The Best Argument

Tuesday 8 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Here is an example of the best (utilitarian) argument against magazine capacity restrictions:

The burglar, whom police identified as Paul Ali Slater, did a room-by-room search of the home, and when he reached the attic, she was ready.

Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told WSBTV: ‘The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he’s staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver.’

She reportedly fired all six rounds, missing only once. The other shots hit Slater about the face and neck.

Sheriff Chapman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘The guy’s face down, crying. The woman told him to stay down or she’d shoot again.’

Slater did eventually get up and managed to return to his vehicle that was parked outside the home, but his injuries left him unable to drive, and it wasn’t long before he crashed into a wooded area.

He was found by sheriff’s deputies, bleeding heavily in a driveway on the block.

This man was hit 5 times in the face and neck, and he still was NOT incapacitated. Why should anyone be legally handicapped and put at a mandated disadvantage under the color of law when trying to defend their home and family? One can NEVER have too many bullets when in a gun fight. Feinstein can kiss my fucking ass if she thinks I’m going to endanger my family and willingly put myself at a disadvantage in the unlikely event I were to ever need to defend my home so that she can feel like she’s Doing Something™ about gun crime.

Comments Off on The Best Argument  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-08  ::  madlibertarianguy

No Law

Friday 4 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Why the fuck is it so hard for so many people to understand the very simple phrase “Congress shall make no law”? The San Francisco Chronicle:

It isn’t only stronger gun-control laws needed to remove the sickness in America that has caused so many Columbine-like tragedies in the past 13 years. We also need a cultural shift in what is regarded as “protected speech” under our First Amendment.

Violence is ubiquitous in media arts, whether it’s music videos, TV, movies or video games. It’s time Congress acted on recommendations the Federal Communications Commission made five years ago to restrict violence in all forms of media entertainment.

I wonder if he’ll propose that the first restriction ought to be on people who call for restrictions on free speech. Somehow I doubt it.

Fuck you with a rusty chainsaw, James P. Tuthill, you fascist fuck. You’re the type of progressive that brought us the likes of prohibition and eugenics, and lament their passing as obstacles to your utopia. The 1st Amendment says NO LAW, asshole, not some laws that dubious fucks who like to dictate the lives of others approve of.

Comments Off on No Law  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-04  ::  madlibertarianguy

What We Gained

Thursday 3 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Here is what we got from the supposed victory that is the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012”:

The question, now that we’ve finally hiked taxes on the rich (and doesn’t everyone feel better knowing that life is that much fairer?), is: How are we going to continue paying for the government we’ve been promised? As it turns out, raising tax rates on the “wealthy,” the most pressing issue of the Obama Age, amounts to a mere $62 billion of new revenue.

To put it in perspective, the deficit spending this year alone was more than $1 trillion. So the fiscal deal will supposedly bring in $620 billion in new revenue over the next decade, which is less than any year’s worth of debt under President Barack Obama. If redirecting resources from private-sector investments to green energy subsidies feels like a victory, congratulations.

But if you’re not a class warrior, a Hollywood studio, a maker of electric motorcycles, a booze producer from Puerto Rico, an algae grower or NASCAR—all of which are subsidized in the bill—you’re out of luck. For the rest of you, there are higher taxes. The expiration of the payroll tax holiday means that Washington will continue to pretend Social Security and Medicare are “paid for,” and according to the Tax Policy Center, 77 percent of you will see your taxes rise an average of $1,635 per year.

We got a whole $620 billion in tax revenue over a decade. That’s not even half of one year’s debt. The rest of us got an ass fucking with payroll taxes (which is nothing more than an obfuscation for income tax) being raised substantially. If you got a 2% cost of living raise this year, your paycheck will actually be LESS than it was last year because of the new tax. Some fucking system we have here. Everyone gets taxed, and nothing changes in our long term debt problems. The only winners here are government bureaucrats in cheap suits.

Comments Off on What We Gained  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-03  ::  madlibertarianguy

Approved Names

Thursday 3 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Seriously?

A 15-year-old is suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. The problem? Blaer, which means “light breeze” in Icelandic, is not on a list approved by the government.

Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don’t question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay.

When you don’t even have the freedom to name your children whatever you please because a group of bureaucrats won’t let you, you know something is fucked up.

Comments Off on Approved Names  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-03  ::  madlibertarianguy

The Little People

Thursday 3 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

The little people get rightfully jailed everyday for leaving their children in a car unattended. But if you’re one of our heroes in blue, you can do it and only worry about a couple of weeks without pay. The Republic:

Kim was among several youths rounded up in March 2011 after neighbors complained about a loud house party. The van was parked at police headquarters and the teens said they were “stranded” for more than 14 hours with no food, water or cellphones.

The youths were rescued when a passer-by saw the boys and called police, who then came to fetch them.

Borough officials later demoted one officer and suspended others without pay. Investigators determined that three officers, whose names were not released, unintentionally abandoned the teens in the van by failing to follow procedures.

The borough also disciplined at least five other officers for violating procedures. But the internal-affairs investigation found no evidence of “malicious or discriminatory intent” by the officers.

The kids were left in a van for 14 hours because they didn’t follow procedure? The fuck?

Comments Off on The Little People  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-03  ::  madlibertarianguy

Food Nannies and Consensus

Thursday 3 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

It turns out that the food nannies have it all wrong. The Independent:

Being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it, according to a major new study that runs counter to widespread medical assumptions and years of warnings about the fatal implications of Britain’s expanding waistlines.

It sounds too good to be true, coming at the end of the season of excess, but after one of the largest reviews of research ever conducted, doctors say that carrying a few extra pounds may actually reduce the risk of premature death. Experts have repeatedly warned that obesity would soon exact a greater toll than smoking and the current generation could be the first to die before their parents.

Only yesterday, the Royal College of Physicians called for more to be done to tackle the UK’s obesity epidemic, criticising the NHS’s “patchy” services and inadequate leadership on the issue. However, the new study shows that people who are modestly overweight have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death from all causes than people of ideal, “healthy” weight, while even those who are mildly obese have no increased risk. Overweight is defined as a body mass index above 25 but below 30. For a man of 5ft 9in, that is between 12 stone 4lb and 14 stone 6lb, or for a woman of 5ft 6in, it is between 11 stone 3 lb and 13 stone 4lb. Ideal, healthy weight is defined as a BMI between 18.5 and 25.

Mild obesity (those with a BMI between 30 and 34.9) brings a 5 per cent lower premature death rate, according to the study. Although this was not statistically significant, it suggests there is no increased risk of premature death attached to that weight range.

Of course policy-makers won’t have anything to do with it.

There were warnings last night that the research should not be taken to mean that there were no negative health implications associated with being overweight or obese. Tam Fry, spokesman for the UK National Obesity Forum, said: “Katherine Flegal is an extremely good researcher and I would respect her. But I am flabbergasted. The sum total of medical expert opinion cannot have got it so wrong. The consequences of people taking this research and deciding ‘let’s eat and be merry’ will be catastrophic. Mortality [the death rate] is one thing but morbidity [the disease rate] is another. If people read this and decide they are not going to die [from overeating] they may find themselves lifelong dependents on medical treatment for problems affecting the heart, liver, kidney and pancreas – to name only a few.”

You would respect her? What the fuck does that mean? Oh, I get it now. Her conclusion based off of sound scientific methods goes against the “consensus.” You know, the consensus which means dick when compared to actual scientific results. It goes against what policymakers want for us.

Comments Off on Food Nannies and Consensus  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-03  ::  madlibertarianguy

Averted! Or Something

Wednesday 2 January 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Wait a second. How is it that a bill 1) no one is happy about; 2) raises taxes substantially on virtually every working American; and 3) doesn’t address ANY of the long term debt and spending issues in DC be considered a victory?

Only in DC can everyone getting fucked be a good thing.

Comments Off on Averted! Or Something  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-01-02  ::  madlibertarianguy

Not a Buffet

Monday 31 December 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

The Bill of Rights is not a buffet from which one can pick and choose what they like and leave what they don’t.

A few days ago CNN host Piers Morgan got into it with the head of a gun-rights group. Now more than 87,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that Morgan, who is British, be deported for his “hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution.” But the First Amendment does not exempt British nationals, which means those signing the petition are also committing a hostile attack against the Constitution. The irony is probably lost on them.

Of course gun rights conservatives aren’t the only ones guilty of rationalizing reasons to disqualify or minimize the importance of other rights.

Gun opponents, of course, do precisely the opposite. Reciting a common talking point among advocates of gun control, The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof recently wrote: “There’s a reasonable argument that the Second Amendment confers an individual right—to bear a musket. Beyond that, it’s more complicated.” A great many members of the press agree with him. But none of them would say: While the First Amendment arguably protects the right to a goose-feather quill, the Founding Fathers never imagined letting people have email, video games, or cable TV shows.

Liberals say many things about Second Amendment rights that they would not say about other rights. For instance: Nobody “needs” a semi-automatic rifle. True enough. But what other people need and do not need does not define what the government should and should not ban. Nobody needs Twitter, but it doesn’t follow that Congress may therefore outlaw tweeting. Liberals also point out, correctly, that no other nation has anything like the sort of gun rights – or gun mayhem—that America does. True also. But no other nation has an exclusionary rule, either. Anywhere else in the world, improperly obtained evidence will land you in the slammer. In the U.S., it will get you out. Uniqueness is not an indictment.

And of course we ought not forget that our politicians do the exact same thing. They claim a “gun problem” for which the only solution is to curb the right of access of law abiding Americans to guns, while crushing the 4th Amendment in new bills like FISA, or destroying all sense of due process with the killing of American citizens without trial.

If you’re not protecting all of our rights, you’re effectively protecting none of them.

Comments Off on Not a Buffet  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2012-12-31  ::  madlibertarianguy

It’s Not the Guns, Stupid

Monday 31 December 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

Frontpagemag.com with a damning, statistics driven editorial on gun violence in America:

Chicago’s murder rate has hit that magic 500 number. Baltimore’s murder rate has passed 200. In Philly, it’s up to 324, the highest since 2007. In Detroit, it’s approaching 400, another record. In New Orleans, it’s almost at 200. New York City is down to 414 from 508. In Los Angeles, it’s over 500. In St. Louis it’s 113 and 130 in Oakland. It’s 121 in Memphis and 76 in Birmingham.

Washington, D.C., home of the boys and girls who can solve it all, is nearing its own big 100.

Those 12 cities alone account for nearly 3,200 dead and nearly a quarter of all murders in the United States. And we haven’t even visited sunny Atlanta or chilly Cleveland.

These cities are the heartland of America’s real gun culture. It isn’t the bitter gun-and-bible clingers in McCain and Romney territory who are racking up a more horrifying annual kill rate than Al Qaeda; it’s Obama’s own voting base.

[. . .]

America’s murder rate isn’t the work of the suburban and rural homeowners who shop for guns at sporting goods stores and at gun shows, and whom news shows profile after every shooting, but by the gangs embedded in the urban areas controlled by the Democratic machine. The gangs who drive up America’s murder rate look nothing like the occasional mentally ill suburban white kid who goes off his medication and decides to shoot up a school. Lanza, like most serial killers, is a media aberration, not the norm.

[. . .]

America is, on a county by county basis, not a violent country, just as it, on a county by county basis, did not vote for Obama. It is being dragged down by broken cities full of broken families whose mayors would like to trash the Bill of Rights for the entire country in the vain hope that national gun control will save their cities, even though gun control is likely to be as much help to Chicago or New Orleans as the War on Drugs.

Obama’s pretense that there needs to be a national conversation about rural American gun owners is a dishonest and cynical ploy that distracts attention from the real problem that he and politicians like him have sat on for generations.

We do not need to have a conversation about the NRA. We need to have a conversation about Chicago.

The idea that the tens of millions of gun owners in the US need to somehow compromise so that a very small percentage of people, most with extensive criminal backgrounds, who live in inner cities might have a chance at not killing each other is asinine.

We don’t have a mental health issue, or a “gun problem” or anything of the sort. We have cultural problems where guns are legitimate tools in settling disputes. Unfortunately many of those cultural issues are the direct result of official government policy. The incentive to use violence in order to secure profits from the very lucrative drug trade, and a source of a very large portion of gun violence in the US, is a direct consequence of government prohibition. Government is the source of gun violence. Not guns.

Get rid of prohibition, and you take positive steps towards greatly reducing gun violence. Don’t, and you can ban all the guns you want; it won’t matter.

Comments Off on It’s Not the Guns, Stupid  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2012-12-31  ::  madlibertarianguy

mad to sad

Sunday 30 December 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

My lost dog, in bitter cold and snow, has turned this mad libertarian guy in to a sad libertarian guy.

Comments Off on mad to sad  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2012-12-30  ::  madlibertarianguy