How come they don’t require bicyclists to have licenses – and carry insurance?
Put another way – in the language of Cloverism (authoritarian collectivism; see here for a fuller explanation) how come they’re allowed to ride free of such conditions and controls?
After all, drivers are not.
Shouldn’t consistency apply?
Operating a car is considered a conditional privilege – something you’re allowed to do, but only under certain terms and conditions. The government (a rhetorical sleight of hand; really, “government” is just other people who have various titles and have given themselves authority over you – unless you actually did consent, which you probably didn’t – to force you to do as they say) requires that drivers get licensed, have their vehicles inspected (and made a certain way) and carry insurance to “cover” the possibility of damage/harm they may cause.
Perhaps some clear-thinking person will be able to explain why the same terms and conditions ought not to apply to cyclists, too?
They, too, operate on the “public” roads (that is, owned by the government – or rather, owned by those people with titles who forcibly take your money and order you about and leave you very little in the way of free choice, transportation-wise or otherwise). How are we to know whether they’re “safe” to ride, without their having submitted to a government test of their abilities? They might be blind. They might not know the proverbial rules of the road. A prospective driver is required to demonstrate such knowledge – and will be denied permission to drive on the “public” roads if he incorrectly answers one too many of the questions on his driver’s license test. Yet no such test is required of cyclists before they are allowed to ride – may operate their vehicle on the “public” roads.
No flapdoodle, please, about bicycles not being a potential threat to “safety.”
Granted, a cyclist probably won’t do as much damage to your vehicle if he runs a light and runs into you. But the same is just as true – on a sliding scale – of a motorcycle or scooter. And their “operators” (in DMV-ese) are required to be licensed and insured.
The insurance thing – the lack of requirement thereof, if you’re a cyclist – is particularly galling.
First, you might get hurt. It is certainly a very real possibility. Who will pay?
And, the fact is a cyclist is much more vulnerable than a driver – who, after all, is protected by a cocoon of steel. A minor fall or impact on a bike can have catastrophic consequences.
Society has an interest, does it not?
How can it be that a cyclist is allowed to ride without insurance?
And yet, they are allowed.
Even more obnoxious – in terms of the micromanagement by government of cars and drivers – is that cyclists are free to buy whatever type of bike they prefer, equipped as they like. Cycle manufacturers are not required to build bikes to government specifications. NHTSA and DOT – the massive federal regulatory bureaucracies that scrutinize, control and decree literally aspect of motor vehicle design – are mute and indifferent when it comes to bicycles.
This is outrageous!
Well, it is inconsistent.
This is one of the problems with Cloverism (authoritarian collectivism). The collective is subjective. It is arbitrary. The force of government – the violence controlled by the people who control the apparatus of government – is directed willy-nilly at some individuals or groups or categories, but not others. There is no principle behind this scattershot application of violence other than the whim of the collective as expressed via the apparatus of government.
It is why – as a for-instance – there is not (yet) mandatory insurance for bicycle rider or gun (or step-ladder) owners. Notwithstanding that the same arguments wheeled out to justify mandatory car insurance apply just as logically to cyclists.
If, that is, logic were the deciding factor.
Submitted for your review:
* According to the Centers for Disease Control (same outfit that screeches guns – gun ownership – is a “public health issue”) bicycle riders “face a higher risk of crash-related injury and death than occupants of motor vehicles.”
Notwithstanding that “only 1 percent of all trips taken in the U.S. are by bicycle.”
* Each year, there are approximately half a million emergency room visits due to bicycle-related injuries.
(See here for more.)
Well, how about them apples? Riding a bicycle is not just “risky” – it is riskier than driving a car. A fact. Logically, then, there is a stronger argument for regulating – that is, controlling – how riders are allowed to ride. For mandatory bicycle licensing and insurance. For government-mandated bicycle “safety” equipment (helmets being just a start). How about tags and annual inspections? Hey, we’re just getting started!
It’s even more unfortunate, though, that morality isn’t a factor in these decisions made for us by others against our will – or at least, without our consent.
That is: What gives these others the moral right to interpose themselves – violently, never forget – and insist we do this, not do that… or else?
Underlying all of this Cloverific control freak-ism is a rejection of the increasingly quaint idea that grown adults are and ought to be responsible for themselves – and free to take decisions for themselves – without other adults pre-empting (and punishing) them. Typically, not for anything they’ve done, in terms of causing harm (or even threatening to) but because enough of these control freaks feel that a hypothetical “someone” might.
Thus, drivers are forced to submit to testing and licensing, to put tags on their vehicles and have them inspected, to carry insurance – and so on. Not because they – as discrete individuals – have caused any harm, imposed any costs on anyone. But because – as Clovers see it (as Clovers feel it) “someone” might.
Well, that same sauce is as good for the gander as it is for the goose. Let’s at least be consistent – and apply control-freakism generally and consistently.
No more free riding for cyclists.
Not if drivers aren’t allowed the same. Let’s make everyone miserable – and put each of us under someone else’s thumb. For “safety.” For the sake of “society.” For “the children.” It might just save a life!
No?
Then, how about the alternative.
Individual freedom – and individual responsibility.
Risk – and actual harm – would not not disappear. But at least, we’d be assuming our own risks, freely chosen – and only responsible for the harms we, as individuals, actually cause.
Of course, that’s an idea Clovers can’t abide.
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Hey, Eric!
Get this! Where I used to live, now it’s illegal to pop a wheelie on a BICYCLE, and it can land you in jail!
https://patch.com/new-york/sayville/police-cracking-down-wheelies-reckless-bike-riding
It just keeps getting worse…. Like there’s not enough real crime in NY, so they have to invent crimes so they can collect fines and DNA samples from the people who already fund 95% of Big Brother!
Hi NUnz,
Well, that just spoiled my day… when I was 7-14 or so, all we did was pop wheelies. And jump our bikes. That America is long gone, but I still miss it.
When I was a kid, we used our bikes constantly. This being the days long before there were bike trails or lanes (1980’s). There were unofficial ones here and there, mostly in undeveloped or abandoned areas, never paved etc. We liked those the most as there were no vehicles or adults. At times we could and would venture up to 10-15 miles from home, even in the congested Chicago area.
Compare that with my nephews today. Bike trails everywhere, one passing near their house even. They don’t ride, because they really can’t, even if they wanted to, because they can’t be “alone” like we were. They really don’t like riding at all because my brother or my sis-in-law have to go. And they really don’t have neighborhood friends either, because they have no way of even meeting them. Just school friends who for the most part don’t live within a block or two.
Rich, aint THAT the truth! I used to LIVE on my bike when I was a kid! It was the embodiment of freedom. We could go wherever we wanted, without any interference from adults.
It was glorious, and with a taste of true freedom like that from a young age, how could one not grow up to be a Libertarian? Today’s kids will have no such experiences on their “play dates” and in their adult-supervised rigidly-structured organized spoats[sports]. Hell, they WANT to go to school, so they can see their friends. A life of rule-following and submission to authority from toddlerhood……
Disgusting, isn’t it, Eric? Not that I have any sympathies for people who continue to live in these ultra-tyrannical places….but like everything else, once the precedent is established, it quickly spreads. (It might even make it to N. Korea one day o: )
Maybe you will feel a little better,
Trump fired Bolton.
*But the cynic in me says he will find someone worse for the job.
Hehe, yeah- the generals; captains of the military-industrial corps, and all other Neocons are probably polishing their resumes right now!
Thank God that McCain croaked!
didnt see this mentioned but legally you do (did?) have to have a permit for a bicycle. back in the 1960’s most large cities required a permit to have a bike and you had to have a plate mounted on the bike. the cops would go to the grade schools and check the bikes out also. now i was too poor to afford a permit so i was always skirting the cops….
you can still get antique lic plates for bikes on ebay sometimes.
i wonder if this is still on the books but not enforced any longer?
The NSA strikes again –
http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-e-newsletter-326-we-must-stop-national-alpr-push-now/
Broooce, , , , nare nare nare nare. . . . you’ll be a woman. . . . sooon…. #hashtag…. bread…. & circuses….
Ramrod said:
“Southerners didn’t want to pay excise taxes so that they could be more filthy rich. Southerners were selfish and greedy. The did not care about the United States or the Southern States. They did not care that the Negros that they used would someday become feral and destroy one neighborhood after another.”
Do you deny the United States has become a rogue feral nation that is destroying one nation after another?
It is the American Niggers of all colors who are destroying the world in a mindless chimpout that has raged unabated since the days of Reagan.
Which side are you on? Violent destructive unthinking feral types, which includes most of today’s cops and soldiers? Or one of us, men of mind and skill who create value, who use our reason, and who defend ourselves and our property against all enemies, be they foreign or domestic?
I want the U.S.A. to get out of NATO and the Middle East. What do others want?
I want NATO and the UN dissolved, or at the very least the US out of them and the UN out of the US (if you consider NYC part of the US).
I want the US out of ALL the countries (over 100) where they have bases (nearly 1000) and all troops within the borders of the US.
I’m inclined to work and toil our way out of this mess and buy our independence. But where is their weakest link I wonder? What about Hawaii? 49 states has a nice ring to it. Everyone will notice the downgrade, it’d be undeniable. Getting the Yanks out of the first place will be the hardest. From there on out, it will get easier and easier to divide and leave them unable to conquer.
The Sun Never Sets On The United State’s Maze of Dominoes.
Poland and VIetnam are 9,000 miles apart. One has NOTHING to do with another. You don’t get to kill people just because they’re subjugated by a political system you don’t like. Don’t be a such a primitivist and collectivist.
Look, we are bankrupt as a nation. Our army marches in Chinese boots, while our air force flies on Saudi oil. We cannot continue to enforce a Pax Americana while our southern border allows illegals and terrorists to pour into our country. And we certainly shouldn’t be footing the defense bill for countries with whom our industries compete in the global marketplace. Bring our soldiers home. Secure America first.
If you hit someone and kill their family, they will hate you and probably hit you back in the future. Our political leaders have antagonized billions of people worldwide, and we’re going to be forced to pay for their misdeeds.
That’s what blowback is all about. It seems like such a simple concept, but many people vehemently deny its validity.
They foolishly proclaim that what our military does abroad has no effect on how the citizens of the world feel towards us. The 9/11 terrorists hated our wealth and freedom so intensely that they sacrificed their lives to prove it?
Or is it more likely that our government’s bombing of their countries, and our propping up of their dictators and supplying their enemies with money and weapons is the real reason we were attacked.
Instead of securing our borders, we’ve been planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression. Our military is spread thin all across the planet, yet we remain involved in dangerous power plays that unnecessarily put the lives of our soldiers at risk. And we’ve brazenly squandered the entire wealth of our nation as if there were no tomorrow.
It doesn’t make any sense unless you consider increasing the profits of the military-industrial complex to be in the “national interest”, no matter what the cost to the rest of us may be.
America first is what national defense needs to be about. And that means all Americans, not just the elite war profiteers and connected cronies. The military should be used to secure our borders, we should safely bring our troops back home, and we should begin to overhaul the intelligence apparatus to better serve our actual interests, instead of the fascist political opportunists.
Ron Paul’s foreign policy positions.
Poland and England were miles apart. Should they have said that there is nothing to worry about the Nazi invasion over there?
Communism was a military and a bureaucracy packaged into a political system that governed a large part of the world. There were undesirable differences between East and West Europe, North and South Korea, Communist China and Taiwan / Hong Kong. I did get to kill people because they fought for a political system that I did not like. You have a hang-up about killing people that I don’t have.
Do you have a viewpoint about global Communism from 1920 to the Vietnam War?
The rest of your comment is about flaws in the U.S.A. I am outraged too.
Ramrods – Ghost Riders in the Sky.
I’m a Ramrod Baby – The Ramrods.
Ramrods: Tico Tico. Sally Hung. Taipei.
The Vietnam Peace Negotiations broke down in Paris at the end of 1972. President Nixon gave the Air Force the order to cause maximum damage to the North. We celebrated at the Korat Officers Club with a Tequila Party. Ghost Riders in the Sky was played over and over. We were called the Men in Black because we dealt in death.
Thanks for the memories.
Hi Ramrod,
I don’t get celebrating the bombing – the killing – of people you don’t know in a far-away country who never did you/yours any harm nor ever threatened to.
Is “dealing in death” a thing to be proud of?
Remember what Ali said?
Vietnam was a pawn of external powers for years; first the Japanese, then the French raped the place. And after them came the white-bearded old son of a bitch, Uncle Sam…
This is not a defense of communism (although I can see why the average Vietnamese peasant supported the only political movement trying to get the auslanders raus), which is neither here nor there.
I am pointing out that the regime in DC is psychopathic and murderous – has been since at least 1861 and arguably before then, too.
The idea that a free society – even a semi-free society – can co-exist with such a government in control is an impossible contradiction.
One of the first big steps that must be taken is a repudiation by decent people of this wrapped-in-the-flag blood-soaked jingoism. The average German circa 1940 was taught to reverence “the troops” and “the Homeland,” too. Taught to hate the auslander… who was of course out to get his “freedom.”
Remember what Reichsmarschall Goring said at Nuremburg?
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”
-Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
Star Spangled Banner… or Horst Wessel Leid… it’s the same got-damned thing.
You are cherry-picking history to support pacifism. The Communists did plenty of harm to my relatives in Poland. Every Communist country was repressive. Every country that was divided was very much better under the U.S.A. Ever notice the difference between North and South Korea, historian? Communism was spreading and I wanted to stop that.
Of course, you “don’t get celebrating the killing of people”. You are not a warrior; you are a scholar.
Is that “toned down” enough for you, good buddy?
No, I’m stating historical facts. Correct me, if I erred in any respect.
Pacifism? You misunderstand. I’m a Libertarian. That means I oppose aggression but support the right of anyone to defend themselves against aggression. This is not pacifism.
Now, did the Vietnamese attack the United States? No, they did not. (The “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” was a deliberate lie confected by LBJ to gin up war hysteria; he succeeded.) Whether the Vietnamese were communists or supported communism is immaterial. Because they did not attack the United States. No aggression was committed by them toward us. But the United States government did exactly that. To an obscene degree (as you probably know, more bomb tonnage was dropped on this sliver of a country than all the bombs dropped on Germany and German occupied territory during the entirety of WWII; hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were killed; their country laid waste). And for what? For the profit of the U.S. military-industrial complex; the American soldiers who died over there died for nothing. Or rather, for nothing worthwhile. Certainly not “freedom.” Certainly not in defense of the U.S.
You are mixing two things that should be separated: fighting Communism v. the way that Communism was fought in Vietnam.
1)Both the North and South Vietnamese were against us.
2)The air-war was more about tonnage dropped than targets destroyed.
3)I came away with the viewpoint that most of the people on my side were as opposed to justice as the enemy.
Vietnam was supposed to be a replay of Korea. It did not turn out as expected. Today’s wars have gone from bad to worse to ?????
You are ignoring what is most important: something is terribly wrong with the American people and they can’t do anything right.
Ramrod,
Why are the internal affairs (including the political arrangements) of foreign countries the business of the U.S. government? What gives it it the moral right to drop bombs on, invade, machine-gun and murder its people? What act of aggression did Vietnam commit toward the United States that justified the defensive use of force?
The underlying premise is the U.S. (good, defender of freedom) is morally entitled to spread said freedom and goodness at gunpoint wherever it deems appropriate.
But the U.S. is not good – and the idea that it is spreading freedom risible. It (the U.S. government, to be precise) has been systematically eviscerating the freedoms once enjoyed by the people under its control. And the only “freedom” it spreads elsewhere is the freedom to do as it says – as in Iraq, for example.
Had “we” (that is, those who control the government and those in the corporate world who profit from government) “won” the war in Vietnam, what would have happened? “We” – the U.S. government – would have installed another puppet of the Diem variety to serve as the figurehead; then, U.S. corporations/finance would have looted the country.
Cue Darth Vader voice: Search your feelings, Ramrod. You know it to be true.
Unwrap yourself from the flag; come to grips (I realize it’s painful) that your “service” in Vietnam – though no doubt nobly intended – was of a piece with the “service” provided by the Waffen SS in Ukraine circa 1942.
They, too, believed honestly that they were battling communism and defending (as they saw it) “freedom.”
In fact they were just cannon fodder – as were the Soviet troops on the other side.
As you were in Vietnam.
I have read over and over in libertarian publications that the “political affairs” and “internal arrangements” in both the Soviet Union and China murdered tens of millions in each country. Tell your audience how this measures up to the “libertarian aggression principle” that you brought up earlier.
When the Communist took control of North Vietnam, two million Catholics fled to South Vietnam. The Soviet Union and China waged war against these Catholic refugees. This was the battlefield that they chose. There would not have been a Vietnam War- or one in Korea- without these two Communist countries intervening. They openly boasted that they would take over the world.
1)Communists “political arrangements” and “internal affairs” murdered tens of millions of people.
2)Communist “political arrangements” and “internal affairs” were being imposed on other countries.
Seeing these two things motivated me to kill communists on the battlefield that they chose. Eric sees the same two things and fancies-up “right to murder” rhetoric.
RR,
Whether a given regime is evil is one question. Whether “we” (that is, the regime here) has the moral right to send citizens to kill the other regime’s citizens is another question.
Again: Did the government of Vietnam or its people attack or threaten to attack the United States or its people?
No.
Ergo, the U.S. involvement was an act of aggression.
I’d also ask you to question your premises.
Is the U.S. truly the purveyor of freedom you seem to imply it is? Or is the reality more like this:
One regime fighting another for advantage, over spheres of influence and power/resources? The citizens of each country being incidental?
How much “freedom” did the Ngo dinh Diem bring to his people?
RR – the Russian Revolution likely would not have happened w/o Wilson dragging the US into a European conflict in the early 20th century, thus creating the 1st World War. And w/o the Bolshevik regime in Moscow, would Mao have ever even been heard of, let alone taken over China?
So I guess you would think it acceptable for any of those countries repressed by communism – or any other country – to attack the civilian population of the US.
How much freedom did the U.S. puppet regimes bring? Would you rather live in South Korea which is controlled by our puppet regimes and corporations or Communist North Korea?
Communism was evil. Eric wants to ignore that because he doesn’t care about the millions of people that they murdered. He has his non-aggression principles. RAMROD doesn’t have the same principles that you do.
RR,
I am not ignoring communism; nor did I ever deny it’s any evil system. I merely point out that the U.S. system of authoritarianism/crony-corporatist capitalism is also evil.
Yes, to a lesser extent. And so?
Point being, your premise – that America is good/motivated to “bring freedom” to the oppressed and all that is nonsense.
PS: What is it with the third person stuff?
No one here is arguing that communism is not evil. But statism of any sort, including corporatism is also evil.
The point is, it is not ‘our’ business what type of gunvermin someone else has.
I’m beginning to think Bevin was on target with his questions about ‘agents provacateurs.’
Dear Phil,
“I’m beginning to think Bevin was on target with his questions about ‘agents provocateurs.’”
If I go with my gut, I’d say I smell a rat.
But guess what? It really doesn’t matter! What trolls and provocateurs don’t realize is that no matter what they do in an effort to undermine pro freedom dialogue, they wind up contributing to it.
Their attempts at disruption or provocation inadvertently serve as talking points, allowing us to clarify our positions, to ourselves and to lurkers who are reading the threads.
The only way trolls or provocateurs can stop us, is to censor us by force.
The “U.S. is not good”. Don’t blame the courageous who killed Communist in Vietnam 50 years ago for that. Blame the American people who put cowards on a pedestal. For the first time in American history the cowards rose to influence in government, education, and corporations. Blame people like Eric who trivializes Communist murders of tens of millions of their own citizens as “political arrangements” and “internal affairs”.
Amerika has not been good at least since Lincoln attacked the south in the 2nd War of Secession. Maybe never, as a nation.
Phillip the Bruce. Your home is “Amerika”. Do you plan to use any tactics to improve Amerika” which has “not been good”? Or, do you plan to study and write about it.
Hmmmm… as opposed to the millions killed by the U.S. regime? How about the wholesale genocide of the native population at the hands of the 19th century SS-Obergruppenfuhrer William T. Sherman? The prior scorched earth rape of the southern states? The subsequent rape of the Philippines? Then there’s the intervention in the European war… which resulted in the needless slaughter and death of millions of people… and the laying of the foundation for Nazi Germany and WWII.
How about the gratuitous use of nuclear weapons on Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people… when the war was effectively over, when the Japanese leadership had been suing for peace? It was deliberate, psychopathic mass murder.
The lunatic MacArthur wanted to expand the policy in Korea. That is, use nuclear weapons against the Chinese.
Meanwhile, the CIA toppled the elected leader of Iran and installed the brutal Shah… who proceeded to brutalize his people for the next several decades, leading to the rise of radical Islam.
Vietnam: Install murderous psychopathic despot then carpet bomb civilian targets; kill several hundred thousand more people…
Fast-forward to Iraq and “weapons of mass destruction.” An entire country effectively destroyed over a manufactured pretext.
So, that’s why I’m not a flag waving “patriot,” RR.
eric, I heard “Walkin on the Fightin Side of Me” yesterday. It reminded me once again of that really stupid, statist worshiping bunch who’ll march lockstep to whatever tune the “govt.” played.
Eric, your post has inspired me. I hate the American people for their atrocities over more than a hundred years. Retribution is on the way from my own weapon of mass destruction that I am building in my basement.
Just like Nazi Germany, flag-waving U.S.A. must be destroyed.
RR,
Be careful about generalizing. It’s not “the American people.” Such thing does not exist. It is a figure of speech. Like Das Deutschen Volk.
Direct your ire toward the specific actual individuals who are guilty of inflicting death and destruction on innocents.
As the song goes, it ain’t me… it ain’t me...
You got me there, Eric. Generalizations are bad, focusing on guilty individuals is good. Please provide me with some deserving targets. I trust your judgment.
RR,
I am not here to identify “targets.” I am suggesting that we not blanket indict groups of people based on the actions of some individuals.
RR – You are correct that we should not put ‘cowards’ on a pedestal. No human should be on a pedestal, lording it over anyone else.
If you chose to go to Viet Nam to fight, that is your right. But why should anyone else be forced to pay for your decision?
Ramrod 1947 Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake Full Length Western Movie
Ramrod – Duane Eddy
Bruce Springsteen – Ramrod
Ramrod Fort Lauderdale
No more free riding for cyclists.
Bicycle liability is covered by homeowners policies. I don’t get why you have to carry auto but not homeowners or renters insurance, but that is the way it is, although if you have a mortgage you must have minimal Homeowners insurance. BTW all you take individual responsibility type libertarians, what are your insurance limits? $25,000 auto liability limits is not taking much responsibility. I personally think minimum auto limits should be $1 million per person, $5 per accident. If you can’t afford those limits try Uber or Lyft.
In New York City bicycle delivery people must now wear reflective vests with the name of their restaurant on them so that when the non English speaking illegal alien hits you you can at least sue the restaurant. Believe it or not bicycle infractions, unlike auto infractions, are not civil. If a cop gives you a ticket for riding on the sidewalk (which only happens in black stop and frisk neighborhoods) you must show up in court, no way to pay the ticket and mail it in.
In most places to stop low life from traveling from town to town, in theory, riding a bicycle on multi lane roads can at least be a reason to stop and question you.
A book I read the first edition of “Arrest proof yourself” had a section on the tragedy of applying adult motor vehicle laws to children on bicycles.
So you don’t mind being a slave, but you want everyone to be slaves w/you?
George,
Do you believe it’s ok to force people to carry insurance? That is, to force them to hand over their money (and thereby, their liberty) because you worry that they might cause harm? That’s the bottom line here. And if you do believe it’s ok – morally acceptable – to force people to buy car insurance, health insurance, home insurance, etc. … where does it end? How?
Think of all the innumerable things a person might do that could result in harm or damage. Any of these mights could – using your logic – be used as the justification for endless micromanagement of our lives. If we accept your premise.
Yes, yes… I know. Absent insurance-at-gunpoint, there will be risk. Some people will be irresponsible and reckless and others will be left holding the bag.
As if that didn’t happen regardless.
And, besides, I’d much rather accept the possibility of something going wrong – a small risk, to a great extent avoidable if you’re a prudent person – rather than be forced to accept the absolute certainty of the loss of my liberty and my money based on a hypothetical might that will likely never actually happen.
How about you?
“Do you believe it’s ok to force people to carry insurance?”
I used to think like you, but then I read ALL the articles on LewRockwell.com, and it turns out you may not like the libertarian utopia.
For example if US Highway I-95 was privatized and given free rein to operate as it’s owners wished, and you were hired to operate it, what insurance limits would you require of drivers entering your employers property, I-95?
Since you can pick and chose who can enter I-95 it stands to reason that if a driver were to cause an accident you would be held responsible for all the damage and injury, you could then sue the driver.
So what criteria would you use to decide who could enter your employer’s property I-95? I suspect one criteria would be having way more than $25,000 of insurance.
Libertarians are not pacifists, they would deal violently with trespassers on private property, for example someone trying to drive on I-95 with insurance limits less than required by I-95’s owner.
Hi George,
Yes, but take careful note: In your examples, no force is involved. That’s the key. If I own something and you wish to use it, I have every right – as the owner – to set “terms and conditions.” But you are free to choose not to use the item (or service).
Our respective desires encourage us to “meet in the middle” – to come to some mutually agreeable understanding. And if not, we’re both free to seek out alternatives.
There is no force involved until someone drives on a road with less than the minimum insurance. In one case the road is a government monopoly utility in the other it is owned privately. But in both cases the rules will ultimately have to be enforced through violence.
So the libertarian issue is who owns the road. The rules are not libertarian or stateist and violent coercion will be present in both cases.
With government roads the rules are decided by political factions one of which is the automobile industry that favors individual ownership of automobiles. So I-95 is open to individuals who own their cars. I would not be surprised if a private I-95 discouraged non commercial traffic and non professional drivers.
On the libertarian privately owned I-95, would the operator have the right to stop and search cars arbitrarily? After all you are on their property.
Hi George,
You’re missing the central point here, which is the issue of government forcing people to buy insurance. The Libertarian alternative (as regards roads) is as follows:
I build a road. I lay down rules. You (the customer) are free to use the road provided you agree to my rules. If you do not agree, I am free to refuse access.
But you are free to seek alternative roads with different rules.
More broadly, your assumption is that insurance is ipso facto a good thing; that people ought to have it. Why? Most people do not get into catastrophic accidents. There was a time when large numbers of people didn’t carry insurance (they weren’t forced to) and the world was not a panorama of blood and guts. It was healthier, in fact, because people had incentive to be careful (since insurance would not “cover” them if they were not) and – even more important – those who did want insurance paid less precisely because the mafia was not yet a mafia and people could say no.
Now look where we are. Start with mandatory car insurance. Presto – a few decades later and we have mandatory health insurance. Do you really believe it will stop there? Why? On what basis?
eric, another side to “insurance” is the industry accepted, nee, mandated proviso of not insuring vehicles for their value when the “average” value of said vehicle is low to whatever point they deem it not insurable. That leaves the owner without insurance for what might be a “like new” vehicle that’s 20 years old.
I see this as collusion with govt. and automakers to force people to buy new vehicles or much newer ones.
I don’t understand why some company doesn’t want to simply let you put a value for whatever you deem your vehicle is worth and pay a fee based on its value.
Most problems with private roads come from that we assume they will be crony capitalist rather than capitalist in nature.
The Nürburgring functions by charging people for the damage they do and would probably be the sort of winning model in a competitive road environment. Furthermore government also charges for damage to signs, lights, guard rails and so on so there’s really no wheel to invent here. Nothing in this regard would need changing conceptually. There would be little to no need for a road owner to require insurance, except for what ever low limits are needed to replace a light post or some such.
Insurance could even be priced into the fee. There are so many ways to accomplish such things a truly free ‘libertarian utopia’ would get it worked out. The horrors come when we retain the state and the roads are handed off to cronies.
That said I really don’t concern myself with ‘what about the roads?’ If we got rid of the state and instead had this administrators of the roads public institution that collected fees for use and wasn’t much different than today’s government road bodies it would be a vast improvement.
If we reduced all the crony capitalism in this country to mandatory auto insurance we would be so much better off. But people should understand what it really is. It doesn’t mean the guy who hits you will have insurance. It doesn’t do anything for you or me. It just funnels money from us to cronies.
Anyway the real reason people want to apply insurance and registration and all other burdens they can think of to bicyclists is to discourage bicycling. Not only that but the usual sort of real slippery slope thinking that we are told does not exist. If we have to do X so should they!
“Most problems with private roads come from that we assume they will be crony capitalist rather than capitalist in nature. ”
Dear Brent,
Agree!
The most common mistake defenders of government make, is to mix systems.
Government is like one jigsaw puzzle. Anarchism is like an entirely different jigsaw puzzle.
One can’t complete the Anarchism jigsaw puzzle if you are still holding on to pieces of the Government jigsaw puzzle and trying to make them fit.
Many people simply don’t get that.
Agreed Brent and Bevin. People generally forget that–unlike government roads–private roads need your business. They aren’t holding a gun to your head and collecting money whether you use them or not. Why is it that privatization is always looked at as “greedy people will try to gouge you”? Outside of monopoly situations(protected by government)when does this happen?
Many people have a hard time understanding that that doesn’t happen in the free–not to be confused with “free’er”, “less restricted”, “less regulated”–market.
I always wonder when the McDonald’s and Burger King–the only fast food restaurants in a small town are going cartelize and raise the price of a burger to $8 a piece……..waiting…..waiting…..waiting. And we don’t even have a free market. There are many regulations and barriers to entry in the fast food business.
$15 minimum wage Ancap. That will bring the cartel. I was recently arguing with someone I know on the minimum wage’s effects on the number of restaurants. She kept trying to hang republican nonsense on me and I kept trying to explain to her that all it would do is kill the ma and pa places and leave the landscape in the hands of the big corporate chains. That the number of businesses might actually go up but there will be nothing in the poor neighborhoods and in the economically better off neighborhoods it would be a wasteland of corporate dining. We all know the reasons here, the big chains can deal with it better. Even franchises can deal with it better.
Damn Brent. You just ruined my theory that we could all become wealthy beyond our wildest dreams if government just mandated $1000 per hour minimum wage. Hahahaha
Arrest Proof Yourself
BIKES, YIKES!
One of the “advancements” in law enforcement that truly disgusts me is the
extension of vehicle laws to bicycles and the use of proactive policing techniques
to pile felony charges onto children. Every criminal attorney in my city has cases of children arrested and jailed for such crimes as riding a bicycle at night without a light, riding without a helmet, and riding with their buddies on the handlebars. This enforcement is highly selective and never, ever occurs in wealthy neighborhoods. Poor kids, primarily poor black kids, are just Hoovered up into the system in industrial-sized quantities.
Poor kids often buy bikes at flea markets or pawnshops or from street
vendors. Kids and their parents can be unaware that these bikes are often
stolen, and that police have records on their computers of the vehicle
identification numbers (VINs) of stolen bikes, especially the expensive
ones. When a cop stops a kid on a bike and runs the VIN and finds the
bike was stolen, the child is immediately charged with possession of stolen
property.
Middle-class and wealthy people ride bicycles for fun and exercise. Poor
people ride them out of necessity. Many poor people ride bikes to work
and to stores because they have neither cars nor valid driver’s licenses.
Poor children ride bikes because they’re their only means of transport.
Their mothers often cannot drive or are at work or at home taking care of
other children. There are no soccer moms hauling kids around in shiny
vans in the ghettos, barrios, and trailer parks. Children have to ride bikes
or walk to get anywhere.
Poor kids are more likely than middle-class kids to be afraid of police.
They have been told scary stories by adults. Like their parents, they often
do not have good manners and have no idea how to speak and behave
around police. They are more likely to flee police or to flail their arms
while being taken into custody. This will get them charged with battery
on a law enforcement officer on top of the usual charges of fleeing, resisting,
and lying.
Thus, one moment a kid is riding down the street; the next,
he’s in the slammer facing a long list of felony charges, a stretch on the
criminal justice and social services plantations, and a lifetime on the electronic
plantation. This outrage can only be removed by legislation at the
state or city level. In the meantime, you’ve got to protect your kids or your
younger brothers and sisters.
» Buy only new bicycles from stores.
» Make sure that the bikes have lights and that the children use
them.
» Instruct the children to wear helmets where required
Naturally, this takes much of the fun out of riding bikes, which for
most kids is their first taste of freedom from their parents and an important
stage in growing up. These bicycle laws were passed by city commissions
and state legislatures to protect children’s safety. Unfortunately, the
welfare state has an unfortunate tendency to morph into the police state.
For police, bicycle safety laws have become another means of making
more arrests and racking up more points. Children need to stay free and
out of jail long enough to grow up, straighten up, and become citizens.
Help them out.
Help yourself out as well. Don’t tool around on a stolen bike, and don’t
forget to use the light at night. To get arrested and dumped on the plantations
due to a bicycle infraction is beyond tragic.
Thanks, I downloaded the book.
In any ghetto in America after dark, the young urban entrepreneurs are out on bike patrol. A thug on a bike is far more dangerous than one in a car or out struttin around.
For our safety, all bike riders must be required to carry id. All bikes need license plates and RFIDs so we know where the criminals are at. Anyone caught without one will be charged with a crime, because if you don’t have one, you’re probably doing something illegal.
Also a lot of criminal use the sidewalks. Any one out walking in public really needs to have an id. And an RFID so we know where they are. It’d be far cheaper if we stop all the crimes before they start. We all pay for the public paths and all the spaces are affected. If someone’s in your neighborhood and hiding who they are, they will be charged like the criminal they are.
If everyone is broadcasting their id, you can better protect your property by seeing the history of anyone walking by. Or anyone in your vicinity indoors or outdoors too. We’re all better served and protected by knowing who is around us and whether they have ever done anything wrong. This is what will keep us all safe.
This is part of David Brin’s “Transparent Society.”
The point he made was not about the surveillance, but about who controls the surveillance.
Ideally, it is possible to avoid crime – IF anyone can see the surveillance footage.
It is different if only the police can use the surveillance cameras… then, as now, they are merely responding to crime.
Better instead that the people can view the street before they walk down it, thus avoiding the criminal element, and making crime less profitable.
Guess which one the Powers That Be do NOT want?
Maybe it is unintentionally. Costner did OK with Brin’s “The Postman” and his work is enjoyable and educates and enlightens.
But he is within the circle of captured and capturing minds. Which for you is fine, you are for martial living, religious mindsets, and the notion there can be a perfected caste, and that this caste can perfect others.
I had to shut down Brin’s Trekspertise vid as soon as it called Mary Shelley the “mother of science fiction.” Because that is a lie.
It’s been around since Sumerian times. And a new technical flavor of sci fi came into being during the scientific revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_fiction
I aim to be outside of all the Google Hangout Ted Talk darlings like Brin. He is part of the new Techno Aristocracy which I am happy to learn from, but hope never to join.
Brin’s romantization of saddling up humans and riding them around makes me want a puke. It sounds like so much Borg Cube assimilaton nonsense to me. Nothing is more abhorent than the “Make It So” Jean Luc Picardians who see other people as mere appliances to be barked at and kept on a militarized shelf.
I’ll stick with the pseudonymous Rands and the Renegade Heinleins, thanks but no thanks on David Brin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgWH0BTaOMg I do concur with his Jewish Tikkun Olam = “Healing the world” – mindset, but in completely different way.
Rather than put the world right. Rather than look at societies like broken Humpty Dumpty’s in need of “All the Kings Men.” Men are just seeds. Societies are just fields.
Each is a different kind of sustenance for other creations to consume or to inhabit.
Look at all the pieces and fragments of “broken” things as raw materials for something new. Man was meant to create things new and different. A man’s offspring don’t exist to put bring back the world of their progenitor.
They’re meant to go out and be fruitful and multiply. The fall of man is greatly misunderstood. Men are better understood as seeds that fall. Some sprout and produce something new. Others are eaten and nourish others. The rest whither and die without producing.
Yeshua’s mishal of the sower:
A landowner went out to sow some seed on his land. As he sowed, some seed fell alongside the path; and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky patches where there was not much soil. It sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow; but when the sun had risen, the young plants were scorched; and since their roots were not deep, they dried up.
Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. But others fell into rich soil and produced grain, a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as had been sown. Those who have ears, let them hear!”
You’re just a seed of your father. Go be something new. Be fruitful and sprout seeds of your own. That’s all there is.
You learn all the conspiracies and secret things for reasons of self-defense. But without all the psychopath crazies, it’s really quite simple and basic.
All the time spent surveiling and checking on others seems like wasted time. Anyone whose life involves controlling and watching the movements of others is going against their basic nature, as far as I’m concerned.
The idea of a transparent society. Of people being transparent and existing only as part of some kind of kinsfolk collective is chilling to me. Maybe I’m not right in the head, and maybe I’m some kind of hyper-prolific weed mentality, while it is them who are “the good crop.”
You aspire to be a “Power That Be” don’t you. What kind of powers do you hope to obtain? What do you hope to do with them? Why is it you wish to kill already growing crops and grow in their stead? Why not seek your own soil and plant yourself their and not worry about other plants and fields?
Unfortunately, I mostly want to be left alone.
I want to find my own way, without a lot of red tape and busy bodies.
I’m finding the only option here, is to be powerful enough that the minor Napoleans cannot intrude on me without getting their noses punched.
Exactly the OPPOSITE of how life should be.
As to the collective and the David Brin Transparent Society? you’re already part of it. It will continue to congeal around us. The question David Brin spoke of was, who will control that technology? Like politics, it will continue whether we look at it or not. We can take control of it, and demand access ourselves; or we can abrogate control to “our betters,” who will use these “controls” to control us, and maybe, possibly, eventually, to find a criminal not of their own making…
It’s not the “collective,” merely technology. We need to control the technology or it will be used to control us. That was the real point there.
+++
Think of it in these terms, might make more sense.
Who can better be charitable? The wealthy, who can give from excess? Or the poor, who may be sacrificing their next meal to help those even worse off? Not which makes the greater sacrifice, not who gives more – who is more comfortable giving?
Who can treat others with respect more easily? The man who has been beaten down, marginalized, abused? Or the magnate that everyone knows, and whom everyone knows can ruin them, so they fall all over each other for the crumbs from master’s table?
We know, of course, that these don’t hold true and solid. Wealthy who treat others like cr@p, because “they can.” Those who could afford great charity, but turn to hoarding wealth, and claim others should “just get a job.”
We are speaking principles in the abstract, though. Who has the reserves to draw on, to ensure they WILL be heard? Not the impoverished, not the marginalized, not the disenfranchised.
+++
As long as they aren’t agressing against me, I don’t need to see what they’re doing. In fact, I’m probably happier NOT KNOWING what they’ll do…. {“Ooh, that’s going to cost a finger… Or five!”}
But I want that same courtesy. That same privacy. And unless I can enforce it? I don’t have it. Unless I can KEEP [defend] my land, I don’t own it.
Does that clarify?
In a U.S.A. that is dominated by authoritarians and collectivists, there is one man fighting a never-ending battle of revenge. That man is RAMROD.
Revenge is, ultimately, futile. It changes nothing.
I seek change.
And the way to accomplish that – as far as what’s acceptable politically/legally – is to get a critical mass of people to regard aggressive violence (for whatever “good cause”) in the same way that most normal people currently regard chattel slavery or pederasty.
That’s the key, Ramrod.
Even if you could physically exterminate every single Clover, new ones would simply crop up. What’s needed is a change in people’s attitudes. The rest will follow.
Thank you for changing “people’s attitudes”. What you call “peoples attitudes”, I call human nature.
Eric, you still don’t get it. RAMROD is not interested in change; I am interested in revenge.
A gal that I sometimes commute with has an ol man in the Nevada Department of Corrections systems plotting revenge.
Somehow he scored a truck full of 5 ft, 6 ft, and some almost 8 ft high end HD big screens with a buddy of his.
They’re making obscene amounts of cash and they do their deals in some 24 hour casino laundromat convenience store deal where there’s just a single cashier working and no one ever comes out in the huge poorly lit parking lot.
After a few weeks he’s down to his last few units and some wiseguy comes along and gets one over on him. My co-workers ol man goes ballsitic and a big fight ensues. And a shot is fired and various other hullabaloo takes place. And he’s in a rage at this guy and at his partner as well, who he blames for what happened.
He chimps out like a first year Aryan Nations apprentice at a Gay Pride Hip Hop festival.
Financially, it wouldn’t have made far more sense to just let it go. But he becomes obsessed with the guy. Pursues him and probably spends more money than he lost trying to get a hold of this guy and “get him back.”
He finally finds the guy, but by this time some kind of snitch scenario was set in motion. And he gets popped for assaulting the petty thief who steals from other thiefs. And also goes down for the other bigger thing and loses everything he got out of that as well.
Even today, years later, it’s all he can talk about, she says. How sweet revenge is going to be for him. And all his behind the bars shot callings he’s doing to set things straight.
Revenge is pointless except for the emotionally primitive. I can see how it happens in the moment, but to make it a way of life is less than pointless.
Revenge is a dish best enjoyed vicariously if at all. If someone else makes it happened by all means, glow in the schadenfreude like an archaeologist’s assistant as all the enemy Nazi’s faces start melting.
If someone is paying you to get this revenge, i guess that is another matter altogether. But I got the feeling its just a non-remunerative hobby for you.
I am not a role model. I am not an advocate for revenge any more than Timothy McVeigh was an advocate for blowing up Federal buildings. It is not for everybody. It will never be popular.
Revenge will eat you up. It will ruin your health…..drive your friends away and neither you nor they will know why. If it’s personal and somebody deserves to die, they will without your intervention.
I once desired revenge and it was well-deserved. I wanted to kill him myself, slowly. But then the big C intervened and he died a slow, painful, lingering death. I felt cheated at first but finally realized Karma was involved. Coming to grips with the whole thing was the best thing to ever happen to me. He never realized what I intended so he slept like a baby no doubt. I was the one who suffered for years. It was foolish, destructive thinking on my part. I won’t be caught up in it again.
Have you ever noticed that people who are eaten up by anger are never depressed?
Depends what you mean by ‘depressed.’
Anger and depression go hand in hand. It’s often a vicious cycle with one worsening the other. A search on the subject delivers hit after hit. Freud said depression was anger turned inward.
But if you don’t want to give Freud any credence, countless studies, more than you’d want or possibly be able to read deal with the association of depression and anger.
The people who I know who take a handful of antidepressants and “try to get through the day” are not angry people. They are helpless people with an inner voice: “what good will that do”.
Maybe the people who you know are different.
RAMROD, why do they take those drugs? It’s physical or psychological pain that leads the to that or just cause a doctor told them, as my wife’s did, they’d help her deal with pain. And they do because they make you stupid and docile so you can cry yourself to sleep instead of lying in bed and not sleep because of physical pain. Some take them because they were emotional wrecks for one reason or another and physical pain will do that. And hurting all the time can make you angry…and depressed.
I’m just now getting somewhat over a wreck I had last year. So what did more than one doctor offer me? Psyche meds. It will help your pain. No, getting my body healed will help my pain. Does anybody really want to share the road with a big rig driver, esp. one that hauls “over” loads? I get physically stressed, emotionally stressed and just stressed over not being able to be everywhere at the same time and I’m on one of those drugs. Maybe I’ll be that guy that gets a crying jag or really mad or both at the same time. I’m so bent I decide I’ll just make that run across the interstate and they’ll regret picking on me, a common thing with psyche drugs, always the victim and everybody’s out to get you. I don’t want to live and am mad too so I’ll just take out as many people as I can.
Fortunately truckers have to work so hard they don’t want a drug to make them docile or stupid or both or something to curb their anger. I know a guy in a pickup who took that option and killed a whole family. He wasn’t satisfied to simply off himself and be done with it, he was angry enough to take other people, as many as he could.
I realize a great many of those people are women and are more easily manipulated than men and aren’t as aggressive but I’ve seen some women turn that aggressive shoulder and try to kill someone while crying their eyes out. Anger and depression. And now every water way in almost the whole world is polluted with this crap. Sorry, didn’t mean to get on a rant. I’m just mad and haven’t had my psyche meds today. Seriously though, even some of those cops who murder people cause they’re so mad are taking those drugs, drugs meant to chill them out.
I can’t recall a single mass murder shooting spree that wasn’t done by a person taking them.
As long as big pharm has ultimate control over this country and others though, there won’t be any going back to eating healthily and living healthily. We’ll be poisoned by everything we eat and drink.
The people you know don’t seem to be mad. I wouldn’t take that to the bank though.
You focused on the important examples. These drugs, psychotropics, are a big moneymaker for the corporations and an important enforcement tool for the ruling class.
Revenge won’t get you anywhere. Ideas matter. Ideas must be spread. When people hear my heretical ideas, they may brush them off or consider me crazy. But subconsciously, they remember what was said. I’ve had it happen with a couple of friends. At first I was “crazy”, but as they looked at the world around them, they realized that maybe I wasn’t as crazy as they first thought. Those friends go on to persuade others. Of course, not everyone will wake up, at least to the point you may feel they should.
Persuasion is the only weapon we have. If we use coercion, violence, or the threat thereof, we are no better than they–the statists–are. Besides, they have the weapons and agents protecting their monopoly of “legal” violence.
Like Eight says, revenge will eat you up. It will consume you. It isn’t a libertarian ideal, though we are all tempted with it to some extent. Withholding consent and non-compliance are better tools in my opinion. You likely disagree, but I ask you to think about it nonetheless.
Persuading people to your “heretical ideas”, “withholding consent”, and “non-compliance” are actions that I admire. I have been beaten-up and arrested for these actions. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Violence is always a last resort, not a first one. Fuck off, nutter.
At what point do you get to the “last resort?”
Before or after the enemy has numerical, tactical, strategic superiority? (As we’re already too late to do it before… Perhaps the question is, what are you willing to live down to? Will you be branded like cattle, fed liquified remains of other cattle, and pretend your soylent green tastes like chicken..? )
I don’t much like thinking in terms of revenge (save one instance, which I unfortunately can’t let go of; but it is personal, and doesn’t consume much thought, as the odds I meet that person again ever are 1:[population of the US].)
Punishment, on the other hand…
Fulfilling the very laws of the land, and of nature, against those who are actively trying to destroy free humans…?
Not very fulfilling, not very “productive” – but it DOES leave a sweet flavor in the mouth.
My concern is that that’s comic book hero tripe, and the resort of the truly powerless…
And then I look around, while trying the “hearts and minds” or “educate the (m)asses” route… THAT puts me in a state of despair.
The sheep are happy with the status (statist) quo. So a few get eaten by the wolves (who claim to be “protecting” the flock)…. Who cares? didn’t happen to me. The Flock (state) lives on – YOU, the speaker, MUST be the problem. YOU don’t trust the wolves; so we good sheep must push you out of the Flock.
Yeah… Can’t see a reason for revenge against the sheep. Rage against fire being hot, water being warm; sheep are stupid, placid, groupthink creatures.
Give them their grass and sun (or rain, they care little) – they’re happy. For the Lords (of the sith) are my shepherds, I shall not want…. Because when I want, a wolf eats one of my friends… And the Sith Lords who rule the wolves remind me, the other sheep have it worse….
Bah.
Not worth the effort most days. I get used to being ignored, but need to up my game as well. Too easily ignored, and for the wrong reasons. Need to build my own pack, which seems very difficult now that i’m an “adult” – limited free time (too much to work and commuting), limited resources, and VERY limited intellectual ability amongst the sheep classes…. Worse amongst the parasite classes, as they benefit from the ignorance of the sheep.
But there’s still a drive to be free, and to punish those wolves who wish to eat all sheep… And destroy the sith, for that matter, as they are all inherently evil, seeking to unleash wolves upon the sheep because they claim that “right”….
Maybe I’m not so different, but I only want my own freedom. Freedom to do and be, and make my own mistakes (and hopefully learn from them). I’d rather be King Beyond the Wall and “command” a willing coalition, than have an enforced conformity with Nazi SS ensuring only WHITE sheep are breeding…. While the Black sheep are eaten, farmed, experimented on, etc, etc, etc.
If people want to follow me? Fine. If they don’t? Also fine. They’re free to choose. Live and let live.
If they seek to eat me? I’m OK if I feed them their own intestines…. They pursued me, not the other way around. Why should I allow them to succeed? Worse, why allow them to escape, and inflict themselves on others? Others might be too dull or pacifistic – and while I can appreciate and respect principled pacifism, allowing the (un?)principled aggression of the wolf to survive – that’s foolish.
Make them hurt.
Make their masters hurt.
Let the sheep graze in peace as much as possible.
Convert if you can, though.
Back to the question: When do you employ violence?
Because if you’re not READY to employ violence – which is indicated by the “last resort” bit – you are easily overcome by it. The violent will smell your fear, your hesitance, your reticence to be “a ruffian” or ” a criminal.” You’ll feel their jaws close on your neck, or if they’re a little more savvy… You’ll feel nothing, they’ll just bite down and extract a pound of flesh…. (Call it taxes…)
Think of it as knowing everyone in the town…
Everyone knows the town drunk, the town bicycle, who’s a slut, who’s always looking for a fight, or the “get rich quick” con man….
You know who to avoid, in that scenario.
These days, they wear uniforms, making it easier to know across jurisdictions who is de facto a “wolf.” There are plenty of non-union thugs (non-uniformed) still, and for all the acceptance of the invasion of privacy, the routine surveillance, the involuntary interactions with the uniformed wolves… We’re not safer BECAUSE OF these abrogations of our rights – we’re safer IN SPITE OF them (statistically, violent crime is down – Check FBI stats).
We are being reduced to the sheep above, and many are HAPPY about it.
Stop caring about the sheep, agent starling. They’ll never be silent. They will always have a complaint, that is part of their nature.
The wolves also have complaints, namely that they need to restrain themselves….
But though we do not complain that fire burns, we DO actively contain it.
We do not complain that water is wet, but we also contain it, to limit the drownings, avoid the tsunamis, limit our risk.
We don’t wait until the wave is sighted; we build a damn, levees, flow control systems, PRIOR to the event.
We don’t allow debris to accumulate in the dryer, nor do we pour oils on the hot stove, for the same reason.
Yet it seems you would eschew violence until AFTER you have been harmed.
I suppose your estate can pursue proper legal channels after your death….?
Assuming the controllers of the legal channels permit it, of course.
We wouldn’t want to disturb the wolves….
Don’t plan on the underclass ever getting it right and having a democratically elected government that tolerates your freedom. I don’t compare the sheeple to “hot fire” or “warm water”. They are sheep; they crave dependence on a benevolent shepherd.
Good people are outnumbered. Enjoy the self-esteem that comes from honorable resistance.
The craven dependents are all mortal and will soon die. If every newborn baby was not indoctrinated and pasteurized, things could turn around in a single generation.
Orson Wells reading John Brown’s speech at his sentencing.
Hanging site of John Brown in Charles Town, WV
American heroes: John Brown
John Brown’s hanging
https://causesofthecivilwar.wikispaces.com/John+Brown’s+hanging
“having a democratically elected government that tolerates your freedom” – democracy and freedom are mutually exclusive terms. Woodrow Wilson dragged the US into a “war to make the world safe for democracy.” But what will make us safe FROM democracy.
Dear RR,
“a democratically elected government that tolerates your freedom”
Phil is right. Democracy and freedom are totally incompatible.
“Champion of democracy: someone who approves of dictatorships as long as they hold elections.”
https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
Democracy is not about serving the people, unless you mean FOR dinner.
RAMROD, I won’t call anyone “names”, esp. denigrating ones, not even clover. Besides the last sentence in this post, I can say the same thing.
For those who haven’t yet been beaten and don’t think it could happen, for those who have yet to be incarcerated and don’t worry about it, for those who haven’t had their possessions stolen by govt., I can only say: Don’t bet it won’t happen, you aren’t dead YET.
Dear RR,
Retaliation against the state when it commits aggression against you is morally justifiable.
I for one, would never say you were in the wrong for seeking retribution.
But if we are talking about how to effect societal change, there is other work that must be done that is actually more important than retaliation.
That work is what ancap was talking about. Raising the political consciousness of the public. That is what will finally lead to a permanent free, voluntaryist society, rather than just a lull between one statist tyranny and the next.
If you’re wondering what the real answer is, this is it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYbpICtfFwo
Our concerns and values overlap. It is admirable to strive for “societal change” by raising “social consciousness”. That is attempt number one.
The Book of Exodus tells about “the public”. They are waiting at the foot of the mountaintop for the holy man to come down with laws carved in stone. Good luck trying to persuade them.
Which is why we have to offer our own competing “holy man” with a different narrative.
RAMROD has a special relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe I am your “holy man”.
I for one (and I know I am in the minority, and not just on this site) believe we would all be better off WITH those laws carved in stone, instead of whatever TPTB decides to call law. But the people were NOT waiting at the foot of the mountain. They cajoled Aaron into making an idol (the golden calf) and they were having a rip-roaring celebration of having chosen their own god when Moses reappeared.
Thanks, now I know the rest of the story.
Grand Theft Auto Jesus
You are either a troll or a nutter.
Use first person to refer to yourself, RETARD. You are not a comic book hero.
We have Positive and Negative reinforcement, as used with training dogs.
It used to be, with Religion and social Pressures, that we selected for those who were able and willing to live within basic rules of society.
The rest were marginalized and/or ostracized or even exiled. (And no small number executed, I’m certain.)
We have abandoned religion (whether good or ill, we didn’t replace it.)
Social pressures are based on social values; we no longer need to survive as before, life is easy – we have allowed the unfit and worthless to breed, at an ever-increasing rate.
While I know most will dislike my terms there, how else can we classify the willfully indigent, the mentally feeble, and those who are specifically destructive of society? These aren’t good people who hit misfortunes or hard times, but rather, those who cannot live on their own; those who cannot control themselves; those who WILL NOT contribute.
You’re correct in that final paragraph.
Clovers will always grow back. (Shallow end of the gene pool; no self-direction, no self-identity, no soul.)
And that we need to change people’s attitudes, which has been happening all our lifetimes anyway. Mass media has sped up the process, but the mechanism has been the same – we’re just on ever-tightening time loops, it gets faster and faster, and people can’t be disabused of their poor logic and bad thinking fast enough – especially as there are those who profit from and support – and encourage, as a result – those poor ways of thinking, those fallacies adopted as truths.
If we allow these thought patterns to be incitivized, as we have been – with positive rewards – we’re just the last of the dodos, waiting for our extinction.
I can’t be passive here, and can’t see “educating” those who seek to follow the other venues of coercion, instead of working towards a better life and society.
But I used that evil, 4-letter word, “work.”
To change people’s attitudes, de-incentivize the stupid avenues. Make being a dolt lead to poverty, sans “safety net,” and the problem will solve itself.
Make it hazardous to be a crooked cop, and there will be fewer and fewer crooked cops.
Make paramilitary 3 AM assaults cost more cops than they can replace in 5 years…. And more equipment than they can afford, too…. And make it criminal and hold the judges accountable…. You’ll find fewer abuses of the powers of law enforcement.
Until people are willing to (a) do this, and (b) act when the law fails them, and (c) get their hands dirty – Do what “the law” said it would do, HAS DONE to civilians doing the same thing – because “the law” won’t hold its own accountable?
Nothing’s going to change. The occasional scapegoat isn’t a recent phenomenon. Not even new in the 1800s. Nor the 1700s…. In fact, the term “scapegoat” comes from a tribal practice of attributing all the sins of the tribe onto the sacrifice, usually a goat (guessing that’s a regional thing), and exiling the goat to die – taking the sins of the tribe with it. (IIRC, some tribes killed the goat directly, but most would throw it to the wilds and let it be eaten by other animals.)
So, the “tribe” lives on, the sacrifical Scapegoat is removed….
The attitudes of the tribe are unchanged.
As with the cops found guilty of rape, murder, sodomy (conflating a few recent cases, mind)… The “bad apples” are weeded out, and the system maintains those who are “honorable” and “true to the law” – whose attitudes haven’t changed, and therefore, whose actions WILL not change.
Must use some negative reinforcement. And not just on a scapegoat. Hopefully once a decade would be enough, but by now, we may have allowed it to rot so much, we need a few hundred this year, to get momentum going the other way.
And then there’s still the rest of the society, in need of similar dis-incentivizing, removing SS, Medicare, welfare, etc. Returning real jobs to the shores of this country; returning education to something of value; removing the need for a college degree, to work at McDonalds, for example.
It’s a LONG road of changes. the problem in making this omellette is knowing which eggs are rotten, and therefore best to remove…
You should be more concerned about changing yourself than others. Waiting for the revolution to start is an excuse to cower helplessly.
I confront the enemies of freedom face-to-face without weapons or threats. This can be as simple as: “good morning officer, how is the police state going, have you shot any unarmed people or pets lately……………”.
If you have the courage, you may punish your local tyrants into getting an order of protection against you. Then you can hold your head high because you have distinguished yourself from the sheeple.
I don’t talk to them unless I’m pulled over for no registration. I don’t register my cars–only the ones my wife drives at her request. When I have a run-in with them the conversation always turns to a teaching lesson from me to them. I don’t let them ask the questions at the window. I ask the questions and steer the conversation. That takes them off of their game. They are used to being the bully, rather than getting lectured by a competent traveler.
That is my approach. It isn’t for everyone, or every area. The cops in Idaho may be less militant than other areas. I never miss an opportunity to plant seeds of anarchy. My approach isn’t going to change things over night, but it will change things over time. People remember what they hear. I have seen it. I have never seen any change come from someone who goes down in a blaze of glory. I try to avoid that scenario because I have baby anarchists and a wife at home to tend to.
I spread independent thought and ideas on my street, at the construction projects I work on and the taxi cars I operate. I haven’t got an order of protection placed against me, but I still hold my head high, because I have the truth on my side. I believe in the free market, free trade, free thought and voluntary interactions. The statists know I will tell them how it is when they try peddling their statism on me. The best thing to hear from them is “hmm, I’ve never thought of it that way.
I used to believe in some of your tactics ramrod. If there was a fight or confrontation, I was in the middle of it. I rarely changed any minds. People just stayed away. Over the past 4-5 years I have worked on my approach. It has paid dividends. Persuasion and the sharing of outside the–statist–box ideas are more powerful than fists or a berating voice.
Another libertarian website that points out on a daily basis that the hired guns of the ruling class murder people and steal their freedom through law enforcement. The result is a libertarian citizen who belittles RAMROD for doing too much with the latent criticism: “change doesn’t come from someone who goes down in a blaze of glory”.
Change yourself. Grow a backbone. Be concerned about the kind of nation that your “baby” will inherit from you rather than using your “baby” as an excuse to always err on the side of cowardice.
Hi Ramrod,
Is it productive to belittle people whom you (ostensibly) agree with? Note that none of us have belittled you. Rather, we’ve taken issue – not acrimoniously – with your advocacy of revenge and what comes across (to me, at any rate) as a desire to engage in violent acts.
I grant that it defensive force may become necessary at some point. However, I also maintain that absent a change of heart and mind, violence will solve nothing, ultimately. People forced to submit and obey only submit and obey for as long as you are able to force them to do so.
Why is chattel slavery no longer practiced in most parts of the world? It is not because it is against the law. It is because a critical mass of people find it morally repellent.
This is the key to everything.
The wheel turns, perhaps slowly. But it does turn.
Consider the “war” on (some) drugs, for example. Year-to-year, it’s hard to discern the shift, but if you’re old enough to remember the ’80s, you will agree, I imagine, that general attitudes have markedly changed and with them, the laws. How many states have decriminalized or are on the path to decriminalizing the use/possession/sale of marijuana? This would have been inconceivable circa 1985 because very few people – most especially those seeking public office (who had a prayer of being elected) would openly defend/argue in favor of decriminalization, much less legalization.
More here: http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/04/21/you-say-you-want-a-revolution/
Eric, I have never mentioned a “violent act that I have a desire to engage in”. Put in some effort to control your overactive imagination.
Hi Ramrod,
Please do not put words in my mouth. I did not write: “violent act that I have a desire to engage in”
I wrote: “what comes across (to me, at any rate) as a desire to engage in violent acts.”
Big difference.
I provided a quotation to explain how I was belittled by “latent criticism”.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but never a coward.
Would I not be considered a coward if I attacked the police when pulled over next time? Since you aren’t dead or in prison, how aren’t you a coward?
You are really touchy to consider anything I said to be belittling.
Dear ancap,
I earnestly hope that ramrod is merely too touchy, and not an “Agent provocateur”.
An agent provocateur (French for “inciting agent”) is an undercover agent who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of their own sense of nationalism/duty or may be employed by the police or other entity to discredit or harm another group (e.g., peaceful protest or demonstration) by provoking them to commit a crime – thus, undermining the protest or demonstration as whole.
Either name the specific act that you are alleging or admit that you are making this up.
Reread what I wrote:
I earnestly hope that ramrod is merely too toucny, and not an “Agent provocateur”.
What did I make up?
I expressed a hope.
“Enticing another person to commit an illegal act”.
Stop whining “agent provocateur”. If you disagree with my comment, explain why you disagree.
The passage was from Wikipedia. It was a definition of the term agent provocateur.
It said: “This is what an agent provocateur is.” It did not say: “Ramrod is an agent provocateur”.
As I explained before. I did not say you were an agent provocateur. I said I hoped you were NOT an agent provocateur.
Now that I have cleared that point up, allow me to say this. Quite a few regulars here have bent over backwards to be tactful to you.
But it’s clear that you belong to a certain personality type, one that carries huge chips on their shoulder throughout their lives.
The antagonism you are provoking from others here at EPA is nothing new. I can say with 100% certainty that it has followed you around all your life, and will continue to do so unless and until you transform yourself.
I predict you will do the very same thing at the next website you honor with your presence.
Bevin, be candid rather than use your timid innuendo. Define the complaint that you and the “regulars have been tactful about”, point to facts.
Hi Ramrod,
I’d very much appreciate it if you’d tone down the rhetoric. Guys like Bevin, Ancap (and me) are on your side of the fence… I think.
Hold your fire for the Clovers.
Please!
Eric, thanks for being candid. I will return to your website after I put on my skirt.
Hi Ramrod,
I’m sorry you feel that way. This site’s regulars are good people – smart people, too. I cannot fathom your aggressiveness toward them. Is it not possible to have a civil conversation? Do you regard that as being feminine? Weak? (in re your “wearing a skirt” comment.)
Why do you feel it necessary to taunt people who (again, ostensibly) share your basic opposition to coercive authoritarianism?
Why needlessly antagonize people who are not your enemies?
We welcome spirited conversation here; it’s fine to disagree, to raise objections, to state a different point of view. But it serves no good purpose to ridicule people who are philosophically in agreement with you.
Hi, Eric. Thanks for your libertarian website.
I used to have my own hate-site until the order of protection came. Perhaps you would like to publish Exhibit “B”. It is an affidavit from one of the cops that I proudly harmed. I particularly like the part about his teary-eyed mother. You can use it as an example of someone with a “chip on his shoulder” who wouldn’t “tone down”.
Send me an email address.
BOMBS AWAY,
RAMROD
Hi Ramrod,
Again, I don’t take issue with your hatred of authoritarians. I feel the same way. My comments were directed at your apparent (and, as I see it, needless) hostility toward people like me and Bevin and Ancap… who are on your side!
We can have a discussion, but – if we’re all opposed to coercion and authoritarianism – it ought to be friendly or at least civil.
Right?
And, more broadly: We (who oppose coercion, brutality, authoritarianism) ought to try our utmost to live the NAP. This does not mean cowardice. It means not looking for a fight, doing one’s best to avoid them. Trying to persuade and reason, with defensive force the final, last-resort choice.
I’ve noticed something about our opponents, in this vein. They are marinated in their violence to such an extent they no longer even notice it. Their comments, for example, almost invariably suggest or outright demand violence – the end/goal being irrelevant. And, on top of this, they tend to be not-thoughtful, obviously ignorant and (to a great extent) actually illiterate. Unable to type a coherent, grammatically correct sentence.
We have the advantage – don’t you see?
I often think that Clovers’ own posts here have done more good than my own articles – by revealing the degenerate minds of the authoritarian crowd. They have just one advantage over us – numbers.
But I’ll take quality over quantity any day of the week!
Sure Eric, we can have a sugar-coated discussion. We live in the land of the lollipops and the home of the scared.
Ramrod,
Sigh. This is necessary? Are you truly not capable of having a discussion on the merits? Must you resort to taunts and insults?
Like I said, everyone has bent over backwards to meet RR halfway, but clearly to no avail.
That was why I decided one of two conclusions were unavoidable.
1. RR is merely an individual so consumed with unfocused rage, that he snaps at and bites not just statists, but even political allies.
2. RR is yet another agent provocateur, similar to ones we have encountered before. He has adopted a slightly different style, but is basically attempting to egg people here on to advocate violence for future prosecution.
“Aren’t dead or in prison, how aren’t you a coward?” Aren’t you missing a number of in-between steps?
I resist; get beaten-up, get arrested.
Do you care about the nation that your children will inherit from you.
So you would sacrifice yourself to a mere abstraction? A nation? That is against the very nature of America.
No human life should be extinguished to further the goals of some acreage under some banner. That is the old, immoral way. That is UN-AMERICAN.
That isn’t of America. That is of all previous systems that regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in and of itself.
The principle of the United States has uniquely been that each man is to be regarded as an END IN HIMSELF, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary co-existence of the ends of all such individuals.
It is the old world systems that held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by its favor, and by the permission of the society his life belongs to.
It is old world thinking that this favor may be revoked at any time.
The United States was born of the enlightenment and has always held that man’s life is his by right – which means: by moral principle – which means by his very nature.
America holds that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of an government, if such need even exist, is to serve in the PROTECTION of the rights of its constituent individuals.
It’s meant NEVER to be the other way around.
RAMROD, I think I may understand where you come from. At some point you must stand up for yourself. I’m a bad MF myself……according to some people. There are various reasons, all specious and 99.9% flat out wrong.
Yes, I have treated those retards with badges and guns with the most complete disdain and complete lack of respect things have happened to me that wouldn’t happen to a clover……..fuckin obviously. Sometimes getting pushed around on a personal level gets to be too much.
I don’t go out of my way to engender hard feelings……but due to the hard need to sway pubic opinion, those fuctards with badges and guns will tell any lie for no other reason than to not get caught lying their asses off.
I get all this type of stuff since I can’t avoid “getting it”……having gotten hell out of it.
Coming in today this guy is playing videos on his phone and shows one of a cop getting shot jacking with a guy.
I told him he was merely 854,999 cops short of a perfect record.
Eightsouthman, I agree with your sentiments. I don’t believe that shooting cops is practicable; but, I want to do something now. I blame the sheeple (clovis) for putting up with and enabling the police state. You can’t talk to the sheeple; you have to tell them off: family, friends, neighbors…….
I love my country; but, I hate the people who live here.
They won’t inherit a nation from me. I can only impart knowledge, insight and wisdom(hopefully). They may inherit some property.
Since I have been arrested, can I be the only other non-skirt wearer on this site with you? Pretty pretty please?
I have one other question. Are you related to Bob Dole?
Bevin was right about you. Maynard Keenan also has some words for you: “if you choose to pull the trigger, should your drama prove sincere, do it somewhere far away from here.
I will now ignore your bullshit the same way I have to do to people who loved GW Bush and want to “kill em all before they kill us.”
Ditto all that, Ancap… that’s become my policy, also. Ramrod’s comments inspired me to elaborate a bit on this subject; see today’s rant!
I would rather start scrambling the eggs, but I’m not naive enough to think I’d get any support or help.
Since I don’t have a record, but am essentially under surveillance the whole time, I don’t go looking for trouble.
I’d be happy to get the ball rolling, though, one pig at a time… Problem is the cameras, that surveillance. If it’s at the tipping point, it’s irrelevant. But not enough people give a damn, so I need to keep quiet. Otherwise I just put a target on my chest…
“Crazy, not stupid,” as the expression goes.
And actually, in Boston, they’re not too interested in being a-holes. I’ve had fewer interactions with the police here in 3.5 years, than in the 6 months I was in Erie, PA.
I don’t want to go after the wrong eggs. Only the rotten ones. But unless people are willing to vote in the “right” people (assuming it’s even possible in these crooked cities)? What i’ve described is just psychopathic murder, chaos for its own sake. Not my cup of tea, to be labelled “public enemy #1” purely for the sake of starting a revolution which most people don’t want, in an area which doesn’t seem to need one….
New Jersey, OTOH… Or NYC…. Chicago… these places, you can’t spit without hitting someone who should be executed. But I don’t live there, and I have to work, or I don’t get paid. I don’t get paid, I don’t eat. I like eating…
I try to engage people whenever possible, tell them the reality of what’s happening. I’m mostly ignored. I get as much success with “educating” others, as AnCap with his fists.
which is why I’m festering, stuck on the “remove the problems” level. The sheep don’t care.
Most I can do is eliminate wolves…
But for all the bad things going on up here, it’s a pretty quiet area (BOSTON, quiet? Yep… Even with Tsarnev.)
Keene, NH? Not so much. And all the other spots mentioned, too. 🙂
“Blaze of glory” is stupid, though – Sniping a target and disappearing, repeating as needed? THAT would weed out problems, though it does make you “an enemy of the sheep”, I mean, state….
What costs are you willing to bear? You’ve made note of little anarchists and a wife…
I can’t shoot, though. (Pull a trigger, yes; hit the target, not so much. Yet.) 😉
I am not anxious to start the ball rolling when I’ll only be seen as “the enemy” for everyone…. No more than you seem to be. And until such time as it’s reasonable (not guaranteed survival, mind, either – just likely that one can stand up and be counted without simply being lopped off), I’m not going to go on a rampage – that’s a waste.
It really only gets me dead…. And I know where I’m headed after life, so I’m in NO rush….
There is another man fighting a never-ending battle to continue providing a firing chamber. That man is eric.
There is another man serving as the part in a firearm that removes brass cases of fired ammunition after the ammunition has been fired. That man lifts or removes the spent brass casing from eric’s firing chamber. That man is extrac-tor.
How does one trade with you and your currency of revenge? Do you have a secret lair filled with authoritarian and collectivist human scalps? Is there some darknet where you fedex them to Fiji and a week later you receive a fedex filled with china white?
I’m getting all the value I could ask for here. I can effectively post anything I want. I am so far unable to contribute anything eric counts as real value in return. That is the very conundrum most U.S.A.’ians face. Authentic value for value exchange is impeded or outright prohibited.
There are many components of a functioning weapon required. What can I do to create something that will help defend us?
– – – – refried previous discussion – – – –
Prince and King are somewhat disingenuous examples of successful web publishers,
Both men were already hugely famous and insanely rich, having been made so by the backing of major publishers before they were either.
How many albums/songs would Prince have sold online if his name was not Prince? If he were 22 years old today and an unknown?
Same goes for Stephen King. They were both fortunate enough to have begun and established their careers before the Internet. They can afford to “e” publish on their own now – because they’re already rich and famous! But the not-yet-famous are in a very different position.
The Internet has largely created two classes of writers and musicians: The extremely wealthy and very famous… and the unknown and desperate.
Pre-Internet, there was a larger class of “in the middles” who made a decent living as writers, editors, and peripheral positions associated with such work such as copy editors, graphic designers, make-up people. Those ancillary positions are all gone now – or mostly so.
Yet, the work still has to be done. I, as a sole-proprietor website provider, must copy edit my own work; format and headline it; and then design/update the pages.
I also have to market/promote my site without assistance. What the technology has done is not eliminate the work; it has simply forced one person to do it all. Three times the work for a third the pay.
If you’re “lucky”!
I’ve written two non-fiction car books. Both successful; both earned decent money in earliest years of the Great Cyber-Depression. This was back in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
Why have I not written another book, one might ask?
Well, I’ve got two partially finished manuscripts. But I have put them aside indefinitely because I can’t justify pouring the time/effort into them because it’s extremely likely that neither would ever generate any income for me.
People want freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! and once any written work has been put online, it can be accessed/read for freeeeeeeeeeeee! which is exactly what most people will do. Which is precisely why there’s no money in it – and why it’s damned hard to justify the doing of it. Perhaps just for the love of it – but even in that case, one must be financially independent.
Otherwise, one has to do something that generates a living wage. Which these days, means not much time left for doing things purely for the satisfaction of it. For art’s sake, so to speak.
My first two books? I got a low five figure advance for each, plus royalties after publication. Today? Publishers almost never offer advances at all anymore – because they know they don’t have to, because writers are that desperate.
And also, to be fair to publishers, they know there’s virtually no chance they’ll recover their outlay unless the book somehow becomes a huge best-seller. Which it won’t, unless it’s been written by an already famous author or gets a tsunami of marketing/PR launched behind it.
In this Cyber-Depression there’s no efficient mechanism to trouble a reader to spare even a single dime a day. We’re bursting at the seems with free digital everything. But almost no one can spare a brother even a single dime it seems.
9.9 out of 10 books published in “e” form – which is the majority of them nowadays – are essentially vanity press deals that will never earn their authors more than they would have received had they spent the same amount of time working the drive-thru at McDonalds.
That’s if they’re “lucky.” Most don’t earn even that.
The thing is, this Cyber-Depression blights and famines aren’t confined to the world of publishing but are well on their way to encompassing many other professions which used to put food on your table as well. Many formerly rock solid go-to safe professions such as engineering hardware and software are being disrupted too.
We’re all being assimilated and being forced to experience being a coolie. Except for the rare few who get on top and manage to ascend to the Elysium of the elites.
Honestly, it’s more than a little tempting to stop trying to beat them and go on and join them. Those Bohemian Grove get-togethers sound like all kinds of intoxicating and degenerating fun.
– – – – refried previous discussion too- – – — – –
I can empathize with musicians. The Internet fucks them even harder than writers get fucked. Once a song gets recorded, officially or otherwise, it is a dead certain thing it’ll be put online for freeeeeeee! People have come to expect “free” music. [I for one am not able to go out of my way to tilt and throw my last few remaining shekels at windmills, no matter much they’re the wind beneath my wings.]
It’s just sort of “there,” right?) and this makes it almost impossible to sell it. But something’s got to give. Either musicians will simply give up and do something that’s not susceptible to being taken without compensation. Or there will be more shit music and more corporate music. Which is just what’s happened.
Same with regard to publishing. More shit, more shilling.
People get what they want, apparently.
I and other writers thus face a tough choice: Either work three times as long for a third the pay – or go back to a steady corporate shill job that pays very well indeed, but sucks your soul like a $20 hoar sucks your dick.
– – –
– Here we are. we’ve made it to Galt’s Gulch, and no one can take from us what we’re not willing to give. Yet it’s not like in the Atlas Shrugged novel. Each of us has means to send and receive to each other. Yet everyones a hoarder, and no one wants to sell at a price anyone else is willing to buy. The market doesn’t clear and there’s not enough tangible quid being offered for pocket folding quo.
No one is stopping us from agreeing on setting up a new private system of exchanging value with each other. But other than eric and a few indescribably valuable patrons, not enough of us are beginning this system either.
Thor, like me, you are not a natural-born employee. Crime pays. Thanks to our education system, it is becoming easier each day to outwit society.
You have got to be a troll. This is hilarious.
Hi Eric,
As a cyclist, please don’t give the authoritarian busybodies any ideas. Of course, you are correct about the inconsistency. One of the reasons I love cycling is that it is, for the most part, unregulated. I can ride when, where and how I want. I do not have to wear a helmet. I can ride on steep single track trails with 500 foot drop-offs a foot or two away from my wheels. If I screw up and fall off, it is my fault.
However, the clovers of the world are itching to change this wonderful anarchy. Mandatory helmet laws are routinely proposed and many cities have passed them for “children”. I believe that some cities do have “license” requirements for bicycles, but nobody gets them and they are unenforced.
Also, because bicycle designers are not constrained by “mandates”, modern bicycles are literally mind-boggling. Please check out the video and try to grok that the bike he is riding weighs about 15 pounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZmJtYaUTa0
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Hopefully, not many Clovers read EPautos!
But, yeah, I grok what you’re saying…
My object with this little exercise was to try to get those who’ve not considered the issue conceptually to do exactly that. If I can get them to see the absurdity – the tyranny – of all the stuff imposed on drivers (and cars) it might just get them to … you know… thinking!
Hi Eric,
I actually hope more clovers read EPautos. Maybe, just maybe, they will begin to think in terms of principles.
Your article is essentially an indictment of the “utilitarian” way of thinking. I often point out to friends that there is no limit to the utilitarian, “greatest good” theory of ethics. As Walter Block points out, why not an “eye lottery”. After all, technology is advancing to the point that an eye could be removed from a sighted person and installed in a blind person. The difference in utility between blind and one functioning eye is infinite, whereas the difference in utility between two good eyes and one is finite. According to utilitarian ethics, there is no reason why the state could not mandate that those blessed with two good eyes should be forced to surrender one eye to the blind.
Anyway, I strongly recommend that you watch the video I posted above, it will warm your libertarian heart. If you like it, watch this one too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhabgvIIXik
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
Eric – you missed the whole GLO-BULL Warming argument – cyclists get a pass from the Clover-esta’s because they don’t contribute to carbon emissions – but they are still indoctrinating the “children’s” as they must wear helmets and follow the rules.
You’re probably closer to the truth than you imagine with your comment on the carbon emissions exemption. I can think of few more effective divide-and-conquer strategies than something like this.
liberranter, some clovers are already figuring the global footprint of a cyclist and don’t like it one bit. What is the carbon produced to make that bike and all its accessories? Never mind that plants need CO2, just how much of it is Jeremy producing? Doesn’t he know it pollutes the waters of the world? There are clovers that hate you for using up the earth, instead of letting “wild, natural” animals use it…..WTF ever that means. They hate you for living and dying both. It would simply be better in clover’s mind had you never been made. Of course clover never stops to think that clover also uses up the earth. I wonder what clover’s carbon footprint is in blathering on in the internet or blathering on his phone to other clovers?
It’s a conundrum for clover. Clover knows his own shit doesn’t stink but proving it is hard to do so he simply keeps speaking of the shit produced by non-clovers. She’d probably be shocked by the great tomatoes and other veggies all those others(and her) produced simply because the local sewer went agly and it was dumped on a non-clovers land and made the biggest garden you ever saw.
This happened in the 70’s to some friends of mine. It was a win/win situation for the city and the landowners alike and the flora and fauna involved. It just didn’t conform to state mandates. Back then though, I bet nobody bothered to inform any govt. about it.
A lot of Clovers are of the watermelon type – green on the outside and red (commie) on the inside.They are convinced that humans are parasites destroying the world. Of course THEY get a pass, because they realize this and are ‘fighting’ to do something about it.
I’ve decided that Clover IS one of the chiiiiiildren she claims to be trying to keep saaaaafe. Not physically, but mentally, emotionally and morally.
Eric, the control freaks, the cloverians have made numerous attempts to putting bicyclists under the yoke of the state. They’ve all failed because they can’t convince the population at large that bicycling needs to be controlled. Oh they want to control it. This is not an inconsistency of their views, they have many, just this isn’t one of them.
I could go through and refute every last point of the above. I’ve done it countless times because the control freaks, here short hand, clovers, argue these frequently. They’ll even try to engage me on these points on the road from time to time.
These days bicycling politics is largely controlled by those who hate the automobile and often those who want to reshape society to the way they think is best to live and force everyone else to live that way too. They don’t love bicycling, they are just control freaks. Some of the useful idiots may love bicycling but those setting the agenda will target bicycling once they’ve taken the automobile away from mundanes.
Look at how free bicycling has become captive bicycling. Bike lanes, bike paths, and countless other forms of nonsense to restrict bicycling freedom. Controlled bicycling. They create bicycling ‘infrastructure’ that isn’t any good for people who ride more than 8-10mph. They despise bicyclists who want to travel at 15-35mph and every time another bike lane goes in another road has been ruined for us. They firmly want to destroy the notion of vehicular bicycling to one where bicycle riders have to be dependent upon the political class for ‘safety’. They do not like my old fashioned foamhatless bicyclist militancy one bit.
You don’t have any inconsistency in the clover mindset here. They want bicycling under control. They need it under control. It’s just been a lower a priority.
Eric,
Good point but dont give Clovers any ideas.
I would like to remind you that in many places you can get a “piece of payin’ paper” as you so aptly put it for riding “under the influence”. Ruin your driving record and get screwed by the insurance mafia if you decide to be responsible and ride to a pub to have a beer, rather than drive, and enjoy just a bit toooo much.
It’s funny, since I both commute by bike and love driving. Many (definitely not most or even all) car drivers behave poorly around cyclists, either acting like we don’t exist, or even acting belligerent towards the cyclist. Pricks.
However here in the San Diego area where I bike commute and drive we will get packs of cyclists who act like they own the entire road. They will not only take up the whole bike lane, which is what it’s for, but ride three or four wide into the main lane of traffic, making it dangerous or impossible to pass, especially on heavily trafficked roads. Or take up the whole lane two to three wide on narrow side streets, again being menaces to your “average” driver who pays more attention to their cell phone/electronic toy than driving. Dicks.
You just can’t win for trying!
licenses for riding a bicycle???? beyond ridiculous. Next they’ll want to make the grandkids get a license to pull each other around in thier wagon. I suppose soon everyone will need a license just for walking down the street.
old hickory but why would you then support licenses for cars and guns?
Well, cause that’s the way it was for my dad…..and his dad…..and his dad and always has been. Oh shit, it hasn’t always been that way. I gotta go figure this out. Let me get back to you on that. OHS
Vehicle operator licenses are a very new thing.
One of the Wright brothers needed to be begged by the FAA to accept a pilot’s license. They didn’t dare take legal action against him for flying without one.
Are you serious? Why did the FAA even exist at that time, i.e., before succesful flight? If they did, they may well be the reason flight did not take place sooner.
You’re both right (Wright???) The CAA preceded the FAA and came quite a while after flight became practical. They then had to demand licences for pioneering pilots who literally wrote the book. Kind of like my great granddad refused to get one of the newfangled drivers licenses in South Dakota when that scam got rolling.
Ain’t that just like the gunvermin, demanding after the fact that you ask them for permission (license)?
Retroactive laws are supposed to be unconstitutional, not that the Constitution is of any value, but they CLAIM it is the supreme law of the land – then they ignore it when it suits them.