No one can evade the fact that historically, the state is a blood-thirsty monster, which has been responsible for more violence, bloodshed and hatred than any other institution known to man. – Roy A. Childs, Jr.
This was a very news-rich week, and the inimitable Radley Balko, back from his sabbatical, contributed no less than eleven items (including the video). The links below the video were provided by Neil Gaiman, the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, Eugene Volokh, Penn Jillette, Violet Blue, Deep Geek, Brooke Magnanti, Franklin Harris, Korhomme and Walter Olson (in that order). The “4%” picture and the first two items beside it arrived via Jesse Walker, and the next two after them via Grace.
- Peeking at Schrödinger’s cat?
- Hyperinflation causes witch hunts.
- Presumption of guilt, copyright style.
- Tinfoil hats actually amplify mind-control beams.
- The law of unintended consequences, “gender equality” edition.
- Cops savagely beat and arrest man as a favor to his father-in-law. (Graphic photos).
- Houston politicians claim that food trucks could be fronts for terrorists and drug dealers.
- New York cops run over young man, then send his mother a bill for damage to the police car.
- This guy’s story is the bunk. It’s little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
- Cops claim that man died in jail from “choking on drugs”; medical examiner discovers the actual cause was eight fractured ribs, lung contusions and a ruptured spleen.
- Philadelphia cop (who has since been fired) sucker-punches and handcuffs female passerby after someone else throws water on him:
- Robert Heinlein’s February 11th, 1955 letter to Theodore Sturgeon, on the occasion of Sturgeon’s suffering a severe case of writer’s block.
- “The nurses in the adjoining observation room had blocked the glass with manila folders so they wouldn’t have to look at the old man.”
- Michigan State University believes adults are so fragile, they need “counseling” after a professor had a nervous breakdown.
- Helpful hint: If you ever want to link to a specific time in a YouTube video, just add &t=XXmYYs to the end of the URL.
- You’ll never think of “eating like a pig” in quite the same way again.
- The US military classifies Julian Assange an “enemy of the state”.
- Philippines bans anonymous online comments.
- Poe’s Law in action.
- The fruit machine.
- Thought crime?
What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped at the same time?- Austrian supermarket sells bananas peeled and repackaged in plastic wrap.
- The US government today has more data on the average American than Stasi did on the average East German.
- The US Army says use of social networks is a warning sign of terrorism.
- Tunisian cops rape woman, then charge her with violating modesty law.
- This is obviously meant for the gypsy whores at football games.
- Canadian cops rip up garden, claim daisies are marijuana.
- Another brick in the growing “strict liability” wall.
- The Great Wyoming Tribble-Naming Contest.
- ‘Twas the night before censorship…
- Universal criminality in action.
Bachmanns’ ‘Jihadi Foods” comment was a satirical piece that got picked up by other sites–and ran it as true.
The original, clearly stating it’s satire: http://www.bikyamasr.com/78749/michele-bachmann-calls-for-ban-of-jihadi-foods-falafel-is-a-gateway-food/
You might have read the one at Bikyamasr first, but the Daily Currant is the original piece. They’re the new kid on the satirical block and, until they becomes as well known as The Onion, there will be many opportunities for people to think they’re real. I did the first time, and they had an image stating they were satire on the top right (now missing).
Actually, after thinking about it, there will always be opportunities for good satire to fool people into thinking it’s real. People fall into the traps of wishful and/or fearful thinking with very little encouragement.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/28/world/iran-news-agency-duped/index.html
It would really help had I looked up the definition to Poe’s law first. My apologies for jumping the gun.
I myself hadn’t heard of it before a few months ago, but it’s a very useful observation. 🙂
Re: the insurance thing. I wonder if the same people who screamed “sexism” and got laws passed to forbid insurance companies from charging women more for health insurance (because they use more healthcare) will get on the bandwagon of screaming sexism at auto insurance companies.
Not holding my breath.
It would be wise not to. “Sexism” is generally a synonym for “a situation which works to my disadvantage.”
Sex (non) discrimination is about to enter the UK car insurance market. As women have historically had fewer (cheaper) claims than men, their car insurance was cheaper. No longer; they now will have to pay equal premiums as men — which for them is an increase. Men, however, won’t pay less.
A question: all the reports of police misconduct. Do you think it’s worse than ever now? Or do you think the Information Age has simply ripped off the mask of a problem that was always there?
My guess is that it’s 75% the former and 25% the latter. Even the most depopulated vacant lot of a town has its own SWAT team nowadays.
I think Wilson’s more or less correct; though some of this was always around, most of it derives from the “us vs. them” mentality which is the inevitable result of malum prohibitum laws. When there is no offended party to register a complaint, the only way a law can be enforced is to allow the police to spy and to give them powers ordinary citizens don’t have; that turns them into a power elite, with predictable consequences.
That’s more more or less what I was thinking. David Simon made a similar point in The Wire: that the War on Drugs was turning out cops who were “shit at being police”. Didn’t know neighborhoods; didn’t know people. When you make something into a “war”, you make the public into the enemy.
That’s one of LEAP’s main points: the “War on Drugs” has attracted hooligans and corrupted the weak-willed, so good cops are now greatly outnumbered by the bad, corrupt & incompetent.
Regarding Hyperinflation; my greatgrandfather immigrated from Germany in 1902 but still had cousins in the home country during the Weimar inflation. His cousin got paid 3 times a day and the men would walk to the windows and drop their cash bundles to their wives to go and shop for food before the prices went up again.
Ludwig von Mises recounts the story of two brothers, one of whom was conscientious and frugal and the other was a party animal who saved his drink bottles. At the height of the inflation, the party animal was better off because his bottles had some value whereas the savings of the first brother had disappeared into the tidal wave of currency.
On pulling up daisies; cops like that should rather be pushing them up. Better deal all around. My father was a botanist at the local university and had some deputy sheriffs come in with a sample of marihuana that they had found growing “all over the canal and river banks.” Turned out it was actually poison hemlock. You can’t get high smoking it but you can get dead eating it. There actually is a wild watercress that is edible but it looks a lot like poison hemlock and you really don’t want to mistake one for the other.
Robert Heinlein apparently did things like that on a regular basis and IIRC had done that same thing for another writer besides Sturgeon. If you have the time, the first half of his authorized biography was published about 3 years ago and it is very interesting to see his evolution from his early days to what was his accepted mode in later years.
And it’s nice to see a cop fired for assault. What would be better is if he was charged.
On Sergeant Preston and the daisies — I wonder if the “daisies” were actually calendula. Calendula looks vaguely like a daisy, yellow or orange petals. They can establish and proliferate, so a large field of them isn’t unheard of. But they don’t grow very tall, usually no more than a couple feet.
The major reason I wonder is because crushed calendula leaves can smell remarkably like good skunk, at least from my naive understanding of what good skunk smells like. Someone once mentioned that aroma to me as we were passing by some disreputable looking types who seemed to be sharing a cigarette. I thought the aroma was emanating from a patch of calendula. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I kind of liked the suggestion that the tribble be named Cyrano, after the guy who was selling them.
The Christmas poem is, as far as I could tell, being edited by a particular publishing company. It was a little unclear, but I don’t think it was the government. Either way, it’s stupid. When we look into what makes a kid more likely to take up smoking, it isn’t Joe Camel and it isn’t Santa Claus. It’s pretty simple, actually: if you are a child, and the adults around you smoke, you are more likely to smoke yourself. Not guaranteed, just more likely.
The Heinlein letter was pretty interesting. In particular, the idea about a stunt man’s ghost caught my attentions, but that’s probably because I already have something in the works which involve a stunt man’s ghost. The thing about cats… that’s true, and a touch scary.
I’ll spare you my Schrödinger’s version of “Josey & the Pussycats.” Quantum computing… wow. My grand-niece… great-niece… whatever she is, she’s going to have a computer that puts Watson to shame, and it’ll be so small she can go skinny-dipping and still be carrying it.
I think the lingerie store is an attempt to lure the nomadic harlots to games, because it’s getting embarrassing when they selfishly refuse to show up. Damned wandering strumpets!
The YouTube thing is wonderful. I’ve used it several times when pointing out why our laws utterly screw young people, without their consent.
The Philly Cop link was pointless. Instead of being outaged they should avhe pointed out the actual perpetrator, as the policeman very clearly mistook her as the one. ANd if anyone here expects policemen to be ace at controlling their emotions and perfectly aware of their surroundings, then someone doesn’t know jack shit about how humans work, sorry. A Marine couldn’t do it all the time either. If you expect the state and every single of its agents to be some kind of fairytale construct, then it is obvious you are going to be disappointed by their typically human (not governmental) imperfections. It doesn’T tell me either way how an executive force not sponsored by a state would be different, or how society could work completely without any kind of executive force (this includes neigbourhood watches etc.).
The social network -> terrorism link is also pointless, as the contents very clearly reveal that it is only a minor of many indicators of possible sympathy towards terrorist activites, and only in the very specific case of US soldier in duty. I think it’s weird too, but I don’t know how they came to this conclusion, thus I can not pass judgement, and neither can you.
Many of these links point towards problems which have nothing to do with the basis of organisation of these groups, btw. People don’t turn into thugs because they were employed by the state. Whether you have a state or not does nothing about whether they would have beaten up this man. He might have called them or maybe others to beat his son in law up anyway.
Of course pretty much every single of these articles, if taken as evidence of the savagery of the state -as the introduction does suggest-, makes for a big inductive fallacy. It logically equals digging up evidence about prostitutes purposefully infecting clients with STDs, then claiming that prostitution is the key to this evil. No, it’s not. It’s the specific circumstances that made the specific individual act this specific way that are the reason. Same with states, except exponentially more complicated due to the vast amount of people and social dynamics involved.
And don’t forget the little fact that officials can only run rampant because people let them. People outside of the state suffer from the same problems, being opinionated, dumb, indifferent, mislead, simply evil, or anything else.
The world is not a fairy tale, and humans are imperfect. Removing grand scale administrative devices engineered by men themselves from the equation doesn’t change anything about that. It will introduce chaos though.
In short words, Norway easily beats the Transvaal in offering a fine society to settle down and contribute. Whether many states are in urgent need of reform or not changes jack shit.
You completely miss the point. It isn’t that governments make people bad; it’s that governments give petty people the power to inflict their petty cruelties on each other, and when combined those petty cruelties add up to monstrous ones. If you or any other man punched a woman, with or without reason, you would have been arrested and put on trial; this guy was merely fired, and the only reason he even got that was he was caught on video.
Exactly. People don’t turn into thugs because they are employed by a state; people let their inner thug out when they are allowed to get away with it. Also, a position (governmental or otherwise) which gives a pass to thuggery is inviting thugs to join.
Lord Acton said it a long time ago, but governments and their apologists (especially cop apologists) refuse to listen: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Every major moral system, religious and secular, teaches that doing right and doing well for oneself are incompatible. You can be moral or you can take care of yourself but not both. However, we’re human beings and we don’t take “impossible” for an answer. We try to be good and we try to do well for ourselves. Since that really is impossible for most people, they either twist their ideas of morality or their ideas of what’s good for themselves—usually both, so that they can at least some of the time be good and do well for themselves.
So what happens when some idealistic guy who believes in justice meets the reality of the corruption that is the police? He persuades himself that there’s nothing wrong with ignoring the Constitution, or with lying, stealing, or cheating, if it gets bad guys off the street. He persuades himself that there’s nothing wrong with protecting his fellow officers who have strayed, since the police are all that stands between society and chaos.
He is not corrupt in the usual sense of the term. He is not motivated by any sort of venality; even when he demands things that benefit himself, he does so because he believes that they will help him be a better cop. He is, nevertheless, wholly corrupt. He has become a monster who can rationalize destroying the lives of individual citizens in order to protect them. He’s very like Lt. Calley, who believed that he had to destroy the village to save it.
This sort of corruption happens in every part of government. That CPS worker who goes after the parent who lets his child run around the neighborhood unsupervised? He may genuinely believe that whatever abuses of power he perpetrates are necessary to protect that child. The judge who ignores the law to put an innocent in prison may genuinely believe he is protecting society by doing so. The politician who lies to become president may genuinely believe that he must so that he can get into power and save the country.
So, yes, governments do turn good people into bad, they don’t merely give the already bad greater scope for their evil.
I’ll add a PS because I expect a misunderstanding: I regard these kinds of people as far worse than the merely venal. Give me any number of merely venal politicians over the morally corrupt. The latter are an evil that no society can survive.
I’m sorry, but could I just direct you to this sentence I wrote in my original post?
“Many of these […] point towards problems which have nothing to do with the basis of organisation of these groups, btw.”
Your words are great, but your arguments are little. I believe it is called bombast.
What about the parent who lets a case of child abuse slip to avoid trouble with the perpetrator? Is that corruption by the state? How about the managers of SIEMENS, who combined over the last few years reduced the workforce of SIEMENS by 100,000 people (!) internationally to increase margin of profit and avoid being fired for not meeting the ridiculous standards set by the top to appease the stockholders. Is that corruption by the state? Or hey, maybe that guy who refused entry to the nigger* fleeing from the angry mob in town to save his own hide. Is that corruption by government? We could replace the term nigger with jew, adulterer, “child molester”**, witch or umThakathi if you like.
No, that’s not corruption by government. That’s moral relativism, stupidity and bending to facts of social and political life. “Realpolitik” so to say. None of which are caused by the existence of a state, and certainly not amplified by its existence categorically.
*I chose this term to emphasize the social context, not out of contempt for blacks, which I do not have.
**Put in quotes for several good reasons which would take too much time to elaborate and are irrelevant to the discussion at hand anyway.
To avoid a counter-“argument” based on the exact nature of the kind of moral relativism displayed.
The funny thing is, as with everything in reality these are usually not cases of black and white, and waht you or I may perceive as immoral is actually arguably moral froma nother perspective, or in another situation.
Examine the following specific scenarios, put yourself in the exact position of the perpetrator of misdeed, consider your response, and tell me if you think black/white thinking as you exhibited it in your previous response is sensible, and that it gives good reason to attack the idea of state and heavily insult those who trhink states or their agents have a net merit.
A mob seeking to hunt down someone said to abduct and murder children from the town.
A Mafia/gang member intimidating/eliminating opposition to ensure safety of the family/gang.
Someone killing a member of their own group to avoid starvation.
A person killing a proven mass murderer who shows no signs of stopping his habit and is currently free.
A person killing a person because they are supposed to be inhabited by an evil ghost exerting damaging influence on the tribe (said umThakathi).
A person throwing a heavy and turbulent person out of the lifeboat to prevent the ship from keeling over.
A person commiting a harmful crime for someone who holds their family as hostages to avoid they are slaughtered.
A person beating someone up to prevent them from raping someone.
A person planting bombs at key structures or trying to eliminate key personell of an excessively oppressive government (think Nazi Germany or Red Khmer – your little oh so corrupt US senate is child’s play compared to that) to hamper their functionality.
Suddenly doing “bad” things to try and cause “good” things doesn’t seem like a specialty of government, does it? And somehow it lost lots of it black and white character that you like to assume.
I need to bloody proof read my posts BEFORE submitting them. Sorry.
As it happens, Sumpfie, I wasn’t addressing anything you said; I was disagreeing with Maggie. Government (as it presently exists) not only amplifies evil peoples’ capacity to do evil but also pushes good people to become evil.
As for your comments, I only skimmed them. They’re too long and incoherent. Short and to the point is the best way to comment, if you want substantive replies.
Whom you adress or not bears no relevance to the nature of your arguments, which is what I was adressing. Such a strange notion that one may only comment on what was very directly addressed to him.
Long indeed, quite like yours, but if you were interested in a dialogue as it is a necessity for an open, free society to function, you would not have merely skimmed them, which is what I did with yours. But apparently measuring with two scales is the standard amongst passionate ideologists, so I’m not surprised at your answer.
*plonk*
And I’d argue my posts are actually rather short, considering the encyclopedia-filling depth of the topic.
Well that’s not exactly news, that’s why we came up with things such as trias politica, and waged bloody civil wars against despotism (which often failed in one way or another, sadly). It is arguably not perfectly implemented, and indeed perhaps not the most perfect way to distribute power, but it does show that statits do address that danger. Perhaps not the thoughtless ones, but considering that thoughtlessness seems to be the modus operandi of most people (unless it’s about their money…), I’m neither surprised nor want to accept that the disability to reason is exceptionally common amongst statists (which is what your rhetoric suggests).
And even so, that (overall inaccurate) aphorism does not address how creating a power vaccuum will be a viable way of preventing power to fall into the hands that shouldn’t wield any, and as such is not a very good argument for anarchism (or even minarchism – there is nothing in here about the size of government at all), only a good argument against systems which concentrate an unnecessary amount of power in one position.
Well yes, governments can and often do act as an amplifier. I don’t think finding ways to make sure it only amplifies the desirable traits of its citzen means having to deconstruct it as far as possible though. Because then lack of order and direction will give ample opportunity for undesirable elements to gain frigthening power by abusing several aspects of the human psyche, or just brute force.
Also I don’t believe such a power vaccuum will remain in a working state for very long, and eventually proto-states will be founded again, which might then absorb each other by confederation or war and turn into proper states again. Searching for what makes a good state is certainly much more constructive (and easier!), even if it takes a lot of generations’ time.
I agree that anarchy is unstable. Almost instantly, the guy with the most muscles, or the biggest gun, or the most friends will be in charge, and there goes your anarchy.
I’m not sure who ever said that only government personnel can be corrupt.
Well, pretty much everyone who agrees that governments have to go away have to admit this to some extend if they want their worldview to be at least coherent in itself. Because if you can’t, that pretty much means you know that you’re just asking for trouble if you replace some sort of order with no order at all.
It’s dangerous to think of governments as something that stands outside of society, because it does not. It’s an organic outgrowth, sometimes malignant, that arises out of the need for groups of people to organise themselves. It’s pretty much just like any other organisation, except it managed to grow beyond others and be granted or grant itself various exclusive rights. Even the Boers eventually submitted to the need for a state, even if it didn’t really work, which however was not because of the shortcomigns of government as such rather than the shortcomings of their uncompromising individualism that made it impossible for the government to actually work well. And of course due to the fact that vast swathes of their land were really just stolen from the Zulu by documents the respective kings unwittingly signed without knowing what it actually said or understanding how differently the Europeans handle this promise and contract stuff, which later got them into quite a bit of trouble with the Britsh.
Also I don’t believe such a power vaccuum will remain in a working state for very long, and eventually proto-states will be founded again, which might then absorb each other by confederation or war and turn into proper states again.
Another problem with anarchy is that it makes a foreign invasion much more likely, as the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia demonstrates.
I didn’t think about that, actually. But you’re right. It’s a bit like having to go to war to avoid the warmongers grow in power (the American intervention in Europe during WWII and especially after that were the best thing that could happen to us, as much as many of us like to scoff at America’s world-police behaviour nowadays, which to be fair is a complex issue though). Sometimes, having the best of intentions just doesn’t help.