Land of the Free

Friday 1 February 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

America: the freest country on earth. International Business Times:

Almost a quarter of the world’s prison population is locked up in one country: the United States.

For years, the U.S. has held the infamous reputation of having the highest per capita rate of incarcerated individuals on the planet, dwarfing that of other comparable industrialized nations. There were 1.6 million state and federal prisoners in the country as of 2011, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which reports 492 out of every 100,000 U.S. residents were sentenced to more than 12 months in prison that year.

And the worst part is that, in federal prison, the majority (not plurality, but MAJORITY) of those who are imprisoned are there not for crimes in which there are any victims, but for crimes against the state (which is to say crimes which offend naught but the sensibilities of lawmakers and bureaucrats).

The sad part is, most of that money has been used to lock up drug offenders.

Since 1998, individuals arrested for drug crimes have constituted the largest portion of federal prison admissions, followed closely by those arrested for immigration and weapons-related offenses. Meanwhile, the CRS reports there has been a significant drop off in the number of inmates entering prison for violent or property-related crimes, which only made up about 4 percent and 11 percent of prison admissions in 2010.

A huge portion of those drug offenders are arrested for marijuana offenses, even though the substance – now legal in 18 states for medicinal use– has become increasingly mainstream. However, statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveal more people were arrested for marijuana possession than all violent crimes combined in 2011. (emphasis mine)

The federal government is the largest threat to the freedom of Americans we have. And at least 50% + 1 want more of it. The federal government creates new categories of crime out of thin air, wantonly sends people to jail for victimless infractions against the state, sentences them to mandatory terms that can only be considered draconian by virtually any standard that isn’t set by bureaucrats, and makes it impossible for them to get out on parole. Land of the free, indeed.

Comments Off on Land of the Free  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-02-01  ::  madlibertarianguy

Predictable

Tuesday 29 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Gee. This wasn’t predictable at all. The Wall Street Journal:

There was a time when you had to be successful on Wall Street to become secretary of the Treasury. Now along comes presidential nominee Jack Lew, whose only business credential is a stint at the most troubled too-big-to-fail bank.

During the darkest days of the financial crisis Mr. Lew served as the chief operating officer of Citigroup’s C -0.37% Alternative Investments unit (CAI). When Mr. Lew took this job in January 2008, the unit was already infamous for overseeing “structured investment vehicles” that hid mortgage risks outside Citi’s balance sheet. It also housed internal hedge funds that were in the process of imploding.

CAI no longer exists. At the end of Mr. Lew’s first quarter on the job, the unit reported a $358 million loss. Things got much worse after that but Citi stopped breaking out CAI results in its earnings releases. The unit was eventually shuttered and many of its assets were sold.

The funnel between Wall Street and K street must be closed.

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The Market in Action

Tuesday 29 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

The market is nothing more than people making self-interested decisions. And that is exactly why the government hates the market, because they can’t compete in it. In a free market, it can’t exert control over those people who would turn to other options besides daddy government to best meet their needs.

Police officers in Seattle, Washington held their first gun buyback program in 20 years this weekend, underneath interstate 5, and soon found that private gun collectors were working the large crowd as little makeshift gun shows began dotting the parking lot and sidewalks. Some even had “cash for guns” signs prominently displayed.

Police stood in awe as gun enthusiasts and collectors waved wads of cash for the guns being held by those standing in line for the buyback program.

People that had arrived to trade in their weapons for $100 or $200 BuyBack gift cards($100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and $200 for assault weapons) soon realized that gun collectors were there and paying top dollar for collectible firearms. So, as the line for the chump cards got longer and longer people began to jump ship and head over to the dealers.

John Diaz, Seattles Police Chief, wasn’t pleased with the turn of events stating “I’d prefer they wouldn’t sell them,” but admitted it’s perfectly legal for private individuals to buy and sell guns, FOR NOW. Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference the private transactions are a loophole that needs to be closed. “There’s no background checks, and some (guns) could be exchanged on the streets that shouldn’t be in circulation.”

Aw. The poor wittle powice chief is upset that there are Americans who would engage in perfectly legal commerce right in front of him in direct competition to what he feels is a better option.

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Drones at Home

Monday 28 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Those terrible flyover staters and their quest for privacy from government intrusion. The Journal Star:

At first blush, the proposal seems driven by paranoia.

But Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus worries that police will start using drones — small, pilotless airplanes or helicopters employed by the United States to track enemies and attack terrorists and military targets — to spy on people.

“If there’s going to be a policy decision from the legislative level on the use of drones for the surveillance of civilian populations, then now’s the time to do it — before communities begin investing in these devices,” he said.

Schumacher has introduced the Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act (LB412) that says “a law enforcement agency shall not use a drone to gather evidence or other information” and that “… evidence obtained or collected in violation of the … act is not admissible as evidence in a criminal prosecution in any court of law in this state.”

Except this bill is not driven by paranoia. OpenSecrets.org:

Are unmanned aircraft, known to have difficulty avoiding collisions, safe to use in America’s crowded airspace? And would their widespread use for surveillance result in unconstitutional invasions of privacy?

Experts say neither question has been answered satisfactorily. Yet the federal government is rushing to open America’s skies to tens of thousands of the drones – pushed to do so by a law championed by manufacturers of the unmanned aircraft.

The drone makers have sought congressional help to speed their entry into a domestic market valued in the billions. The 60-member House of Representatives’ “drone caucus” _ officially, the House Unmanned Systems Caucus – has helped push that agenda. And over the last four years, caucus members have drawn nearly $8 million in drone-related campaign contributions, an investigation by Hearst Newspapers and the Center for Responsive Politics shows.

And it’s not just a “push” for more drone use. They’re already in use.

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Remember Kids

Thursday 24 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Remember kids: only Republicans appeal to Christianity in their zeal to make laws that will affect hundreds of millions of people. The Examiner:

As Sen. Diane Feinstein opened her press conference on gun control, she invited Dean of the National Cathedral Rev. Canon Gary Hall to offer a prayer.

Hall spoke briefly before the prayer, calling for Washington legislators to stop fearing the gun lobby and fulfill their “moral duty” to restrict guns.

“Everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby,” Hall said. “But I believe that the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby.”

I’m pretty sure that “the cross lobby” is much more influential in rural South Carolina or Wyoming than it is in DC, and that they have no problems supporting the gun lobby.

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Wow

Thursday 17 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

You can’t fix stupid. The Daily Mail:

A Belgian woman took an astonishing 1,800 mile detour through six countries after her car navigation system went wrong.

Sabine Moreau, 67, had intended to drive to Brussels from her home in Solre-sur-Sambre to pick up a friend from the train station – a journey of just 38 miles.

But she took a catastrophic wrong turn and eventually ended up 900 miles away in Zagreb, Croatia.

Despite crossing five borders and seeing multiple-language traffic signs, she did not stop to question her sat-nav until two days later when she realised that she may not be in Belgium any more.

Although she stopped to refuel her car several times, Ms Moreau did not think her TomTom could be leading her down the wrong path.

She seems a perfect candidate for the Darwin Awards.

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Dear Mr. Secretary

Thursday 17 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Leon Panetta, via The Washington Post:

For the life of me, I don’t know why the hell people have to have assault weapons.

Dear Mr. Secretary,

Firstly I’d like to address the idea that I have an assault weapon at all. As the Secretary of Defense, you ought to know that an assault weapon, by definition, must be capable of select fire; that is it must have the ability to choose between automatic fire and semi-automatic fire modes. My AR15 contains no such feature. That the gun control lobby has decided to call these rifles assault rifles, despite the very same rifles used by police being labeled as patrol rifles (not assault rifles), has no bearing as to whether they are, in fact, assault rifles. That’s politics, not objective reality. Comparing my rifle to a military rifle is subversion by design. They aren’t the same, and implying that they are because they look similar is the height of intellectual dishonesty. They may look the same, but they are not functionally the same.

Secondly, I don’t have to explain to anyone why I “have to have” a particular thing. That a particular thing exists is good enough reason for someone to have it in a free society. As Anthony Tucille of Reason explains,

At this point, many self-defense activists respond that the need for guns has to do with the ability to defend against tyrannical government. Then gun controllers chirp, “but you can’t defeat tanks and nuclear weapons with rifles!” thereby demonstrating that they don’t keep up with the war in Afghanistan and skipped their history lessons about some difficulties the U.S. military ran into in a place called Vietnam.

But really, that’s all irrelevant. Because in free societies, you don’t have to justify owning things. You get to own them because you want them and have the means to acquire them. And you get to acquire more than just the basic necessities, if you so choose.

As I look around my office, I see a lot of stuff I don’t need. There are two dogs aggressively shedding on the upholstery, a hat collection (panamas and vintage fedoras), CDs and DVDs, a shit-load of books …If I owned only what I need, I’d be living in a spartan efficiency apartment, wearing a Mao suit and eating gruel. I have no interest in living that way.

But if you insist on me justifying my purchasing something that, according to your judgment, I don’t “need”, I’ll address your bewilderment.

Even if we are to subscribe to your argument that an AR15 is, indeed, an assault rifle designed for the military, the Supreme Court of the United States, in United States v Miller guarantees me the RIGHT, in accordance with the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, to own any weapon that is in common use that could be used in the common defense of the nation. In his unanimous opinion, Justice McReynolds writes,

The significance attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. ‘A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.’ And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time. (Emphasis mine)

Not only am I permitted to own such arms as can be used for the common defense in the unlikely event the militia were ever called to do such, I am obligated to own such arms as are in common use at the time. If my AR15 is to be equated with the military-issued M16 or M4, as is the case in common gun control political discourse, it should be pointed out that, then, my AR15 is the very definition of arms “of the kind in common use at the time” when one considers that every Marine and soldier in the military both trains and is in one form or another issued or assigned one of those two weapons. If my AR15 is NOT to be equated with an M16 or M4 as used by the military, then one could point to various other uses for the AR15 platform in common use. Either way, it cannot be argued with any intellectual integrity that the AR15 family of weapons is not in common use, and therefore that there might be some argument as to it being a gun that I should not be allowed to own. Millions of them have been sold in the United States in the civilian arms market; a fact that even gun control advocates don’t dispute. In fact, some have argued that not only is the AR15 platform in common use, but that it’s the most popular “assault rifle” in America.

Government resistance or common defense considerations aside, I have a large home with a large piece of property. Being that I wouldn’t attempt to shoot any intruders outside my home, for both legal and moral reasons, short of a mob trying to inflict property damage as was seen during various Occupy protests around the country, I will stay on point with considerations for the defense of my home in the unlikely, but not impossible, event that I had to engage in gunfire with an intruder within my housing structure. I have open avenues inside my home that are well over 25 yards in length. The precision of a rifle, rather than that of a shotgun or handgun, is HIGHLY desired. A shotgun has far too large a pattern, and a handgun is only pinpoint accurate at that range in the hands of highly skilled shooters under ideal conditions. Being that I have children in my home, I cannot afford to be inaccurate in the event I ever needed to pull the trigger. I need to know that the bullet is going to go where I want it to go within an acceptable margin of error; at this range, ONLY a rifle can enable me to do that. Real-world tests also suggest that the .223 caliber bullet, or 5.56 NATO as used in the military, is an ideal round for use in the home because it does not have the same over penetration issues that either shotgun or popular handgun projectiles have. In short, there isn’t as great a chance of the bullet penetrating through walls and harming someone who might be on the other side of those walls, like my children, while still providing enough power to decisively put an intruder out of the fight in the event of being struck. An AR15, my choice for home defense duties, offers various configurations which allow me to methodically go through my home and accurately identify and engage a target via the use of flashlights and optics which enable me to positively identify my target quickly, fire as few shots as necessary, and with the greatest accuracy possible; its ergonomic design and collapsable stock allows me to do so both easily and effectively without needing to shoulder a full size rifle, an advantage in the narrow confines of hallways, stairwells, and doorways in my home, and the 30 round magazine allows to have as much much ammo as may be needed so that I am never at a ammunition disadvantage in the event of a firefight. For someone with my considerations in home defense, an AR15 is not only an appropriate weapon of choice, it’s the ideal weapon of choice.

If I were to ever need to engage in a firefight in my home, it is my responsibility to the safety of my family and neighbors that I have every advantage possible which would enable me to be as accurate as possible, and minimize the chances that I might accidentally injure one of them. That you don’t know “why the hell people have to have assault weapons” shows that you have never objectively considered such matters, and have no regard for those who actually take the time to analyze their respective situations in order to arrive at the best solution for their needs. It’s offensive to me that limits to your imagination and ability to prepare when considering a plan for having to defend your home and family with force should have a bearing on my ability to do so. To your conundrum, I say “that’s your fucking problem.”

Sincerely,
mad libertarian guy

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Rule #1

Thursday 17 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Rule #1 in political rhetoric: when you don’t have a solid intellectual basis, use children. Politico:

President Barack Obama set a new standard Wednesday for stupidly exploitative White House events by appearing onstage with children to unveil his gun control proposals.

He quoted from letters that the kids had written him. He invoked their Solomonic authority: “Their voices should compel us to change.” He signed executive orders as they gazed on adoringly. He hugged and high-fived them.

No doubt every parent thinks their little Johnny or Sally is the next James Q. Wilson. That doesn’t make it so. Some of the wisdom that the president shared from his adorable pen pals was, “I love my country and [I] want everybody to be happy and safe,” and “We should learn from what happened at Sandy Hook … I feel really bad.”

News flash: Kids don’t want bad things to happen. This would be a genuinely useful insight … if we could write public policy in crayon. The White House event smacked of the old unilateral disarmament campaigns of the 1980s when we were supposed to get rid of our nuclear weapons because they scared youngsters.

We can safely assume that the kids onstage with Obama don’t have a fine-grained sense of the limits of gun control or a proper regard for the Second Amendment. That’s OK, though — neither does he.

It can’t be said that using kids as props was beneath the gravity of occasion, since the occasion was all about feel-good PR and make-believe. For all the emphasis on stopping another Sandy Hook, Obama didn’t offer anything that would do it.

When in doubt, tell everyone it’s For the Children™.

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Useful?

Wednesday 16 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

No, just idiots. BuzzFeed Politics:

In a sour footnote to President Barack Obama’s sweeping electoral victory last November, many of his campaign staffers have been shut out of the inaugural festivities, more than a dozen of them complained to BuzzFeed Monday.

“We worked our butts off, and I’m going to watch it on TV instead of being there,” said one former staffer. “It’s a huge bummer.”

Former staffers — who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships, and possible jobs, in Obama’s second term — say they have grown frustrated by what they see as inadequate communication from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the group responsible for the inaugural balls, and in particular by its restrictions on access to the official events.

When you are no longer useful, you are expendable.

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Ding Ding Ding!

Wednesday 16 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Ding ding ding!

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Newtown, Conn., many Americans have found themselves wondering what could be done to prevent such tragedies in the future. Stricter gun control legislation, better mental health services, and less emphasis on violence in movies and video games have been proffered as solutions. What much of the debate misses, however, is that high-profile massacres like the one at Sandy Hook are a drop in the bucket of this country’s true gun violence epidemic: the one in our inner cities. On net, taking steps to keep weapons out of the hands of the deranged—if there even are ways to keep people bent on wreaking havoc from acquiring the tools with which to do so—would actually do little to save lives.

This is because the overwhelming majority of people who die in gun-related homicides are not murdered by crazed strangers in schools, malls, and movie theaters. Most of the nonsuicide gun deaths in this country happen in densely populated, lower-income urban environments like New Orleans, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. Here, gangs and poverty are the proximate causes of the violence, not a lack of access to counseling.

[. . .]

People who enter into the gun debate without understanding this reality tend to be attracted to policies that make them feel good because “something has been done” to make firearms slightly harder to come by. Rarely do they take the time to weigh how much those policies would actually do to combat the problem on the ground. In fact, addressing the incentives that lead young people in our inner cities to gravitate toward crime—incentives like the ability to gain money and status by trafficking in drugs when few other opportunities are available—would do more to begin to address the gun violence endemic in America than any of the well-intentioned but likely ineffectual “gun control” laws that could be passed.

Ending the drug war and legalizing drugs is probably the single most dramatically positive step that could be taken to rehabilitate these places, because without a black market to sustain and enable them, much of the rationale for gangs to exist at all dries up. Yet the conversation since Newtown has been devoid of honest dialogue over what we could do to stop the drug trade from being the most promising method of social advancement for our most vulnerable young people.

No meaningful debate about guns can ignore the fact that our impoverished inner cities are the true ground zero of homicides in this country. And no meaningful debate about our inner cities can overlook the hard truth that much of the violence they’re afflicted with is itself a product of drug prohibition, which makes the youths with the least to lose perfect candidates for careers in crime.

(Emphasis mine)

We have a winner.

Gun crime is not a result, as gun control advocates would have us believe, of the NRA lobbying (oftentimes heavily) to help secure our Second Amendment rights, or rednecks too stubborn to give up their guns, but with inner city crime that is the direct result of government policy.

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