Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Kevin Lelonek

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When we practice the privileges granted to us by our governing documents, in this case, the Bill of Rights and bearing arms, we enter into an implicit agreement with the Union to recognize and act according to the State’s rules and regulations for the use and ownership of arms. And as we agree to those rules, so does the government agree to act responsibly on behalf of our collective well-being.

In this manner, our relationship with our nation mirrors our relationship with our parents; both our parents and our nation raise us; both provide for our welfare; both teach us values and ethics; both act on our behalf for our well-being. And thus should we regard our nation; as a parental figure to be a moral example, an ideal to respect and to obey. For, if the dynamics of our relationship with our parents are mirrored functionally by the dynamics of our relationship with our country, so too should the convictions and loyalties that characterize the former persist in the latter.

Kevin Lelonek
April 12, 2011
Taking a shot at gun control
[Overall the opinion piece is benign toward the 2nd Amendment but Lelonek doesn’t even begin to get the concept of liberty.

The Bill of Rights doesn’t grant privileges. It guarantees rights. The only granting is that of certain enumerated powers to the government. The government is not a parent. The government is not an ideal. It is a necessary evil. The government is not to be obeyed by the people. The government must obey the people. The people must respect the laws which fall within the enumerated powers of the government.

Remember what Dwight Eisenhower and George Washington said about government.—Joe]

Just say no

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This would not be acceptable to me:

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations.

If a cop were to ask me to allow him to connect his device to my cell phone the answer would be, “No”. If that wouldn’t be allowed I would attempt to do a hard reset of the phone (know how to do this so you can do it quickly) or attempt to call someone who could remotely wipe it for me.

Via email from retired co-worker Chet.

Quote of the day—Chris W. Cox

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It’s been nine long years since the anti-gun leadership in the Wisconsin Senate denied state residents their basic right to carry a firearm for self-defense.

…

The days of government-mandated victims in the Badger State need to end.

Chris W. Cox
April 17, 2011
Chris W. Cox: Wisconsin should join free America
[Well… at least more free America. We still have a lot of work to do before I would declare America “free”. But certainly getting rid of government-mandated victims would be a good start.—Joe]

Atlas Shrugged: Part 1

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This started out as a comment at Tam’s post about target marketing fail while waiting for Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 but grew to the point I figured it should be a post of my own.


Son James made a very similar “target audience” fail remark during the previews about different movies at our location as well.


James has read the book three times and I read it once then listened to the unabridged audio version once (yes, Galt’s eight hour monologue actually takes eight hours). We both liked the movie but had some minor criticisms about the movie skipping over some points too rapidly for “newcomers” to really understand the points being made.


We both really liked that the sex scene with Dagny was not the way Rand always portrayed an ideal man/woman relationship.


The scene wife Barbara liked best was where the guy wanted Rearden’s money but asked Rearden’s name not associated with the donation.


I agree with the commenters who said the casting of James Taggert was a little off.


I was uncomfortable with a train going 250 MPH on those curves with the passengers standing up. Sorry, but I don’t think they ran the numbers through the physics equations before they filmed those scenes. And the curves had better have some appropriate slope to them to keep the train from rolling over or pushing the tracks off the railway bed.

Overheard in bed last night

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Paraphrasing just a little…



Joe: So what is the Tea Party protest sign you were talking about with James and Xenia?
Barb: Xenia is going to carry one that says, “Refresh the tree of liberty.”
Joe: That’s a little over the top. I wouldn’t carry one like that.
Barb: It was John’s idea.
Joe: Xenia’s a big girl and can make her own decisions. That she is a young woman and John is in the military helps some.
Barb: I wonder what sign they will make for me.
Joe: Probably it will be something like, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”


Here is a picture of son James and daughter Xenia at the protest in Olympia Washington today:


JamesXeniaProtest

Lists

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Robb and Barron have posts on government lists. For some reason the only thing I could think of to add was this quote.

I Stumbled Across This Excellent Dissertation

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And it turns out to have been written by me, so I’m quoting myself.

In a discussion about capitalism, this was asked;

Does Need and Want enter the equation?
How does Marketing elbow it’s way in between Production and Consumption?

To which I replied;

Interesting question. I’d say that need and want are omnipresent in all interactions, but the basic equation is still the same. That production necessarily precedes consumption is obvious, whether or not the goods or services being consumed are both needed and wanted, or merely wanted. Each individual should be free to decided what he wants or needs to produce, what he wants or needs to consume, with whom he will trade, and how, in order to reach his goals. That includes the form of communication we call marketing.

Marketing is as old as humanity. Actually that’s a short sighted statement, because marketing, usually by males to potentially receptive females, has been going on for millennia in other species. Not sure where you’re going with that. I make widgets and want other people to buy them. They’ll never know I have these widgets available unless I advertize in some way. Often that advertizing is as difficult and expensive as the actual production but, just like the colorful feathers on the peacock, I can’t continue without it. If I believe my widgets are superior to widgets made by other producers, it is my want, my duty and my need to explain that superiority. That’s the communication between producer and potential consumer. That enables products of all descriptions to receive trial in the free market. The best performers will in the long run and overall, tend to win out over the lesser performers. Even products some people hate may do very well if there are enough who like them.

To the extent that the producer wants to produce and trade, and to the extent that the consumer wants and/or needs the product, marketing helps both.

If your thought is that marketing can and does steer people in directions they should not go, I would agree in many cases, though interference in that process can only have further negative consequences. Right at the start, legal interference denies the freedom that is the ideal in our society. Ultimately people are responsible for their personal choices, and reality will be the judge.

I may not like what some people spend their money on, I may not like the products some people offer, and I may not like how some people market their products. In a free society, that’s my tough luck. Everything has its costs, and the cost of liberty is that people I dislike may do things I dislike, so long as no one’s rights are being violated. Maybe instead I should find something to worry about that I can actually change. If I believe in my position passionately, I should have the freedom to get together with like-minded individuals and a) do better marketing of my own of a better product, or b) do an ad campaign of my own, warning others of the pitfalls of that other guy’s marketing. If I’m telling the truth, too bad for the other guy, and good for his unsuspecting customers. If I’m lying, he can sue me for defamation or some such, or his customers may ignore me.

The good thing about a truly free market (something no one alive has ever actually seen, by the way) is that people are free to make their own decisions. The bad thing about a free market is that people are free to make their own decisions. Our founding principles and documents acknowledge this dichotomy and uphold it as the ideal.

There are those who would put us in a situation where other people are making our decisions for us. That’s just trading retail bad decisions for wholesale bad decisions, with brute force being the operating system as opposed to free choice and rights protection. We know where that leads.

Using their own data against them

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For those that regard facts, correlation, truth, and falsity important (i.e. people unlike MikeB302000 and other anti freedom people) this is an awesome article.

Here are some of the graphs to give you a hint of the content:

UNDataOnGuns1-6
Obviously as gun ownership increases there is more freedom.

UNDataOnGuns1-7
Gun ownership goes up when the economy of the nation is better.

UNDataOnGuns1-312
Homicide has a slight negative correlation with gun ownership. But this graph doesn’t tell the complete story because it doesn’t include the murder of citizens by their governments. Nearly 100 million people were murdered by their own governments in the 20th Century. All the major genocides were enabled by strict gun control. These numbers are not included in the above graph and if included they would give the above graph a huge negative correlation.

UNDataOnGunsCorruption
As gun ownership goes up the corruption goes down. I find this one of the most interesting graphs. I wonder about the causation. Do corrupt government restrict gun ownership out of fear or is corruption lower because people own guns? Both? Neither?

Quote of the day—Karl Marx

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The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

Karl Marx
[In this age with both state and Federal government collapsing from the weight of “entitlements” I find the irony of this funny in a very sad, sick sort of way.—Joe]

What can I do to fight evil and live in a just society?

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I received an email from Tom Garrett, President, Society of Libertarian Entrepreneurs with a link to this video:

Nice stuff but when the government takes everything you have and gives it to the parasites you end up living the life of a slave and any improvements you make in your inner self are of little immediate value.

I would prefer to retire in Galt’s Gulch and let the system collapse but as Roberta X has pointed out, ‘We’re a bit short of Galts and Gulches an’ Midas Mulligan’s been in a Federal pen for a good long while now, accused of “redlining.”’

Some people are more equal than others

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As near as I can determine these people believe that if you can convince your state legislators to assert rights guaranteed to the individual states by the Tenth Amendment you are not a legitimate part of the political process. Apparently only those people that advocate for the infringement of states rights are legitimate.

They haven’t publically proposed a punishment yet but I suspect they have thought about it.

Here is a sample:

The UA researchers identified what they termed the “Commerce Battering Ram Strategy,” a legal-political apparatus that “private lawmakers” – unelected individuals who thrust themselves into the political process – have developed to harness states’ legal powers in an attempt to break open federal laws.

“Using the Tenth Amendment as its core log, a Commerce Battering Ram mobilizes states to challenge the federal government,” Orbach said, adding that legislation and litigation are key to such mobilization.

In effect, individuals within the movement attempt to propel as many state laws as possible toward weakening the government’s control of guns, the research team said. 

…

While it would appear that individuals within the movement are merely exercising their legal rights as citizens of the United States and participating in the democratic process, Orbach, Callahan and Lindemenn all argue that that use of battering rams “is not equivalent to legitimate participation in the democratic process.”

“Commerce Battering Ram”? That sounds like a phrase straight from Josh Sugarmann’s playbook like “assault weapon”.

Random thought of the day

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Alan and others are sort of optimistic about the coming government collapse. Kevin is pessimistic.

The argument for optimism is basically that government is a parasite and that once the parasite dies the host (or new offspring of the host) will be able to flourish. I can see that.

I can also see that as the government nears the end those in power will rationalize almost any action to “Maintain order” or “To preserve the union” in the face of the riots. They will “just have to”. Your “goods, knowledge, and skills” may be required by others. And “whatever means necessary” will be utilized to implement “justice”.

As my brother Doug told me recently after I expressed some satisfaction about owning some productive farm land in our time of economic collapse, “We own land only as long as the law allows it.”

This is the difference between the Soviet Union and us. When the Soviet Union collapsed they already owned and controlled everything. There was nothing left for the government to take when the checks started bouncing.

I’m not saying the government will be successful in the acquisition process but both success and failure would be exercises of considerable unpleasantness.

Quote of the day—Steven Green

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One year ago, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters could feel confident they controlled the news content they created.

It was understood that competing and special-interest websites couldn’t appropriate that content and post it without authorization.

When such infringements occurred, they were dealt with swiftly and effectively with a simple phone call or email.

Infringing websites typically had re-posted material out of ignorance they were violating the Copyright Act and agreed to remove the material or replace it with a link to the source newspaper or broadcaster.

Then along came Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas, the self-appointed protector of the newspaper industry from such news sharers.

Some 250 Righthaven lawsuits later, Righthaven’s startling achievement is that newspapers now have less — not more — protection from copyright infringers.

Steven Green
March 19, 2011
Righthaven lawsuits backfire, reduce protections for newspapers
[Via email from John Hardin.

Nice!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

Ayn Rand
[A friend of mine once compared government aid to candy that causes cancer. It tastes sweet and is almost irresistible but eventually it will kill you.

Some lessons are taught over and over with only a few ever really grasping it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Barron Barnett

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This agency needs to be put down like a rabid dog and it’s behavior and rate of growth reminds me of some other agencies in the early 1990s.  The only difference  is they haven’t shot a woman holding a baby or burned a bunch of people to death. Instead they are giving people extra unnecessary dose of radiation at the point of the gun, claiming necessity, but in reality it’s pointless.

Barron Barnett
March 13, 2011
TSA Body Scanners Giving 10x Dose
[With the clarification that it is the agency and not the people that need to be put down I’m in complete agreement with this.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Milton Friedman

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Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

Milton Friedman
[It is predicted the Federal budget deficit will reach $1.65 trillion this year with a $14.1 trillion debt and about $2.1 trillion in income. Yet the House cannot reach agreement on spending cuts. The House Republicans want to only cut $60 billion in spending and the Democrats only want to cut spending $6.5 billion. If you were to scale this down into numbers people might be able to relate to it would look like the following.

If your family income were $50,000 then:

  • Family debt is $335,700
  • Family deficit is $39,300 (spending is $89,300/year)
  • The head of household wants to cut $1,430 in yearly spending
  • The spouse wants to cut $154.80 in yearly spending

The children should cut up the credit cards and sell everything that isn’t the bare minimum needed for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and communication. If the debt still isn’t being paid down they should consider selling their parents organs.—Joe]

The argument I would like someone to make

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There has been a fair amount of discussion recently about the Illinois attorney general ruling that the names of people with Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) cards can be made public.

Some people are saying the release increases the risk a gun owner will have their home broken into by a criminal wanting a gun. Others say it gives a different type of criminal knowledge that they are unlikely to be shot at if they break in while the resident are home. Still others point out less obvious risks and concerns:

“There is some prejudice against gun owners and a perspective employer says, ‘This guy who shows up is on a list, I’m not going to hire him, I don’t want a gun nut,’” he said.

“It kind of resembles the sex offender registry in many ways,” he said. “To create this list feels like the same thing.”

I think those are all valid arguments. But I have not seen anyone make the argument that I would like made.

What if the state required all active homosexuals to be registered and there were HID cards issued? What would the reaction be if someone wanted those people’s names released? I can just hear the Brady Campaign screaming now (they did it before—check out the update), “It’s not the same thing!” Perhaps being a homosexual isn’t something under an individuals control but actually engaging is homosexual acts arguably is something under individual control. If you want to be active as a homosexual sign up for your card and then be outed by the state. After all, don’t your neighbors have a right to know? And don’t parents have a right to know those sort of things about their children’s teachers?

Okay, they are probably right. Being a homosexual isn’t a very good analogy to being a gun owner—because being an active homosexual isn’t specific enumerated right protected by the U.S. Constitution. It’s more like being Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim since exercising the religion of your choice is also a specific enumerated right protected by the U.S. Constitution. Shall we have a little discussion about requiring Jews to get their ID cards from the state and then being outed to people who claim “a need to know who their neighbors are”?

I’m surprised

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I would have thought the only reasons the school district thought they could get away with this is they either never heard of the First Amendment or thought it did not apply to them. If it were a private school I would agree they have the power to make and enforce such rules. But they should not have the power if they are a public school:

So when Webber was told to surrender the Confederate flag that flies from the CB antenna on his pickup truck – or be suspended from his job driving a school bus in Talent – the choice was easy.

Webber chose his flag.

The article goes on to say:

Courts have upheld the right of schools to limit display of the Confederate flag on their property. Last November, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of a Tennessee school district to suspend a student for wearing a T-shirt and belt buckle bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag.

How about bans on the wearing of the U.S. flag? Or the burning of the U.S. flag?

Can they also ban the wearing of symbols of torture (aka Christian cross)? Keep in mind burning crosses were also used for racist activities.

That is a very slippery slope the courts are stepping onto.

I’m surprised the courts took this path. I hope they get this straightened out with a more freedom of expression tolerant ruling.

[Off topic a little bit but the first website I saw which had a post on this topic failed the test with my Black Listed News Sites utility. This was the first time I had actually got a hit on something I was going to post about. I did a search for more articles on the topic and found this one which was a much better article anyway.]

Brain scans detect predisposition for criminal behavior

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The pointer to this article came via email from Chris M. who says, “I recommend that this be tested first on government employees who carry guns and on those who give them orders.”

Several areas of the brain have been shown to be implicated with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), commonly known as psychopathy or sociopathy. The frontal cortex is the large part of your brain that is responsible for higher reasoning and behavioral traits, and is one of the areas that has been looked at. It’s smaller than normal in individuals with ASPD. Although there is a difference in crime rates between men and women, 77 percent of that difference goes away once you control for frontal cortex volume.

Dysfunction or abnormalities in other brain regions have also been associated with higher rates of crime and ASPD. The septum pellucidum is a region of brain tissue that separates the brain’s fluid-filled spaces, called ventricles. During fetal development, there is an opening inside this tissue that usually closes up within the first few months after birth. Individuals for whom this doesn’t happen have higher rates of arrest and conviction, and score higher for ASPD.

A key center of emotion activity in the brain, the amygdala, is another important region, and a study comparing ASPD and normal brains found deformations and a significant reduction in volume in the ASPD cohort. These were centered on the basolateral nucleus, which is responsible for fear conditioning. This suggests that one possible source of differences (or one of several interweaving mechanisms) is that ASPD-affected individuals don’t form the same sort of response to fear as normal people.

Quote of the day—Lyle @ UltiMAK

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As the communists have been saying; never let a good crisis go to waste. It follows logically then that they should never waste the opportunity to manufacture a good crisis. It’s just good policy. It’s what you do if you want to keep the funding coming in.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
March 2, 2011
In a comment here.
[The manufacturing of crises not limited to communists. The “War on Drugs” was created by a conservative hero. History is filled with them by Fascists, the Green Party and probably nearly every political party.

I always marvel at the number of people that seem to think all solutions involve “doing something”. I suspect it is in our genetic code. The witch doctor has to dance before it will rain and a virgin has to be sacrificed to prevent the volcano from exploding, right?

I think Libertarians could legitimately claim any number of crises exist but nearly everyone ignores them even if it is true. Probably because the solutions are to defund action rather than to fund action. Solutions that involve not “doing something” instead of more “doing something” don’t resonate with the majority of people. At some level our politicians/witch-doctors know this and always continue dancing and sacrificing virgins.—Joe]