The Trouble with Kids Today: Too Much Deference to 'Authority,' Too Little Respect for PropertyWe direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under… Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones agains... (more)
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How Policing Works in a Privatized City“All the common areas of Atlantic Station including the streets, sidewalks, parks, and alleys are private property.”
Thus reads one line buried in the Rules of Conduct for Atlantic Station, Atlanta, Georgia: a marvelous city within a city. But it’s this one line that makes the critical difference. It’s why this one-square mile in the heart of this great city has done more to model beauty, prosperity, d... (more)
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Magna Carta and the Fantasy of Legal Constraints on StatesMagna Carta turns 800 years old today. The Great Charter is often hailed as the first event in a series of limitations on the power of government. For Americans, Marga Carta seems even more important because it is a document that was written and signed for the purpose of limiting the power of a monarch. Americans love grandiose gestures in the form of written documents such as Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact and the Constitution of 1787, and the document is today taught to school chil... (more)
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The Totalitarian Mindset of the 'Hurt Feelings' IndustryHas freedom of speech become a thing of the past in America? College campuses now are intellectual prisons, and the thin-skinned offendotrons are the guards. And in post-9/11 America you can’t criticize the Regime without being called a “traitor” or “unpatriotic.” The political and social fascists and control freaks really seem to be trying to drive people into silence these days.
For example, on college campuses if you say something deemed offensive,... (more)
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Socialism Is War and War Is Socialism “[Economic] planning does not accidentally deteriorate into the militarization of the economy; it is the militarization of the economy.… When the story of the Left is seen in this light, the idea of economic planning begins to appear not only accidentally but inherently reactionary. The theory of planning was, from its inception, modeled after feudal and militaristic organizations. Elements of the Left tried to transform it into a radical program, to fit into a progressive revoluti... (more)
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"Blue Privilege" And The Criminal Enterprise Called The Idaho State Police“They’ve laid us out,” Idaho State Police Trooper Sam Ketchum reported in a text message to his superiors during an April 13, 2012 court hearing in Payette. The intended recipient was Lt. Colonel Ralph Powell, who would shortly be appointed ISP Director. “They” referred to ISP Corporals Quinn Carmack and Brandon Eller, who had – in defiance of expectations – testified ... (more)
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What Bastiat Had to Say about Police AbuseWhen it comes to being employed by the government, membership has its privileges. How far do these privileges extend? It’s a question that is central to political philosophy. It is most poignantly addressed by one of my favorite pieces of writing, Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law (1850).
The same question is being debated on the streets in every US city today. Videos of citizen abuse at the hands of th... (more)
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Slave or Rebel? Ten Principles for Escaping the Matrix and Standing Up to Tyranny"Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious."--George Orwell
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said--about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption--while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyr... (more)
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Free Speech, Facebook and the NSA: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy." -- Writers Against Mass Surveillance
THE GOOD NEWS: Americans have a right to freely express themselves on the Internet, including making threatening--even violent--statements on Facebook, provided that they don't intend to actually inflict harm. ... (more)
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FREEDOM Act Passes Senate, Freedom DiesBy a vote of 67-32 the Senate today passed the USA FREEDOM Act, just days after the expiration of key elements of the USA PATRIOT Act. The FREEDOM Act is billed as a reform of the unconstitutional and recently-ruled illegal bulk collection of Americans’ telecommunications, but in fact it is a whole new level of attack on civil liberties.
Here are just a couple ... (more)
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Only "Blue Lives" Really MatterWhen Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo mounted the hood of a Chevy Malibu and fired fifteen shots through the windshield, killing Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams, he behaved in an “unreasonable” and “unconstitutional” fashion. This was the testimony offered by W. Ken Katsaris, a nationally renowned expert witness on use-of-force issues, during Brelo’s bench trial for two counts of voluntary manslaugh... (more)
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Dread Pirate Roberts, Beyond The Law!Ross Ulbricht has been sentenced to die inside a cage. We call this a “life sentence”, but it is a death sentence. His fate is quite literally to die in a cage in order to punish him for operating the online drug market known as the Silk Road. But truly, that is not his crime. His crime is defiance, or really, his crime is truth telling. The truth is, there is life beyond the law. When sentencing him, that is what the judge justified her sentence with — he lived without regard ... (more)
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Only Supporters of 'White Privilege' Oppose the PanopticonOwing to his Pakistani ancestry, former FBI double agent Naveed Jamali was able to exploit the perception of “conflicting allegiances” when trying to lure Russian businessmen into sting operations. Once he mustered out of service with the American version of the Cheka, he found himself “fighting a new battle: The Assumption War,” ... (more)
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Ross is Our SocratesThere is not an informed lover of liberty and progress who is not shaken today. I've had a lump in my throat all day, nearly fighting back tears, over the sentencing of Ross Ulbricht, visionary and now martyr. He was sentenced to life in prison, and the judge's words were chilling in the extreme.
"The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn't exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts," said... (more)
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The Deeply Tragic Sentencing of Ross UlbrichtIf you didn't know it already, the sentencing of Ross Ulbricht, life in prison, underscores the point. There are deep structural injustices that take place in the United States under the cover of law and justice. This is one of the most egregious I've seen.
This brilliant and creative young man has been put away for performing a much-needed digital experiment. He opened an open-air market in the digital cloud and thereby demonstrated to the world that there is a better way than t... (more)
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