of witnessing it and had to leave the job unfinished.
I’m actually not sure if I actually got up to 100mph on the freeway, the car was really a handful at 100mph+ speeds and I had five buddies in the car, but no matter….after 10 mins or so of cruising down the freeway unaware(and dialing it back down to 70mph, standard I-10 traffic speed at the time) for 10 mins that a hero in blue witnessed the whole event, he caught up and pulled me over.
He came over the bullhorn and told me and my buddies to remain in the car, but put our hands out the window while he called for backup.
After his backup came, he stepped out of his car, drew his weapon, and made us get out 1 at a time with guns pointed at our backs and walk backwards out of the car.
I only heard the story of what he witnessed in front of the judge a few months later…after the cop recounted the events, but added “I tried to catch him but my speedometer was pinned at 130mph and he was still pulling away” the judge asked me what I had to say for myself:
My 19 year old, dumb ass answer: “Your honor, my car won’t go that fast.”
He pounded the gavel, fined me $1600(which was breath taking for me at the time, I had no idea), and asked if I wanted to do jail or pay the fine….I asked if I could do payments…and did…for four years. He took my license too, but when I told him I would lose my job gave me a provisional one for three months.
I offer this story with no further comment other than I have went to jail for speeding even after this event. You may call me stupid, but I have NEVER hit anyone driving a vehicle, EVER.
Thankfully, this was BEFORE they started making such things felonies….even in times when my lack of judgement as a youth was readily apparent…I can say that I’m at least thankful to not have been branded such as it follows you through life.
My sorrow is for the younger generations, who get crushed under the boot of our loving government for being just that, youth…by a entity that is supposedly there to “protect you”.
I remember, back in NY once, picking up a junk car in this nice subdivision- in the time I was there, this pig was hiding on a side street, and he nailed two cars just in the short time I was there, for rolling through a 3 way stop, when no other cars or pedestrians were anywhere in sight. This, while meanwhile, not half a mile away, across a state highway, was “the hood”, where at any given time, you could find real crimes occurring, with actual victims being damaged….but the pig thought it better (safer; more lucrative) to ticket harmless white people in nice cars, wearing suits, who pay $10K a year in property taxes to pay the >$100K salaries of the Suffolk County NY pigs [Google it!].
I HATE what this country has become!
I live in Suffolk County and I know a cop who works in Suffolk County. The average salary being like 100K sounds about right. And, they pretty much provide no useful services. I’m with you, Moleman. I’m ticked too. Thankfully, I’m leaving NY in a couple weeks for college.
Ironically, I managed to avoid ever being ticketed for a moving violation in my 39 years in NY/Suffolk- Just luck!
$100K isn’t the average salary for a pig in Suffolk. STARTING pay is actually a little over $100K. After a few years- and especially with over-time and all, many of the Nazis are making over $200K. Most conductors on the LIRR are making well over $100K. Ditto teachers. Any gov’t/union job…. Hope ya get to see a saner part of the country [relatively speaking] when you go to college.
You should have seen Suffolk in the 70’s- it was paradise. They’ve ruined it. I grew up in Ronkonkoma, and it was idyllic at the time….. Boy, how it has changed!
I’m going to Northern Virginia. Probably comparatively more sane. I’ll be surrounded by conservatives though, and I’ll probably be the only ancap, which is nothing new for me…
RE: “Probably comparatively more sane.”
Ha! THAT was funny.
…Have you seen the film, ‘Animal House’?
Oh my god.
David, you poor bastard.
Gird your proverbial loins, son.
You are in for an – uh – experience…
@Eric- Can it really be any worse than Long Island?
What good will it do to run? They photograph your plates.
I’ve always felt that since these revenue collectors are de facto agents of the insurance carriers, the insurance carriers ought to pay commissions (kickbacks) to the revenue collectors (not to them personally but to the public agencies that employ them) so that the cost to the public, in terms of the budgets required to maintain these enforcement agencies, might be reduced. These citations are a form of selective taxation that the public supports on account of our belief that certain sorts of behavior endangers us. The media implants in our minds the equation that speeding = recklessness, speeding being whatever the prevailing authority designates by its posted imits.
The irony is that when the authorities make an example of someone like George as a means of intimidating the public to obey posted speed limits, if the intimidation is successful, fewer motorists will violate these limits and revenue collections from violations would go down, requiring a further lowering of speed limits as a means to trap the public or another means of obtaining revenue from the motoring public over and above what the public already pays for the “privilege” of operating motor vehicles.
Lee, the lost revenue/lowering of speed limits is a perfect explanation as to why they are lowering the city-wide speed limit in NYC to [get this…] 25MPH! Can you believe it? The “Greatest city [LOL] in the world” being hamstrung with a 25MPH limit? They may as well all be driving riding-lawnmowers! Of course, no one in NY could ever drive that slow (Think what it would cost the cabbies and deliverymen?!)- so in addition to having to use bazillions of dollars in fiat-printed dollars to install millions of new speed-limit signs and speed bumps across the city (they’re actually going to do that!), they will basically just be able to pinch any driver, any time of day or night, ’cause a city of 8 million people can not possibly have traffic moving at only 25MPH.
The attacks on driving, especially in big cities are at least in some cases Rockefeller foundation funded efforts and part of the greater agenda 21 vision of compact cities where people live in a small radius, limited to transit, etc and so on.
NYC sucks. I don’t even like visting.
The thing with NYC is how fast you can safely drive differs big time depending on time of day. We’ve driven through it really early in the morning before (I’m talking like 4 or 5 AM) and the roads were pretty clear, you could safely (though not legally, of course) drive quite fast. By contrast, go in at rush hour and its hard to drive 10MPH at times:p
With the new speed limit, it will be like rush-hour all the time. People who will tolerate living in such a place, and paying top dollar to do so though, will put-up with anything. Best day of my life was when I got out of that area! It is one of the least-free places on earth. I had customers who emmigrated from Russia, and who went back, because after lif3e in NY, they thought America was a joke- and said they had much more freedom in Russia- and this was in the 90’s!
PaulTCD, that was absolutely brilliant!
Initiating Aggression Due To Coveting Another’s Property Is The Root Of All Evil
Another restatement true to Koine Greek:
[pleonexia Short Definition: covetousness, avarice
Definition: covetousness, avarice, aggression, desire for advantage.]
Coveting is the root of all evil
http://biblehub.com/greek/4124.htm
In many languages, throughout anarchist circles worldwide, this desire for plundering that which is not yours is known as – THE BLACK ROSE.
Orthodox Anarchist Purists understand that all plunder must be abjured.
Unfortunately, they’re a small minority not allowed to speak. Far more numerous FSA “reform anarchists” claim the right to plunder from the plunderers.
IWW cuckolds have invaded the nests of the Anarchists
They took and co-opted the black rose, first as a black hand reaching for the black rose, now showing only the black hand clasped in a fist.
Many anarchists advocate assaulting the rich and powerful and taking the means of production controlled by those holding illegitimate power into their own hands by force of numbers and acts of overwhelming local violence.
That is incorrect. That is the false egg of Cuckoo Anarchists. True Anarchists eggs have been ejected and lie vulnerable and unprotected on the ground.
The Black Rose is called Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas in latin.
Radix malorum est cupiditas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_malorum_est_cupiditas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#Black_cat
Wild (Black) Cat – thrown into discussions by anarchists
Anarchist (Black) Cross – symbolizes anarchists world-wide goal of eliminating all prisons
The Black Rose is a little used symbol of the anarchist movement. The Black Rose can be traced to the Irish song about their struggle against the British, “Little Black Rose”. The song is one of resistance and rebellion, and as such aligns to the general view adopted by anarchists of anti-authoritarianism.
Jolly Roger / Pirate flag
A black pirate flag with skull and bones.
The Jolly Roger is flown as a form of appreciation for the Pirate way of life in freedom and a lack of authority.
Many Pirate ship mates were working class fugitives from highly repressive societies. Anarchists find affinity with the concept of pirate utopias, especially the island, Libertatia.
Libertatian pirates have been identified as precursors to anarchists. Some anarchist hacktivists and infoanarchists consider themselves pirates due to their free lifestyles in the world of technology and their defiance of intellectual property laws by way of copyright infringement, patent infringement and software piracy, all of which are called piracy.
The Black Hand was an alleged secret and violent anarchist organization supposedly founded in Andalucia, Spain in the late 1800s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mano_Negra
Anarchy Stock Photos and Images
http://www.123rf.com/stock-photo/anarchy.html
The Black Rose Society – Anarchist History of Los Angeles
http://www.blackrosesociety.org
May the ancient ghosts of the cuckolded lustration priests haunt you all…
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.
One of the 50 bibles of Constantine, its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.
Only one other nearly complete manuscript of the Christian Bible – Codex Vaticanus (kept in the Vatican Library in Rome) – is of a similarly early date. The only manuscripts of Christian scripture that are definitely of an earlier date than Codex Sinaiticus contain small portions of the text of the Bible.
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/
The Eridu Genesis
http://www.piney.com/EriduGen.html
Eridu – The First City of the World (5400 BC)
http://www.ancient.eu.com/eridu/
The Harps That Once… – Sumerian Myth – Cuckolded By Christians – Via the Ancient Israelite Elite In Babylonian Exile
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/enki/eridugen.htm
Let me bethink myself of my humankind,
all forgotten as they are; and mindful of mine,
Nintur’s creatures let me bring them back
let me lead the people back from their trails.
May they come and build cities and cult places,
that I may cool myself in their shade;
may they lay the bricks for the cult cities in pure spots
and may they found places for divination in pure spots!
The firstling of those cities, Eridu,
she gave to the leader Nudimmud,
the second, Bad-Tibira, she gave to the prince and the sacred one,
the third, Larak, she gave to Pabilsag,
the fourth, Sippar, she gave to the gallant Utu.
The fifth, Shuruppak, she gave to Ansud.
These cities, which had been named by names,
and had been allotted half-bushel baskets,
dredged the canals, which were blocked with purplish
wind-borne clay, and they carried water.
Their cleaning of the smaller canals
established abundant growth.
At that time, Ziusudra was king and lustration priest.
He fashioned, being a seer, the god of giddiness
and stood in awe beside it, wording his wishes humbly.
Step up to the wall to my left and listen!
Let me speak a word to you at the wall
and may you grasp what I say, may you heed my advice!
By our hand a flood will sweep over
the cities of the half-bushel baskets, and the country;
the decision, that mankind is to be destroyed
has been made.
A verdict, a command of the assembly cannot be revoked,
an order of An and Enlil is not known
ever to have been countermanded,
their kingship, their term, has been uprooted
they must bethink themselves of that.
Now… What I have to say to you…
After the flood had swept over the country,
after the evil wind had tossed the big boat
about on the great waters, the sun came out spreading light over heaven and earth.
Ziusudra then drilled an opening in the big boat.
And the gallant Utu sent his light
into the interior of the big boat.
Ziusudra, being king, stepped up before Utu kissing the ground before him. The king was butchering oxen, was being lavish with the sheep
You here have sworn by the life’s breath of heaven
the life’s breath of earth that he verily is allied with yourself; you there, An and Enlil,
have sworn by the life’s breath of heaven,
the life’s breath of earth. that he is allied with all of you.
He will disembark the small animals that come up from the earth!
Ziusudra, being king, stepped up before An and Enlil
kissing the ground. And An and Enlil after honoring him
were granting him life like a god’s, were making lasting breath of life, like a god’s, descend into him.
That day they made Ziusudra, preserver,
as king, of the name of the small animals and the seed of mankind, live toward the east over the mountains, eternally in mount Dilmun.
This article below was an interesting read. According to the author he was told by a Va cop he had 5 points on his licence, but they are somehow points awarded for being a good driver??? Maybe your friend at Jalopnik will be fortunate enough to have these points offset each other?
http://www.enlightenedredneck.com/2014/08/05/busted-for-being-a-good-driver/
Latest from VA:
http://www.enlightenedredneck.com/2014/08/05/busted-for-being-a-good-driver/
http://thestrangestbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/i-dont-always-drive-95-in-a-55.png
Eric, always follow the money. This has everything to with money and nothing more.
I give Eric a ticket for speeding and the faster you go over the speed limit means more $$$$$$ for my department. The judicial system now imposes hefty fines on top of that. The third pinch is now your insurance company who lobbied for “mandatory” insurance begins sharpening their knives. They know you need to drive just to survive….$$$$$$$$$.
Almost every problem in this country comes down to money. Everything is an industry that will fight to protect its troth. Think DEA, Dept of Education, Homeland Security, Speed Enforcement, Cancer Industry, War, Socialism and so on….you must get the point.
Money is the root of all evil, but money (actually value, perceived or real) is also what makes the world go ’round (the potential to acquire value drives innovation).
Food and water are the most basic forms of currency (value). People would kill for food and water if their survival depended on it. Does this make food and water/any form of value the root of all evil/problems?
Is this something that can be fixed? I would enjoy anyone’s thoughts on this.
“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Wealth is morally neutral; there is nothing wrong with money, in and of itself, or the possession of money. However, when money begins to control us, that’s when trouble starts.
Shouldn’t that be: “when The Things money Buys begins to control us, that’s when trouble starts.”?
I read somewhere that money is energy. That money represents energy.
I’m thinking money is stored energy.
The unitedstate Dollar is currency. Some people call it money. I suppose it is. But if you think of money as energy, calling a unitedstate Dollar a currency makes a lot of sense.
My wallet is an electrical conduit…. ‘er no,… it’s a capacitor.
Helot,
My wallet is an electrical conduit…. ‘er no,… it’s a capacitor.
Two words, sir, and not “good morning.” 😉
My wallet appears to be a singularity, the money goes in, and a thin beam of X-ray radiation escapes at the center… And there’s no more money! 😛
aka, having a wife… (Or reasonable facscimile thereof.)
“The love of money is the root of all evil” is one of the most misquoted, and misused of all quotations in the Bible. The Bible was originally written in Greek, and in the original Greek it says “the love of silver is the root of all evil”. But in ancient Greece, “love of silver” was a euphemism for avarice–the desire for something that does not belong to you.
A far more accurate translation of that scripture would be “The desire for things that do not belong to you is the root of all evil.” And that is far more accurate an assessment of man and his behavior than “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Think about it: Sexual assault is evil. Is that motivated by money? Of course not. But it is accurate to say “the desire for something that does not belong to you” (in this hypothetical case, the sexual enjoyment of someone who is not willing to share their body with you) is the root of this evil….
Obviously, this error has not been corrected because it is much too useful for the powers that be to demonize money and the healthy love and respect of it. Ayn Rand made an excellent case for that in Atlas Shrugged.
Hi Paul,
That is top drawer; thank you for the explanation!
Also, good to see you around again!
@Eric- Evangelical Protestants do vary a bit in how exactly they deal with homosexuality. I feel like my church handles it pretty well. They are clear that it is a sin, and they’d never tolerate it in our church. It is occasionally addressed in a prayer, but not obessively so. I’ve never heard an entire sermon preached on the subject. We don’t go out of our way to discuss it or to avoid discussing it but we discuss it as it comes up in Biblical texts.
I don’t agree with churches that do not take homosexuality seriously, nor do I agree with hyper-fundamentalists that act like that’s the only sin in the world.
Admittedly, I don’t think my church’s handling of the military is as good as its handling of homosexuality. But, its still better than most. There are no “God and country” services. There is no honoring of the military as part of the service. While most members of the church are probably pro-military (I have personally talked to some who are not) the statement of faith in our church doesn’t mention the military at all. There are occasionally prayers that thank the troops for fighting for our freedoms, but these prayers aren’t scripted in advance (in other words, its not the church who’s deciding to do that, its one specific person who happens to be praying from the pulpit that week.) Even that bugs me, to be honest. More than a little bit.
Part of the issue is that homosexuality is an absolute issue in the Bible, while military “service” is not.
Homosexuality is wrong, period (again, according to the Bible.) There’s no situation where a man can have sex with another man and that be Biblically OK. There’s nothing at any point in the Bible that even hints at supporting that.
Warfare and killing are admittedly slightly more complicated. I don’t think that complicated, but still somewhat more. God commanded the Israelites to go to war in certain conditions. There is nothing in the Bible that condemns joining the military and fighting defensively.
But, just like we wouldn’t defend the Nazi German army just because defensive war can be just, and because God commanded the Israelites to wage war at times, we shouldn’t defend the American army for these reasons either. The bottom line, which many people don’t realize, is that America is the aggressor in these wars.
I’ve gone back and forth on whether this is a moral disagreement or a disagreement on facts. I think it depends on the person, but too often I think its moral disagreement. I really do have a problem, on principle, with the fact that most people in my congregation probably believe that it was justified to drop atom bombs on Japan. This is just blatant obvious murder and terrorism. The War in Iraq, which was a preemptive war, is similar. I’ll be the first to agree with you that these subjects are more important than homosexuality, and its not easy for me to deal with being in the position i’m currently in. Its really hard to listen to someone teach about pretty much anything else until you know they have something as basic as “Don’t drop bombs on defenseless civilians, ever” down… So, yeah, I’m struggling with some of the same things from the inside as you are from the outside.
Thanks for the correction all. Of course, I’ve never heard of it as “The love of…”.
“the desire for something that does not belong to you is the root of all evil” works for any scenario I can think of. Thanks.
Interesting how the socialists use the inherent trait of greed in human-nature to enslave entire societies. They use people’s covetousness to make them think that they are legally robbing their neighbor- and the fools are too stupid to realize, that by empowering such, they are enabling the robbing of themselves and their children.
It is also very interesting to note that the Tenth Commandment, from the Old Testament, is “Thou shalt not covet”, which means “Don’t desire things that don’t belong to you.”
Hey, many of the people here have gone to church on a regular basis for at least part of their lives. Have you ever one heard a sermon or been to a Bible study about not coveting? I am willing to bet that of all the readers here, not one has ever heard that sermon from an American pastor.
Gee, I wonder what’s wrong with American Christianity these days?
Hi Paul,
You’ve done a service bringing up this point. If the Christians I’ve dealt with talked more about that – about not coveting – than they do about “the gay agenda” and “support our troops” – I’d be much more inclined to listen to other things they might have to say….
@Eric- I actually do think there is such a thing, to a certain degree, as a gay agenda. Its borders are more limited than some Christians think it is (ie. its not “every homosexual”) but it does exist.
THere is definitely a segment of people that are unwilling to accept anything less than total acceptance of that lifestyle. People like me, who don’t want to interfere with the peaceful activities of homosexuals but will proclaim that they believe such activities are immoral, are labeled as “bigots” and “homophobes” by these people. Now, if these people were libertarians, that wouldn’t be so bad. So they shun me, so what? But these people aren’t libertarians. To these people, being a bigot or a homophobe is a hate crime.
All that said, homosexuality has never been a monstrous obsession in my church specifically. I’ve heard it mentioned in a negative light, of course (And I believe rightfully so) but I don’t think its ever been the focus of the entire sermon, and we definitely talk about other sins to. That said, to me war is far worse a sin than homosexuality, and I don’t know many people who agree with me there.
Now “support the troops” is complete and total nonsense. Not ever going to happen, not from me anyway. I’m not OK with murder.
Here’s my beef, David.
The demented obsession so many evangelicals have with homosexuality. It’s demented because it’s disproportionate. I have read the Ten Commandments and the New Testament. No mention of homosexuality in the former and virtually no mention in the latter. Yet – the way evangelics often go on and on about it – you’d think it (homosexuality) was the Most Important Thing in The World.
These same people often cheer (as well as tacitly embrace) militarism – i.e., the slaughter of innocent people – and reverence temporal authority (the flag, the nation) and never or rarely question covetousness – much less condemn it to the extent they probably ought to given its prominent mention as “sinful” in both the Decalogue and the New Testament.
The shrill moralizing about personal conduct between consenting adults – while remaining silent or outright approving of conduct that entails taking other people’s things by force, using force to control people (and so on) annoys me beyond words. There’s a petty meanness to it – and (based on some personal knowledge as well as abundant anecdotal evidence) gross hypocrisy beneath the proverbial surface, too.
My experience has been that people who are obsessed with homosexuality and make a big deal of it in their public utterances – condemning it with almost fanatic zeal – very often have (cue a bit from The Greaseman Show back in the ’80s) a latent predisposition to the attraction to other hombres…
David, It kinda seems to me you missed something when eric wrote, “If the Christians I’ve dealt with talked more about that – about not coveting – than they do about “the gay agenda”…”
It seems like many “Christians” are saying they are OK with murder, but this other stuff – this ‘controlling others’ stuff – it should be front page news. Forget about the rest.
I mean, look at this example and ask yourself: are these guys more concerned with how others freely interact with people – or – could they give a shit less about their gunvernmint using nuclear bombs in the Mideast to blow up children and innocents – And – do they give a rats ass about covetous?
You know, “Covetous”: the Root of All Evil!
What Is their priority? [Is it about getting money?] Is their priority helping people who Want to live a certain way – or – is their priority that of forcefully controlling everyone?
[Not to say I don’t disagree with what they are saying, it’s just that I’m considering the bigger picture here. “They” say you’ve Got to pick and choose the battles you fight. Are these guys swatting at flies while a bull with horns charges them? Are they hacking at The Root of a poison Ivy bush, or are they brushing away leaves?]:
“Peter LaBarbera and his Canadian Christian host Bill Whatcott were arrested in Regina, Saskatchewan, for preaching the Gospel on a university campus. When they began calmly and peacefully sharing about biblical sexual morality”
I’m Wanted For ‘Hate Crimes’ In Canada
@Eric- Homosexuality is implicitly addressed by the seventh commandment. Mind you, I know its technically not adultery in the literal sense if the party in question isn’t married (Gay marriage is Biblically impossible and God does not recognize the existence of gay marriage, according to the Bible) but the principle is there. Genesis 2:24 talks about man and woman becoming one flesh. Man and man is a perversion of that. And, while I know Christ himself makes no DIRECT mention of homosexuality, Paul is very explicit in Romans 1 that its a sin.
Mind you, I agree with your basic point. I have no interest in preventing someone from engaging in a homosexual lifestyle if that’s what he wants to do. I may state my opinion of it, depending on the situation (I don’t actively go looking for homosexuals to tell to repent, but I’d have no qualms about saying I believe its a sin if it came up.) But, I certainly have no interest in preventing them from doing it. I do not, however, believe that people who engage in such behaviors should be permitted to join the church (note: When I say “permitted to join the church”, I am saying that Bible believing churches should not allow such people to join them, NOT that any law should prohibit liberal churches from allowing such people to join if that’s what they want to do.)
Sexual sin is a serious matter in the Bible, and I’m not sure you can appreciate why its so serious unless you are a believer yourself. That said, I can still agree with you that it doesn’t compare to murder in severity, and a lot of evangelicals are OK with that. It makes me sick even thinking about it. The only thing I can say in their defense (and its still a pretty weak defense) is that some of them are actually stupid enough to think the military is defending their freedom and don’t actually think critically enough about the wars in question and what they are doing. The more I talk to people the more stupid I think the average person is. Most people are just sickened by the idea of engaging in rational thought. But then, I’m not neurotypical, and basic coordination tasks can sometimes be harder for me than seemingly more complex tasks like rationalizing one’s way to anarcho-capitalism. I am not normal and I will never understand how normal people think.
That Was Great! PaulTheCabDriver.
Thanks.
I think that’ll stick with me for the rest of my life.
Paul the Cab Driver, as Smokey and the Miracles said “if you have the notion, I second that emotion”.
Brandonjin. Yes food and water are used as a form of currency in less industrious countries. Yes governments have used them to control their populations. The “evil” part only comes into play if the reasons to control food and water come out of necessity or profit/control. Think FDA controlling every aspect of what we consume that only benefits mega corporations…..at your health/financial detriment.
JoePA,
I believe you meant “less industrialized,” not “less industrious.” Anyway, in many parts of Africa and Asia that are not overrun by banksters, cell phone minutes are used as currency.
BTW – the New Covenant was written in Greek, but the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) was written in – wait for it – Hebrew. Any time you see and English translation saying “money,” the word in Hebrew is Keseph, silver.
PTB…thanks for correcting the typo. Yes “Silver” prior to fiat money times meant money.
Correct. It is all just “business” if you are on or using their property. Problem is that no one asks the question of the prosecutor – “What evidence is there that this law or regulation applies to me?”.
This compounded by the fact that most think they are on land in the “United States” while traveling in an automobile with out ever asking for the definition and nature of that place.
We must make it difficult for these parasites.
At the beginning of the trial: “Your Honor, before we begin here, I need to ask, am I guaranteed a fair hearing?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Free from any conflicts of interest in the various parties?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you your Honor.”
Later in the trial: “And officer friendly, can you please tell me who it is you work for? Who do you represent here today?”
“The City of Phoenix.”
“And your honor, who do you represent here today?”
Long, pregnant pause…..
“The City of Phoenix.”
“Your Honor, I move to dismiss this case based on a conflict of interest.”
Next speeding ticket I get, I’m trying that one.
Dear Paul,
“Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” was a misprint.
The actually wording was
“Government of the people in government, by the people in government, and for the people in government. “
Government of the people in government, by the people in government, and for the people in government. … with domination, and subjugation for all. So help you all,… pay up!
To each, according to his (or her) level of success, …pay up!
…And, bow down.
There’s a caste system in America, don’tchyaknow?
Titles available on TOR Onion Darknet:
starring Ali Rose: – Dirty Float, Unreserved Open Market Governess, Too Big To Fail, Quantitilating Easings, Foreign Swap Arrangements, Subprime Legal Tender
I know this isn’t the point of the article but, why is animal cruelty a crime?
Mind you, I understand that its disgusting and immoral. But, do animals actually have rights? To my understanding the NAP only applies to humans. So it seems to me that animal cruelty, while wrong, should not be a crime.
Thoughts?
This is why animal cruelty and nearly everything else is a crime:
“We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them…you create a nation of lawbreakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden.”
– Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum
Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum…would that be AYN’s real name???
You guessed it. That was her Russian Empire non-observant Jewish bourgeois family slave name.
In addition to the usual reasons that people change their names upon entering Hollywood, Rand may have intended to protect her relatives in Russia, who could be punished for the ideas and arguments she expressed through her screenplays, short stories, and novels.
“I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.
I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!
I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.
I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born.
I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.
I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey.
And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.
Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.
For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.
The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it.
It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?
But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
This god, this one word:
I.”
– AZR – aka Ali Rose – her porn name
OK – now I need you to explain that last one – Ali Rose – her porn name – say whaaat???
“In addition to the usual reasons that people change their names upon entering Hollywood, Rand may have intended to protect her relatives in Russia, who could be punished for the ideas and arguments she expressed through her screenplays, short stories, and novels.”
Or to conceal the fact that she was jewish
K-
http://irishsavant.blogspot.com/?zx=ce636c9fdd08ebab
David – I’m fairly confident that you believe we have dominion over the animals based on your previous posts. Obviously, since most of us eat them, animals do not have rights. But we are to treat them humanely up until the time of their slaughter. Humane may very well mean different things to different people. Many people do, erroneously in my opinion, elevate animal life to the same level as human life.
By playing on dog / cat / horse / bunny lovers’ emotions with “OMG, look what they’re doing to those poor animals!” the control freaks are able to justify more laws to increase their power. “Animal abuse” has become a crime in much the same manner as self medication, or exceeding an arbitrary velocity or drinking a glass of wine if you are under a certain age even with your parents’ permission because this is about power, control and cronyism, not real crime.
In some places it’s legally animal abuse if you “deny” an animal veterinary care. Let’s say you have a dog that’s so old and sick or has been hit by a car and is suffering so you decide it’s time for him to be “put down.” By law, at the very least you may have to carry that animal to a vet and have him euthanized at a great deal of expense…and profit for the vet. But don’t you dare take him out back and put a bullet in his head; that’s cruelty to animals and money out of the vet’s pocket. You either pay the vet or if you get caught, you pay the fine and possible jail time. But if Officer Jackboot walks into your fenced yard uninvited and pops a couple of caps into “Bo-bo” because he felt threatened by the dog, it’s not “animal cruelty” no matter that it actually is. So much for equal protection under the law…
As Tor pointed out in his post, government players can effectively ignore all of our rights and do whatever they like to us with impunity if we’re “criminals.” Obviously it’s in the PTB’s and their enforcers’ best interests to do whatever it takes to make us all criminals. This is just one more example of how that’s done.
Boothe, I agree that animals should be treated humanely. The question is, if someone does not do so, what should that mean? Should that be a crime like murdering or stealing from another person is? Or should that be considered a vice that, while offensive, is not criminal?
I’d tend toward the latter, though I’m open to being convinced. I don’t think its “OK” to torture an animal. But I’m not sure I have the right to use violence to stop it like I would if a person were being harmed.
Also, BTW: The officers that shoot other people’s dogs should themselves be shot. When you use the State’s uniform to protect you when you commit crimes against other people’s property, you deserve whatever you get. And I don’t even like dogs.
David,
Hope you don’t mind if I chime in real quick to some of your points. I’d like to point out the harsh penalties for those who harm or kill a police dog… Even while it’s chewing your leg off. While these rats are permitted to go around shooting people’s animals and AT WORST lose their ‘job’. THAT disgusts me.
As far as animal cruelty goes I’ve gotten to the point with just about everything David where I just almost can’t stand any type of nosing into people’s business because of where that leads. I truly believe most things in a greyish area can be handled by community shame, disassociation, and stuff like that.
I think we will all find out how much personal responsibility will be required to return in people if we just got rid of all or most of this government bullshit.
@PreacherRye- Good points all the way around, I completely agree. I think violence is justified ONLY in order to prevent aggressive actions against other people or to punish such actions once they have been proven to have occurred.
Anything else, however distasteful, should be handled, as you said, some way other than violence.
And yes, cops are out of control. Its taken me time to come to terms with it, I’m still coming to terms with it in some ways, but I basically view them as badged criminals these days. And more and more I’m realizing that “good cops” are a myth. Its exceedingly unlikely that there’s any cop anywhere that doesn’t violate the NAP. Perhaps long ago it was possible, but not anymore.
Just out of curiosity (considering your username) are you actually a preacher?
David, I’ve always assumed he was a left handed pitcher for a deli in Brooklyn.
(To keep that from being too cryptic, I’ll point out that Preacher Roe was a leftie who pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 40s and 50s.)
David, no I’m not, but I do have a lot of experience in that area. The name just kind of stuck within my circle.
I’ve honestly just lost my taste for organized religion, perhaps I’ll circle back at some point. No offense intended of course, as I do know from your posts you are very religious and I respect that.
@PreacherRye- Absolutely no offense taken.
I probably have some similar issues with Organized Religion, although “organized religion” is definitely something that could be defined and that could cover a lot of things. It could cover everything from a few friends gathering to pray and read the Bible on the one extreme, all the way to the Catholic Church as a worldwide organization that covers over a billion people at the other extreme.
Speaking for myself, as a Baptist, the highest authority within a church is in the local church. In other words, while our church does have fellowship with other churches, decisions are made “in house.” There isn’t some baptist organization that’s running our church from the outside, we pick our own pastor, and so forth. And, our church is currently less than 100 people. So, organized in some sense, yes, but relatively small scale as well.
Even still, as I’ve shared here before, its not without its issues, and while our church isn’t as bad about it as it often is in the Bible Belt (one of the few advantages to New York State is that; since its not the Bible Belt and not necessarily “culturally expected” to go to church, a fair chunk of the people who go actually take it seriously) there’s still a lot of political statism. But, its not as bad in our church as it is in other churches. My pastor knows that I’m a voluntarist, and a few other people in the church do as well. They don’t agree with me, but its not like they think I’m in sin for being so either (as people would likely feel in more explicitly conservative churches) and its probably a point I bring up more often than they do. Even still, its frustrating. This whole “desire to control” sickens me. The idea that its supposedly heroic to join the military and the fictional idea of the so-called “good cop” drives me nuts. We live in a deeply sick society, where aggressors are seen as good and people who defend themselves from aggression are seen as evil. Its just as true outside the church as in, of course. But, yeah, its an issue, and it is one that vexes me sometimes.
That said, I will say this, the US is exceptionally nationalistic. Most other countries, from what I’ve heard, do not honor the military in their churches or display their national flags in sanctuaries. Its an American thing from what I’ve heard. Even still, I doubt most people anywhere are voluntarists.
I agree with everything you said David. I’m here down south so you can imagine what religious environments are usually like.
And yes, the flag humping has gotten unbearable. I groan any time all the commercials start up about that certain day that Eric has deemed unmentionable.
I’m on your side, of course, with getting rid of the criminal job class, AKA as government employees. That’s why I always try to envision what my decision would be like if I was on the jury for someone accused of a crime in some sort of non-forcible government, common law, situation.
As more and more science is revealing, and as common sense can tell you if you’ve ever witnessed a suffering animal, non-human animals suffer pain just as much as us human animals. Even fish, and for sure dogs and cats and cows and pigs. Being a human animal, and therefore having a sense of empathy for the suffering of others, and feeling distress and sadness of my own knowing it is happening, this is what would happen if I was on your jury:
You are accused of violently intervening to stop someone else from hurting an animal, say their dog. You caught them beating the dog and forcefully stopped them and took the dog and took care of it.
The owner of the dog is suing you for battery and theft. If I’m on your jury there will be no damages awarded. Dog owner is scum and you did the right thing.
I love animals; especially dogs (Any pig or anyone else ever lays a hand on my dog, I guarantee you they will pay with their life and/or the life of their demon-spawn)- but here’s how I look at animal rights:
Animals are property. God gave us dominion over them; and put them here for specific purposes (What a beautiful gift, giving us dogs, to be loving companions!)-That does not mean that we can use them or abuse them in any way we choose. We, on the contrary, must be good stewards; just as we should be with all of God’s creation.
The thing is, in a perfect libertarian society, we can not prevent all evil. We can not prevent child abuse or animal abuse. We can do what is right with what is under our own personal dominion- and influence those around us- but we can’t prevent all evil; nor can the Orwellian nanny state- and that is just their problem- that they THINK that laws and legislation and police and prisons will somehow eliminate all evil; and they are so audacious as to even deign to author their own definition of what constitutes evil.
Us libertarians accept that we can not stop all evil- and that to try and do so, would only be exactly what we have now: A police state that often punishes the good/takes away man’s basic rights, in the name of trying to eradicate all evils.
And as for organized religion: Just think: It was organized religion which tried to keep the Scriptures out of the hands of the common man for millennia; it was organized religion which killed and persecuted the majority of believers (and who were the most upstanding members of society) and it was organized religion (and still is) which preaches the very opposite of the tenets of the Bible- i.e. lies, like “The Jews are still God’s chosen people”; and that we don’t have to keep God’s laws.
Funny, but organized Christianity, of all the religions of the world, is the only religion I know of that preaches against the tenets of it’s own source-book! 99.8% of “Christian” churches will teach their adherents that they needn’t obey God [even the ones who claim to keep the commandments, deny the ones they don’t like!) They’ve done a better job of destroying the true Biblical faith, than any Satanist or atheist ever could.
@PreacherRye- Yeah, I’m not really a fan of the nationalistic holidays either. I’m more OK with independence day than memorial day for some reason, but I don’t really care for the 4th either. I mostly see it as pointless, I mean, its not as if we’re actually free these days.
@Moleman- Here’s the distinction I see between animal abuse and child abuse though. I would say that, since as you say, animals are property, if you saw someone abusing their animal you probably shouldn’t use physical violence to prevent it. I probably wouldn’t blame you if you did, but I don’t think its advisible. I feel differently about child abuse, since children aren’t property.
Now, I understand, its incredibly easy to get away with stuff. I’m not saying child abuse can actually be prevented all the time. I’m just saying it should be a criminal act, while animal abuse shouldn’t.
Of course, ideally all law enforcement would be free market, but that’s a different matter.
David – I find geniune animal cruelty repugnant in the same way the I find cruelty to humans repugnant. But no, I don’t believe it should be a criminal offense. I agree with PreacherRye that legislators, lawyers and other gun-vermin actors have gone way too far with criminalizing all manner of behavior for their own power and financial gain. By the same token, they have also managed, for the most part, to legally prevent shunning, shaming, black-listing and otherwise applying social pressure to individuals who behave in a manner I or others may consider undesireable. For instance if I own a business that is “open to the public” and decide I don’t want to serve you due to behavior on your part that I consider sinful, in this day and age I can be successfully sued and forced to serve you. Other than at the individual level, social pressure is pretty much out.
And to me, the idea that the police can “sic” their dogs on us and we aren’t allowed the basic natural right of self defense is absurd! If something or someone one is attacking me agressively, you can bet your arse I’ll defend myself and do as much damage as is necessary to stop that attack. I’ll worry about the consequences after the attack is over (if I live through it). But turning the other cheek to a brother that is wrongly berating me and defending myself (or my family or friends) from violent assault at the hands of any aggressor, state costumed or not) are two totally different things. Until we return to the point where “law enforcement” understands that there can be immediate meaningful reprisal at the hands of “mundanes” and they are no better than the rest of us (i.e. true equal protection under the law) we will continue to live in a dictatorship enforced by those sworn to “protect and serve.” As an aside, we just passed Amendment 5 to the state constitution here in Missour-ah. Looks like carrying concealed here is now constitutionally protected. Law enforcenment ain’t happy. Good.
I think torturing a human is FAR worse than torturing a dog. But both are very wrong. And I agree, the law currently prohibits non-violent punishment of disgusting behaviors. I’m all for boycotting the heck out of people who mistreat their animals.
Depends on which human we’re talking about, of course.
I’d far rather that rapists/murderers were used for necessary medical experiments than some poor dog or rabbit.
David – Not just boycotting but shunning. That means not talking to them, selling them anything or helping them in any way. Of course with today’s anti-discrimination laws, the gun-vermin have rendered that approach nearly impossible. Besides which, Wal-Mart, Target or any other corporate entity would negate that type of social pressure. After all, an animal abuser’s, a rapist’s or even a child molester’s money spends just as good as anyone else’s…
Eric – I’m inclined to inclined to agree. That “dumb” monkey, dog or bunny hasn’t done a thing to me. Now I do eat rabbit meat, but I am adamant about humane slaughter. I loathe the thought of putting bleach or detergent in a rabbit’s eye or injecting a dog or monkey with some carcinogen to watch the results. Of course we’d have to be careful about using rapists and murderers or even death row inmates for experimentation, because some of them are undoubtedly innocent. I’d rather see medical experimentation done on lawyers, bureaucrats and career politicians. All have to do is look at what government has wrought down through the age and we are already well assured of their “guilt” beyond any reasonable doubt. It would have the added benefit of ensuring no one would want to be any of the above, essentially ushering in anarcho-capitalism by default. A man can dream can’t he?
I don’t think all lawyers or politicians are bad. If nobody else, on the politician’s end there is Ron Paul. There are a couple other people who I would put in a similar category. I think if you were going to do experiments on politicians you would want to give each one the opportunity to defend their voting record before a jury before doing so. Ron Paul and possibly a few others would be given credit for being “friends on the inside” so to speak, and thus left alone.
Lawyers is a really broad category as well. Not all lawyers are criminal prosecutors.
RE: “I don’t think all lawyers or politicians are bad.”
A lot of people comment that the lawyers are beholden to, ‘The Bar’ first – and primarily. …Like they have a conflict of interest from the get-go.
Same with politicians.
I mean, I liked Ron Paul a lot. The first, and Only time I’ve Ever voted, was for him in a Primary.
How-freaking-ever; there’s a Lot of disappointed folks in him who make A Lot of sense.
…Not to say I don’t like what he’s doing now.
Anyway, seems to me, an An-Cap might say: “Anybody who lends legitimacy to The System is trending on The Bad side.”
…Is it a fine line?
Dear David,
You were asking me about what I thought of Ron Paul? I said I thought he was an “anarcho-capitalist mole,” based purely on inference.
Well check this article at TDV out.
http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/8/12/the-shift-is-happening-anarchy-goes-mainstream.html
“To be an anarchist and assume responsibility for yourself, I think this is a great idea.”
— Ron Paul
Jeff Berwick comments on this.
Paul did leave it open to some debate as to whether he considers himself an anarchist, however, because he did not come right out and say it but in our opinion, from what he said, he is an anarchist. The reason being that he believes “anarchy is a great idea”. To consider oneself an anarchist you don’t necessarily have to believe or know that if there were no nation-states/government on Earth that it would be the best thing for humanity. We haven’t seen that in modern times so we don’t know, 100%, that is the case… but an anarchist believes that the idea of having no violent rulers is the best thing for humanity… he doesn’t necessarily know how it could come to fruition nor what it would look like… but having that belief admits you into the anarchist club.
@Bevin- WHile I understand he chose his words carefully, I tend to agree with you that Ron believes in anarcho-capitalism, or at the least is very sympathetic toward it, based on that post. That said, if he were a minarchist I’d still support him.
Boothe, David, I gotta finally weigh in on this. I realize cruelty is a definition that depends on how you perceive something. Cruelty is using a 12 gauge needle on a cow that will make it bleed and possibly even lose the very thing you injected into it. Just like me, cows, dogs, cats, etc. will scream with pain and protest, even if what you’re doing is going to save it’s life or you’re merely doing a bit of preventive maintenance(think, dentist….or don’t, try to not think dentist…..please)but I think everyone gets my point.
When I knock a fish in the head or don’t because it’s mostly asphyxiated from being in a live well that is mostly a dead well, and then cut it’s belly out and fillet it is it any less cruel simply because it can’t scream bloody murder?
A few decades ago in a local paper of a town of 100K+ a woman took hunters to task for well, hunting. She claimed it was animal abuse, cruel, in her words and if they really wanted to be sportsmen and not merely cruel animal torturers they’d be like her and her husband and fish, just catch white bass and crappie and leave all god’s chilluns alone. What a shitstorm this became with good reason.
I harvest animals of all sorts cause I like to eat them and I can. I don’t try to justify that. It is what it is. I know from experience that some of the animals I eat would do the same to me and some have tried. Just because it’s worked out mainly in my favor so far doesn’t mean that’s the way it will always be. Next time porky or sharky may be eating redneck steaks instead of the other way around. I won’t even try to rationalize this but if I catch someone torturing an animal, not just killing it to eat it but torturing it, they’d better pray to whatever god they believe in I don’t observe them doing so. I won’t torture them though but i will put them out of MY misery. I wouldn’t expect anyone to agree with me since it’s all a matter of perspective.
I do my best to treat every living thing with mercy, regardless if I’m going to kill it or pet it or feed it or a combination of any of those variables. I won’t debate this thing with anyone since it’s really not debatable in any true sense of absolute right or wrong. Just don’t let ME catch your sorry ass hanging cats by their legs on your fence to watch them die slowly or beat your dog. See, even I can’t define it, just my own sense of what’s right and wrong. A difficult subject eh? As far as humans go, it really gets dicey when viewing the works some of them do. I don’t wish to necessarily torture politicians but a simply necktie party seems reasonable. Same for anyone who chooses to cause harm by govt. edict or simply their own warpedness upon any other human. I am humane in that I won’t drag it out. My 2 cents.
Had eightsouthman known me as a six year old he likely would have killed me. Back then I tortured lizards for fun. Its awful but I did. Maybe I used to be a sociopath.
I’ve had this argument with some of my more liberal associates in the past.
I view it this way. If I deliberately hurt another in some way I’ve violated his rights. When this person demands restitution, I make him whole. Problem solved.
How would this work with animals? If an animal hurts another animal in some way, can the victim be made whole? How can an agreement be made or violated, when animals don’t even understand the concept?
This is the problem with the concept of animal rights. Although some animals can communicate on some level, animals can’t use language and can’t exchange ideas using language.
JRO,
This isn’t completely correct.
Animals can use language. Not very many, true – but they’re the exception that proves the rule, if you will.
Koko was a female gorilla in a zoo at San Francisco. Specifically asked for a kitten using ASL (American Sign Language.)
Odd thing is, she’s apparrently not alone.
Now, as to contracts, I believe you’re correct, animals don’t have a future time sense: There is only The Now. Most have no concept of “if – then” let alone “else.” Whales are known to have an understanding of consequences, as they will use a “bubble net” to gather fish together, and then come up through the school of fish, swallowing many at once.
But they’re the minority, no doubt.
😉
Jean, if animals have no concept of future, how in hell does CholleyJack know I’ve decided to come home 2 hours or more before I arrive? I’ll be on the road and be coming home, maybe for the first time in more than a week. My wife will call and ask where I am. I’ll tell her and she’ll guess I’m about to be home in a couple hours just because of how CJ acts.
If he’s not looking forward to my presence then what in hell is he doing? He’ll look out the window, whine at the door and pace till I arrive. Really, I don’t have a secret cell phone to him to let him know I’m on the way.
So if he hasn’t any conception of the future, how does he know and why does it affect him so much? I say the future means a great deal to him and he’s very aware of it. He may not be discussing life insurance while I’m away and i’d just as soon he didn’t. He doesn’t need to be exposed to those greedy shits.
Second that, Eight.
Our cats know when it’s time to be fed – and expect to be fed at a certain time each day.
Hey Eric. Good article as always.
Just to add.
I’ve noticed (in my area at least) that when commuters drive through areas of aggressive traffic-law enforcement they will either quickly change their driving behavior or drive another route to work.
Predictably, this results in a change in the enforcement behavior.
In those enforcement districts where the area is sufficiently large, the cops will simply change their enforcement locale and find other chickens to pluck.
In smaller areas, however, other types of “enforcement” must take the front seat and the tickets issued become even more odious. Citations will be issued for driving “unsafely” under inclement conditions (i.e., not driving UNDER the posted speed limit while it’s raining or snowing), driving without a seat belt, or even driving with the high beams on.
We’ve all seen it. Now that the current pack of bureaucrats has discovered that there’s no money in criminal law enforcement (crime really doesn’t pay after all), they’ve move on to statute enforcement. Obedient taxpayers are always the easiest to fleece.
It’s always the same story with these apparatchiks. Instead of adhering to their intended purpose of administering justice, they always eventually divert all of their resources to the enforcement of obedience.
I think this may be one of the few areas where New York State might be better than Virginia.
I remember back when I was taking a law enforcement class in high school (Yeah, I took one back then) the instructor pointed out a story of someone in South Carolina getting arrested for doing 103 in a 65. The teacher claimed that in NY they would have just ticketed him and let him go. Since the guy was a cop, I assume he’d know in that case.
All that said, its downright disgusting. I don’t think weighting for clover to weigh in is going to help you. Clovers (all of them, not just the particular one who uses that alias here) will say that the guy was driving recklessly, that the law was the law, that he knew what the law was, etc.
I am curious what my mom would think of this though, seeing as she’s in that unusual category or someone who isn’t offended by speeding laws and yet breaks them to a fairly severe degree all the time. I don’t know if she’s ever done 93 in a 55, but I know she’s done 95 in a 70, because I’ve seen her do it.
“I don’t know if she’s ever done 93 in a 55, but I know she’s done 95 in a 70, because I’ve seen her do it.”
Then act like a good little Nazi…if you “See Something, Say Something”
Sorry – I just wanted to “BEAT” Clover to it…
I did 95 in a school zone once. It was at 3:00 AM on a Saturday in the summer, but you could imagine the fake outrage and chest-pounding if I had been caught.
Sometimes I point it out to her, but only because she’s hypocritical about it. If she agreed with me that “speeding laws” are totally wrong and that there’s no moral obligation to follow them, I wouldn’t say anything. But since she does, occasionally I’ll call her out on it.
Ha! Rappahannock Shenandoah Warren Regional Jail in Front Royal is the jail right down the street that just opened! They’re looking for suckers to fill it up.
I am waiting for Clover to chime in….
Eric,
I am sure he will provide some profound statement on the topic.
Just look at some gems he provided in the past:
(except for the laws he disagrees with such as Keep Right Pass Left)
The body count of those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and dozens of other countries around the world (including Amerika) would disprove your claim.
eric, looks like two of us had a lucky day of July 25, but I got no mat. I’ll let you in on a little known fact so print this in tiny letters where nobody in the Tx. legislature might read it, oh, how stupid of me, as if they could read, but anyway, speed limits in Tx……shh…..are not law but suggestions. Yep, and you CAN be ticketed for doing any speed in any zone since driving 80 might be considered a bit over the top when it’s black ice even though that’s what the speed sign says. Still, there are numerous law firms that handle traffic tickets specifically and for the most part, a trooper won’t go to court with a good lawyer on hand.
Back in the 80’s a friend(of course things have changed to some degree)got several tickets for speeding in a year so he had to face the charge of having an excess amount of tickets for that. I told him if he wanted things to go anyway but bad, show up with a lawyer. Later he told me Hey, thanks man, getting a lawyer saved my ass. I was the only guy in court that day to leave with my DL and just a fine cause I was the only one to show up with a lawyer.
BTW, if you get stopped with alcohol on your breath, try to have the presence of mind to stop so the prevailing wind(if there is any) will blow through from the drivers side to the passenger side, stay in the car like they want you to do and have both windows down. It can’t hurt. Good old west Tx. wind, always blowing(warning: this may not be the case where you live). If the sun is shining into that side, sit way back and put your hand up to block the sun so they’ll see you’re just trying to not be blinded by the sun.
When I was about 18 and living in Maryland I got two speeding tickets within a year and had to appear at a hearing to justify keeping my license. I had 5 points against my license. The guy ahead of me had a DWI which was 12 points, which was mandatory revocation. He was flanked by two lawyers. And he walked out with his license. You know what I felt like saying when the stuffed shirt conducting the hearing asked me why I should not lose my license.
I’m 72 now and live in Virginia. I doubt that we will ever see this egregious aspect of Virginia’s reckless driving law modified or rescinded. Bad laws are sometimes easily passed but are rarely rescinded. A few years ago the state enacted a new schedule of fines for Virginia residents only. The fines for common offenses were huge but did not apply to out-of-state drivers. There was a groundswell of complaints and the fines were reduced. Today there just isn’t adequate opposition to the current reckless driving law to get it changed.
John D
Basically, Patrick George committed a “technical foul” by speeding, right?
Speaking of technical fouls, has anyone else besides me noticed that cops go all out to bust people on” technical fouls” like sending SWAT teams to people who were late on their taxes, while not doing much when people do real harm to each other?
Your post on Thug Control http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/04/11/how-about-thug-control/
says it all. If you defend yourself against a violent, predatory thug, YOU are the one who has to worry about being locked up.
It’s even worse when it comes to “white collar criminals” who, although they shed no blood and break no windows, do serious harm to people’s livelihood. Other than Bernie Madoff, who did a stretch in Club Fed, or wherever it was, who went to jail over all of the mortgage fraud that led to what may be a Greater Depression?
Methinks there’s a yellow streak a mile wide in law enforcement: It’s so much easier to go after Patrick George and his ilk than to deal with real criminals.
Test drive in Wyoming or Montana.
In Wyoming, you would be ticketed for driving 13 miles over the limit.
In Montana, you would get a small fine for violating the federal judge mandated 75 MPH limit, provided the cop was bored.