I’m Not The Only One

I’m not a huge sports junkie, but I do enjoy an occasional game once in a while.  However, I prefer watching it online as opposed to attending a live game.  The main reason for this preference comes not just from the price of concessions or tickets, the loud and obnoxious team “supporters, surly asshole ushers who think you’re trying to sneak into the expensive seats when you’re actually just lost, or even leaving my home to go watch the game.

What I really hate about attending live games is what takes place before the game: the demand that everyone there stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and the playing of the national anthem.  Sure, some people will drag out the tired, old argument that soldiers died abroad so that I could have the “honor” of reciting the Pledge. In truth, U.S. troops have mostly died to protect the economic interests of U.S. corporations, overthrow foreign governments, destabilize entire regions, complete Manifest Destiny and punish 11 states for seceding.  Very little of that troop deployment had to do with actually defending Americans from external threats, and indirectly, our “right” to mindlessly recite a pledge and honor America’s theme song when instructed to do so .

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Ten years from now, when people look back on 2011, if they remember little else, it will most certainly be all the protesting that went on this year.  Perhaps inspired by ongoing Tea Party protests which began in 2009 and continued into the next year, Occupy Wall Street has inspired copycat protests in cities and states around the world.

Some college students, inspired by the larger Occupy Movement inspired by OWS as well as in a show of solidarity with OWS, have occupied public spaces on their universities’ campuses, protesting such issues as tuition hikes and demanding increased scholarship funds for low-income students.  The most famous of these campus occupations have been the one at University of California Davis during which campus police doused the protestors with large amounts of pepper spray.

The spraying of the occupiers quickly became infamous, spurring national debate about police abuse.  The image and video footage of the incident has since gone viral and has even evolved into an Internet meme called Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop. (more…)

The subject of Florida came up in a recent conversation, during which I complained that Florida requires recipients of food stamp benefits to take a drug test.  The woman with whom I was eating lunch said, “Good, they should do that here {in New Hampshire).  My tax dollars shouldn’t have to pay for someone’s drug habit.”

I couldn’t roll my eyes fast or hard enough at this ridiculous remark.

I replied, “Why should they test me for drug in order to get welfare benefits?  Nobody drug tested me when the state was stealing the money from my paycheck.”  Of course, you don’t have to be employed own property to pay local, state or federal taxes, as I’ve explained in a previous post.  But when most people think of taxpayers, they only include property owners and the employed within that definition.  But the system is set up so that everyone, including the unemployed, people on welfare, those whose incomes are from criminal activity and even illegal aliens are still paying taxes when they pay a bill or buy something. (more…)

Yeah, I know I should’ve pounded this one out sooner, and I didn’t take this long to publish this entry because the questions were hard, because they weren’t.  The following are questions asked of Judge Andrew Napolitano by moderate comedian/fake news anchor Jon Stewart when the former appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Other libertarian sites and bloggers have attempted to answer these questions in their own way, and I thought it would be entertaining for me and informative for the reader if I attempted to answers these questions before peeking at the answers of others and actually watching the Daily Show episode.  Here goes.

1.  Is government the antithesis of liberty?

Yes and no.  Government by itself is not the antithesis of liberty.  It is the initiation of force and the implied threat of such initiation of force that is a threat of liberty.  The use of force and the implied threat of force, both lethal and non-lethal, is the only real power government has and is the sole purpose for its existence. (more…)

Anyone who has their finger on the pulse of viral videos has most likely seen by now the YouTube video of a Manchester, New Hampshire high school student being manhandled by a police officer in the school cafeteria.  The video was quickly picked up by Cop Block, an organization dedicated to increasing police accountability and educating people on their civil rights.  Cop Block interviewed Frank Harrington, the 17-year old who was slammed into a cafeteria table by Manchester PD Officer Darren Murphy.  Cop Block also interviewed Harrington’s friend who video recorded the incident and in another video attempted to interview Officer Murphy.

Why was Harrington handled so roughly by this officer assigned to West Manchester High?  This kid isn’t exactly a model student.  At 17, he’s still taking sophomore classes, and doesn’t spend to much time worrying about classwork, or homework for that matter.  He stole his sister’s purse (also a student in the high school) with the intention of returning the purse to her after lunch period. His teachers and principal asked him for the purse, and he refused.  Apparently since the school officials felt they didn’t have the right to use physical force on Harrington to retrieve his sister’s purse without any legal repercussions, they sent in someone who they believed did. (more…)

I recently met a New Hampshire native who was fairly familiar with the Free State Project and was also fairly critical of how successful it could be.  He was doubtful that people from other states would be successful in limiting the government in New Hampshire if they weren’t willing to do the same thing in their home states.

On the surface, this question has some merit, but when you dig deeper, the question sounds absolutely ridiculous.   The Free State Project was launched to attract liberty-minded people to come to a state where they had a far better chance of limiting government than wherever they came from.  The majority of people who emigrate to New Hampshire as part of the FSP come from states whose governments were far more intrusive, expansive and expensive than in New Hampshire.

Most NH natives have no real concept of what an extreme oppressive government is like, the phenomenon of being controlled by the state in many ways and paying extra taxes for the assumed privilege of being bullied around by said governments, so I can understand the ignorance from which this question comes.  Not to say that people from New Hampshire are ignorant; they are in fact some of the most fiscally and politically savvy people I’ve ever met. That said, their frame of reference of what role their local government plays in their lives is very, very different than what Americans from say, Los Angeles, New York City, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan and other parts of the country know.   (more…)

I’ve had a few people ask me why police oppression/brutality is so high in New Hampshire.  The Free State Project has the goal of getting 20,000 liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire, but some of the content posted by Free Stater-owned media outlets like the Ridley Report, Free Keene, Talley.TV and Free Talk Live have made some people hesitant about moving to NH.  One click on any of the above websites and it is not hard to find some coverage about NH judges, state and local police abusing their authority.

One such incident occurred in June when some Free Staters decided to hold a protest outside the Manchester PD headquarters.  Some protestors scribbled slogans on the police station with chalk such as “Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights” and many held video cameras and cameraphones to document how the police would react.  Eight people were arrested and charged with misconduct and criminal mischief for committing such crimes as chalking on the sidewalk and walls of the station, not dispersing when told to do so, refusing to present state ID and “collecting evidence” with their electronic devices.  Some had their devices confiscated (stolen) from police officers and were arrested when they attempted to retrieve their possessions later.

I don’t know about New Hampshire being the freest, but it is freer than a lot of other places in the country. In my hometown of NYC, the protestors would’ve been arrested just for assembling in public without a permit. Forget no ID or chalking.  And in New York, a lot of those protestors would’ve needed medical attention, as the cops there are lot more hostile and brutal than in NH, even to those who don’t resist arrest. (more…)

I’ve been recently dosing myself on all five seasons of one of my favorite sci-fi TV shows from the 90s, Sliders.  As good as the show was, I remember being in high school when the gorgeous Kari Wuhrer was added to the cast, making it even better.   I Wikipedia’d (yeah, I said it) Ms. Wuhrer and was surprised to learn she had had breast implants.  She later had them removed when one of them encapsulated but she definitely had them when she was in Sliders.  I’m sure while her natural talents propelled her acting career one could argue that her implants got her foot in the door of many Hollywood studios.  She has been quoted in multiple sources as saying her body was her best asset. (more…)

If you’re familiar with the Free State Project, then you must have heard of the annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, PorcFest for short.  Held in New Hampshire, this six-day festival turns an otherwise tranquil, law-abiding campground in the White Mountains into a bustling, noisy and exciting temporary autonomous zone, where freedom is not only discussed but practiced on virtually every square foot of the site.

A temporary autonomous zone is an area in which for a limited period of time, regulations from all three levels of government are suspended.  It is the closest most Americans will come to experiencing anarchy in action.  This is my second PorcFest, and my fiancee and I sell food there.  No permit, no business license, no government inspections, and nobody dies of food poisoning.  It’s not in my best interest to poison my customers, as this would result in no repeat business, and word of my bad food would spread like wildfire and I’ll have no new customers either.  In addition to FRNs (federal reserve notes) I also accepted as payment silver and copper. (more…)

Michigan set an unsettling precedent in American politics recently when Governor-appointed Emergency Finance Managers were allowed to overreach their powers over certain towns, cities and counties throughout the state. With Michigan running in debt for decades, EFMs were appointed about 20 years ago and only until recently have had a mostly advisory position within the cash-strapped local governments and school districts to which they are assigned.  But now the state government has expanded what the EFM can do, overstepping the powers of locally elected officials, and in some cases, firing them. (more…)

This entry may be reaching you a bit late, but Happy Independence Day, a day to remember the freedom this country won from the English and the freedoms the federal government is slowly taking away.

I never had an urge to use fireworks like most boys and young men do, but I always enjoyed watching them.  The explosions, the bright blazes in the night sky, it certainly is still a spectacle to watch live.  Fireworks have been banned in New York City for several years, unless used by certified professionals who have acquired the royal permission (a permit) to purchase and use them.  I certainly didn’t know this, because every fourth of July (and during Chinese New Year because I grew up in an Asian neighborhood) people in the neighborhood would set them off.  When the end of June would come around, the guy selling fireworks out of his trunk would suddenly appear, and sales would openly occur in the streets.  (more…)

California might actually be on its way to legalizing marijuana, at least up to an ounce.

Three Tuesdays from now, Californians will be going to the polls to decide on, among other things, Proposition 19, a.k.a. the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannibis Act of 2010.

For those unfamiliar with the proposal, Prop 19  mandates that people 21 and older can:

• possess up to one ounce of marijuana for personal consumption.
• use marijuana in a non-public place such as a residence or a public establishment licensed for on-site marijuana consumption.
• grow marijuana at a private residence in a space of up to 25 square feet for personal use. (more…)

If you’re not familiar with the term, Mexican hunting refers to a recent practice of white Americans (some blacks, too, although to a lesser extent) of looking for people who “look” Mexican and then beating them, sometimes to death.  Of course, for most white people, almost all Latinos can be visually mistaken for a Mexican.  Already, an Ecuadorian immigrant has been beaten to death and a Colombian immigrant was almost beaten to death.

It’s great to see that blacks and whites in America have transcended their rocky historical relations to come together to attack Latinos. I also find it interesting that this sort of violence is primarily taking place in states like California, New Jersey and New York and not places like Arkansas, Georgia or Arizona. (more…)

Okay, it ALMOST ended slavery in the U.S., but I figured a title like that would be more eye-catching.

I know the whole Rand Paul story is old news, but the unfortunate byproduct of that story is that many people are claiming that only government could’ve killed Jim Crow and ended slavery and that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, private businesses would still be excluding minorities today.  This conclusion couldn’t be more moronic and requires a profound ignorance in both history and economics. (more…)