Repeat after me everyone — children are not to be used as hostages, children are not to be used as hostages…
A review of the recent State of the Union address by Barack Obama, and some notes on the scandal emanating from everyone’s favorite Pillsbury doughbag from hell, Newt Gingrich. Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web - http://www.freedomainradio.com

Modern voters from both parties will often have their personal reasons for either not supporting or supporting taxation. Some reason they are unconstitutional and others that we need more of them.

Taxes are constitutional, Article I section 8 line 1 states clearly, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” The case has been made that taxes are not comparable among everyone. Libertarians love to push the infamous flat tax system, and I have personally promoted that way in the past. However, the constitution says quite clearly, “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States” not that all taxes shall be uniform. It is necessary to remember that the famous Federalist Anglophile Alexander Hamilton and his retinue of anglophile rich slave owning “founders” wrote the Constitution. They wanted to ensure that they would be able to control who paid what and how much. So we can see that the first argument, “taxes are unconstitutional” is, in fact, a spurious argument. And please remember, as long as congress passes a bill it is “constitutional” as per Article I Section 8 (last line) “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

What about the second argument, “we need more taxes to provide for the people?” Unfortunately, this argument is essentially a silly one and is unsustainable regardless how you report it. Where do tax dollars come from, and if you reinsert this money after taking some away what is the natural side effect of this process? In the United States and England, you have a high percentage of employed individuals working for the state, being paid with tax dollars, which they then turn around and pay back into the system through their taxes. How is this beneficial to a strong economy? I have decided to introduce a excellent model that most of us will know.

When we’re young we leave our teeth for the tooth fairy right? Now in a perfect world the tooth fairy leaves a bit of money and everyone is happy; however, in a socialist society the tooth fairy will actually just leave you the neighbor kid’s money. After all, we must share and share alike right? However, not only are you going to get the neighbors money, but in transit I am going to keep 75% of it. So you’re only going to get 25% of that money, and you should be grateful, after all I am providing something for others by doing it this way.

Go ahead give your child their allowance, or promise them payment for services rendered. Now when you are giving it to them, make a show of taking 75% of what you were going to give them. Want to calculate their reaction, I guess they don’t see it as a benefit for the neighbor kids. Taxation is stealing it is immoral and unethical.

So as, you religiously file your taxes this year, just think, if you had been able to keep that 75% of your paycheck that comes out in payroll, personal income, food, gas, property, Medicare, retirement taxes. If you had been able to keep that money, would you have been able to pay your medical bills, pay for college versus getting loans, or even more payments to the house? How much would you have saved last year alone? How much could you have donated last year if you had been able to keep 75% more of your hard earned income? Would you have been able to fix the pothole in front of your street, the one the government was supposed to do with your tax dollars?

So regardless what piece of paper you believe in, or what ideological position you take, the very idea of taxes is wrong. Taxation is theft, and it supports the state which exists to bring war to others and manage your decisions making you the tax slave you were born to be. Remember to ask the next time you file your tax return, why am I doing this again?

After TIME recently named “The Protester” 2011′s person of the year, Reporters Without Borders said “Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011.”

Following a year of violent crackdowns on peaceful protests around the country, the United States fell 27 places on the Reporters Without Borders tenth annual Press Freedom Index of 2011 to 47th overall, more than doubling its 2010 standing at 20th.

Reporters Without Borders announced, “Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.”

“Many media paid dearly for their coverage of democratic aspirations or opposition movements. Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes. The past year also highlighted the leading role played by netizens in producing and disseminating news.”

Reporters Without Borders said the United States “owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.” America’s stunning 135% decline was unmatched in terms of the percentage of movement from the previous year.

Only Chile, who dropped from 33 to 80, joined the U.S. in falling over 100% of their previous ranking. Similarly, Chile was downgraded for “freedom of information violations committed by the security forces during student protests.”

Additionally, only a handful of other countries saw such dramatic falls; Bahrain fell 29 places, Egypt fell 39 places, Uganda fell 43 places, and three other African dictatorships plummeted.

Another notable decease was Brazil’s fall of 41 places to 99th “because the high level of violence resulted in the deaths of three journalists and bloggers.”

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly released details of plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can use information pulled from social media sites to better respond to crises, and maybe even to foresee them.

The information comes from a document released on 19 January looking for companies who might want to build a monitoring system for the FBI. It spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by 10 February.

The bureau’s wish list calls for the system to be able to automatically search “publicly available” material from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for keywords relating to terrorism, surveillance operations, online crime and other FBI missions. Agents would be alerted if the searches produce evidence of “breaking events, incidents, and emerging threats”.

Agents will have the option of displaying the tweets and other material captured by the system on a map, to which they can add layers of other data, including the locations of US embassies and military installations, details of previous terrorist attacks and the output from local traffic cameras.

Read more here.

I’ve heard many good arguments in opposition to voting. The arguments were so compelling that I adopted the non-voting stance for quite awhile. I mean, it just seemed so natural for someone who doesn’t believe in authority to gravitate towards this position; it seemed like a no-brainier to me. I completely understand that behind every pull of the lever, and in back of every check of the box, lies aggression, or the threat of it. This is problematic for me, because the non-aggression principle is foundational to my philosophy. Therefore, I abandoned the act of voting, and swore I would never vote again.

Along with coming to the conclusion that voting is aggression, I also had other reasons for swearing off voting. I see democracy as nothing more than a perpetual war of the collectives, and I wanted no part in that any longer. In a battle of collectives, the vote is the lowly grunt, and as an individualist, I am much more than that. I own me, I own my labor, I own my property, and frankly, that ain’t up for a vote. That was basically my position, and I held it for a long time, and I defended that position fiercely. However, I try to be as honest with myself as I possibly can, so this means from time to time, I send my own beliefs back through the logic mill to check them for errors. Through internal cross-examination, I believe I have discovered an error within the principled non-voting position. I stated earlier that my property is not up for a vote, and I believe that is where the error lies.

My aim with this essay is to try and lay out a logical and factual counter-argument to the non-voting position. I have found that many of the non-voting arguments appeal to emotion, specifically to pride,which I admit, can have the power to win over many people. But I am the kind of guy who constantly searches for the truth, so I specifically look for these kind of errors, and when I spot them I know I have to tread lightly. I really don’t want to focus on one specific argument, because many good arguments have come from the principled non-voting camp, and if I was to try and refute every point, I would end up writing a book. Rather, I would like to try and strike at the root of these arguments; I will attempt to collapse them at their foundations.  My goal is to focus on the principle, because I no longer consider non-voting a principled position for the anarchist. As a caveat, I will admit, I do find a difference between the statist voter, and the principled anarchist voter, as one could be considered offensive and one could be considered defensive. One is based in the destruction of property rights, one struggles to preserve property rights. I don’t need to tell you which position the statist holds.

The reason voting is even possible is because the position of property rights has been surrendered. This is a fact, and it cannot be argued against. Here are the facts:
1. You own property
2. You surrender it to the state
3. You do nothing

Whether you like it or not, the only principled position there is has already been lost. How you feel about it, or what you think may happen to you, does not matter. This is the reason I have trouble calling the the non-voting position principled, as struggle to find the principle in it. The second you fail to defend your property, is the second that the concept of property rights is sacrificed. The facts of the matter are this:

1. The property you surrendered to the state is used to fund the democratic process
2. This makes voting possible in the minds of the masses

3. This makes individual property right impossible

I’ve heard some say that they are too proud to try and regain lost liberty and property through the ballot box, and I have to wonder why.  If you let them take it in the first place, how is there any room left for pride? I would like to take a minute here to point out my blinding hypocrisy and cowardice. I understand that I do not defend my own property, but this still does not change theFACT that I surrendered it in the first place. The consequences of what would  become of me does not matter, because if you do not defend your property, who will? You have a duty to yourself to try and recover some of your freedom and property. The non-voting stance seems to me to be overwhelmingly altruistic, because an individual is “too proud” to try and recover what they claim is theirs. When we examine the facts, you already surrendered your liberty and property to the state, and now you take no steps to recover your losses, this seems very anti-individualistic to me.

Now, I don’t want anyone to think I am calling for violence or anything crazy like that, all I am stating are the facts. All I am trying to say is that as long as the idea of property rights has been surrendered to the state, voting ought to be done. As long as the only principled stance has been surrendered, no other principled stances can be taken, because that one sacrifice makes it all possible, as it always comes back to property rights.  I am simply saying that we must educate those as to why we vote; why we have to vote. It is a near worthless defensive maneuver and a very crude way to try and salvage some liberty and property, but it can have decent results locally. I am not saying it can or will reverse tyranny, I am only saying that it ought to be used while we try and educate others on the concept of property rights, and how there is no middle when it comes to this idea. It’s all or nothing; either you own your property, or you don’t; either it’s theft, or it’s not. These are the principles that need to be spread. Who cares about a principled non-voting position, time wasted here could have been spent educating others on property rights.  I do not advocate for violence, because I have an understanding of this: as long as the guns are drawn when ideas are born, property rights will never be respected, and without property rights, you are a slave. To advocate for violence other than self-defense is to advocate for the perpetual continuance of human slavery.

Some would say that this is counter productive and would only serve to make the state more efficient, and maybe that’s right. It still does not change the fact that your property is what makes the state possible in the first place. I argue for voting based on the principle of property rights, and I will use the ballot box to try to guard and recover at least some of my property, and if this makes the state more efficient, then so be it. It is not my goal to make the fiction known as the state more efficient, because I understand that there is no state. My goal is to preserve my property. I understand that this is a self-interested position, but so is every other position I hold. Again, here are the facts:

1. There is no state
2. There is only individuals
3. Some individuals claim your property is theirs
4. You surrender your property to these individuals
5. The idea of Individual property rights is lost
6. This means that, factually, your property is up for a vote

Until the idea of property rights is respected; until every individual stands up to the idea of the state and says, “no you can’t have my property.” I will continue to vote, because I understand that my property is funding evil. The non-voting position is not principled, it is a feel-good position that is adopted by feel-good anarchists, because there is no risk in it, and those are the facts. I consider myself an anarcho-abolitionist, because I understand that when all forms of slavery are abolished, the logical conclusion is anarchy. I also understand that it is not the act of voting that makes me a slave, it is the loss of my property rights that enslaves me. Here is the worst part of it, I am the one who enslaves myself, and that is a fact. Every time I hand over my property to the individuals calling themselves the state, I add one more link to the chains I have created for myself, and the chains become a little heavier with each link. I am a slave to the concepts of other individuals, and I have accepted this, for now. This means my pride is already forfeit, therefore any non-voting argument that appeals to emotion is fallacious.  To all of those who believe that the state is nothing more than a group of indivdiuals who claim the monopoly privilege on the use of force, I have a question to ask: would the state relinquish this privilege if everyone stopped voting? Logic tells me they wouldn’t.

I still wait for a logical, principled non-voting argument that is not founded in hyperbolic emotion.

“Since there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.” ~ Ayn Rand

My employer, Jukt Micronics, recently opened a west coast warehouse to serve our customers in that region.

Where did we go – L.A.?  Long Beach?  San Diego?  San Fran?
Nope.
We opened our west coast warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona.  That’s a long way from the coast, where the shipping containers come in, but it’s worth the drive.

No one in his right mind will open anything in California.  The place is a regulatory hell.  The taxes are ridiculous.

Here’s something from Bloomberg News:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.

Tax returns with adjusted gross incomes topping $500,000 fell to 98,610 in 2009, the latest year available, from a recent peak of 146,221 two years earlier, according to data from the Franchise Tax Board, the state agency that collects income and corporate taxes.

Once again, here’s the good part:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.

It’s called Going Galt.  May the trend continue until Jerry Brown changes his ways.

A TV station in Boston airs a story about a library that sent a police sergeant to collect overdue library books from a 5-year-old girl.

The Associated Press reports on a 70 year old woman in Utah who was wrestled to the ground and arrested for failing to maintain her lawn in accordance with city standards.

The Auto-Tech blog of MSNBC runs a public interest story about the latest must-have gadget for local police stations around the country: 10-person, 16,000 pound armor plated tanks that are paid for by the federal government.

One of the greatest problems in talking about the police state is that all such discussion of the subject is hampered by the lack of a clear-cut definition.

Given the public’s own ignorance of the true nature and function of a police state, story after story after story of intolerable levels of official oppression, secret illegal surveillance, and increasingly sophisticated technology for tracking, apprehending, incapacitating and even killing dissenters can be dismissed because these stories are reported one at a time, in a contextless and therefore meaningless way that invites the interpretation that these stories are only warnings of what is to come instead of sign posts of a reality that is already here.

Those who seek to sew discord amongst the potential opposition to the growing control of the state over every aspect of the public’s lives can confuse and distract those opponents by engaging them in endless dialogues fretting about what a police state is, whether our society is becoming one, and what the hallmarks of such a state might be. Distracted in this way, the public can be tricked into believing that the police state is some imaginary future possibility, one that will only be realized when menacing troops in brown shirts, red arm bands and jack boots goose step people into internment camps against their will.

The technique is devastatingly effective because people can become caught up in pointing at this or that story of police brutality or government surveillance as signs of a police state that onlookers are always expecting.

In reality, the police state is already here, and to understand this we need look only at the decades-long history documenting the step by step construction of this system.

For many, the classical image of a police state come from works of dystopic science-fiction. These imagined police states tended to contain certain key elements that immediately let the reader or viewer know that the characters exist in a totalitarian society.

They are ruled over by powerful, authoritarian governments.

Surveillance, spying and snitching are used as ways to keep people from rebelling against the government.

Laws are arbitrary and punishments immediate.

And the laws are enforced by a menacing, militarized police force.

In the United States, the militarization of the police force began in earnest in 1969, when the LAPD deployed the first SWAT team in a shoot out with the Black Panthers. Since that point, SWAT teams have evolved into paramilitary forces equipped with tanks, stun grenades, and submachine guns. Although they were originally touted for their ability to respond to extremely dangerous and unusual situations such as hostage takings and counter-terror operations, they are now routinely deployed for everything from domestic disturbances to gambling raids.

The willingness of police departments to use their SWAT teams has even led to a new form of prank called “swatting” where people call in fake emergencies to get SWAT forces deployed on their victims.

Also in the 1960s the US government began working on a series of Continuity of Government plans to ensure order during times of so-called civil disturbances. One of the best known such plans from that era, Operation Garden Plot, envisaged military and National Guard members being deployed to police the American public in the event of a riot or uprising. This plan became the template for future contingency planning, carried on in the 1980s by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney at the behest of the Reagan Administration. This led to Readiness Exercise 1984, a plan to round up and arrest vast numbers of US citizens during a national emergency. REX84 was famously exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings.

In February 1995, Joe Biden introduced a bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. Proposing sweeping changes to American law enforcement, it allowed for secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanded wiretapping by the government, and the creation of “terrorism” as a federal crime that could be invoked to allow the use of US military in domestic law enforcement in direct violation to long-standing laws against such measures. The Clinton Administration was unable to get the bill passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing tragedy, but it returned in 2001 as the PATRIOT Act. Senator Biden even bragged that his 1995 bill was in large part the PATRIOT Act’s forerunner. In the wake of the PATRIOT Act, all crimes and even misdemeanors could be treated as acts of terrorism, and civil liberties were greatly eroded.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration was setting up the Department of Homeland Security and expanding a covert surveillance program that illegally captured the personal phone calls, faxes, and emails of ordinary Americans.

In 2007, the Bush White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 51, a national continuity policy giving the President sweeping new powers in the event of a national emergency, itself declared by the President. When asking to see the classified version of the plan to understand precisely what powers the President was claiming for himself, Representative Peter DeFazio of the US House Committee on Homeland Securitywas toldhe did not have clearance to read the document.

In 2008 it was revealed that InfraGard, an FBI program started in 1996, had deputized over 23,000 members of private industry to work with the Department of Homeland Security in “protecting national infrastructure” against terrorist threats. Two program whistleblowers testified that they had been given shoot to kill powers in the event of martial law.

In 2009 it was revealed that Boy Scouts were being trained by US Customs and Border Patrol in simulated terrorism drills, and border confrontations.

In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security announced an expansion of its campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something,” which includestelevised messages being played in department stores and hotels across the country encouraging members of the public to snitch on each other.

Seen in this context,we can properly understand that the police state is not some distant far off possibility. On the contrary, the legal, technical and bureaucratic infrastructure for a system of outright state control under a unitary executive has been carefully laid over the course of decades, not just in America but in country after country around the globe.

And it is only in this context, with the police state as a present reality rather than a future possibility, that we can start to assemble the pieces of thepolice state puzzle that have been scattered out in front of us over the past 10 years.

The picture that is painted when one really looks at this information is bleak, but it is far better to understand the police state reality that exists than to fret about whether or not it is coming.

For in reality the police state is not an entity, not some monolithic thing or a state of existence that only has an “on” and an “off” position, but a process, a spectrum, something that always exists to one extent or another.

Once this process is understood for what it is, the question is no longer whether or not this or that atrocity against liberty is a sign of a police state, but why we would ever tolerate such atrocities in the first place.

And this is the real key to dismantling the police state, since all such authoritarian structures rest on the fundamental illusion that a few people at the top of the pyramid hold all the power and the masses at the bottom are all under their thrall.

The truth, as always and in every society, is that the people hold all the power, and no amount of illegal surveillance or police state gadgets could ever hold back an engaged, informed public that recognized their own power over the public officials they support with their tax dollars and the elected representatives that they vote into power and the corporate giants that they buy from every single day.

Once that illusion is shattered, and the people realize that the pyramid is inverted, with the mass of the people threatening to crush the few at the apex at any given moment, the police state loses its power.

There’s a good new series on Discovery Channel, Moonshiners.

Has real-ex moonshiners re-creating distilling and running untaxed booze like they’re really doing it. I thought it was reality TV until I looked it up.

While no real illegal alcohol is produced on the show, it documents their practice, law-evading techniques, and life.
–Discovery.com

Though I did wonder why people appearing to be committing felonies were voluntarily showing their faces on TV. I’m wondering if their involvement in the show is part of a plea deal. lol. ….though probably not….while the show does illustrate the legal dangers, it also makes moonshining look very exciting and profitable.

One classic scene is one of the moonshiners talking to an ex-moonshiner who went “legit”, who now runs a licensed, taxed distillery. The moonshiner looked like he was going to vomit when the “legit” moonshiner started explaining all the fees, taxes, regulations and hoops he’d have to jump through. Best part of that bit is where the “legit” guy shows the other guy his “USDA-approved rake” he uses to move the mash. Moonshiner says “Well I ain’t never heardof such a thing!” (And why should he have?)

The show is entertaining though. It also has everything to horrify big-city folk: southern accents, rednecks with odd names (Popcorn, Tickle), men in overalls with no shirts, open hatred of the federal government, blatant disdain for nanny laws, open hatred of cops and fed goons, grizzled wizened coots with shotguns, drunk driving, and guys shooting bunnies from their trucks then fryin’ ‘em up to eat on the tailgate.

Best line in the series: “If you love your country you gotta love moonshine.”

Wikipedia says of the old guy, Popcorn: “Marvin Sutton aka ‘Popcorn’ is one of the most notorious moonshiners that ever lived. At one time, his liquor was so valuable that people often used it as currency.”