Nash the Cat had a brilliant brain. Until cannabis sent his brain down the drain. – Singapore Central Narcotics Bureau
As regular readers know, I’m a minarchist and consider both so-called political parties in the US to be merely the wings of one Fascist Party. As such, I’m as likely to attack any candidate as any other; however, I must admit that Donald Trump’s openly-fascistic rhetoric has been unusually interesting even to someone as cynical about politics as me, and I thought this mashup (contributed by Jesse Walker) of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and footage from a Trump rally was rather inspired. But again, I’m not a partisan; find me an attack on any other candidate (Republican, Democrat or third-party) which is equally well-done and I’ll post it too. The links above it were provided by Mistress Matisse (“do”), Tim Cushing (“drive”), Nun Ya (“hate”, “question” and “never”), Dave Krueger (“police”), Jillian Keenan (“imagine”), Emma Evans (“purpose”), and Radley Balko (“afraid”).
- Do as I say, not as I do.
- Don’t even drive past them.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Still think this isn’t a police state?
- I just can’t imagine how this happened.
- It’s almost like they’re doing it on purpose.
- The answer to a famous rhetorical question.
- Why is “never” such a difficult concept for people?
- What the end of 2500 years of Western culture looks like.
- Cop murders man for being afraid of violent thug attacking his friend.
From the Archives
- Prohibitionists use a young woman’s murder as excuse to deny her agency and talk about short skirts.
- How do I reconcile my dislike of sex work with my belief that people should control their own bodies?
- Are most sex workers insulted by gifts with “get out of prostitution” hotline numbers attached?
- If a sex worker doesn’t see herself as a victim, the state must victimize her to prove her wrong.
- The only interesting thing about this is that its fake numbers aren’t nearly as absurd as usual.
- It’s interesting to compare the same “sex trafficking” story from different media outlets.
- There’s no relationship between porn viewing & ED in healthy young men.
- Rescue industry’s getting so successful it now has mergers & acquisitions.
- Another astonishingly-stupid “study” produces predictably-stupid results.
- “Sex trafficking” fetishists advise doctors to “speak love into [victims]”.
- Only the alternative media question noxious “end demand” rhetoric.
- Dominatrix Kim Petro gets an instant ticket to my Hall of Shame.
- Cops spy on woman who sued them for allowing one to rape her.
- Would this excuse have worked for a victim with any other job?
- An in-depth analysis of how Eden and its ilk harm sex workers.
- The ACLU actually did something for sex workers for a change.
- A whore uses her superpower to seek revenge on an enemy.
- Increased access to sex services for disabled Netherlanders.
- If it’s just a job, why don’t prostitutes use their real names?
- Brooke Magnanti sues idiot who claims she wasn’t a whore.
- Busybodies who want to help cops brutalize & cage women.
- The Rennie Gibbs case was another Steven Hayne travesty.
- Would a stay-at-home wife contract be legally enforceable?
- Vancouver settles with the survivors of Pickton’s victims.
- Tunisian sex workers demand their brothel be reopened.
- Why don’t sex workers mind being objectified by clients?
- Yet another example of what real sex slavery looks like.
- Another state expands the definition of “prostitution”.
- Taboo, cops, sex hysteria, tea, McFlurries and birds.
- Cops, criminality, plastic, Daleks and much more.
- Ed Wood’s early career in television commercials.
- Thailand arrests refugees as “trafficking victims”.
- My two previous columns for the vernal equinox.
- Noah Berlatsky on anti-sex writer Chris Hedges.
- On the simultaneous having and eating of cake.
- Danish researchers protest the Swedish model.
- Advocates respond to rescue industry types.
- Is it true that clients really hate prostitutes?
- High school football causes “sex trafficking”!
- Lawyers censure another lawyer for lying.
- In which I try to settle into life in Seattle.
- 40 years after “Free to Be…You and Me”.
- Charlie Sheen recommends sex workers.
- Another ridiculous “sex trafficking” film.
- Sex work is evidence of brain damage?
- Another good Noah Berlatsky article.
- Eight of my favorite cake recipes.
- Google censors antiwar protests.
- One last raid, just for old times.
- The developing Canadian mess.
- Library censorship in Sweden.
- “Might be”? Try again, Emily.
- An anti-censorship protest.
- Rapist cops of the week.
- Whither Canada?
Re: It’s almost like they are doing it on purpose
An alternative would be to properly house, manage, and care for the mentally ill and retarded with taxpayer dollars, but that’s not something any minarchist can support. So they fall through the cracks. If it wasn’t the police’s job to manage the sweepings, what’s the alternative? The town dogcatcher? Or do we just put up with raving (literally) lunatics (literally) walking about the streets with knives, slashing at invisible demons only they can see? Because Big Government is worse than literally anything?
So typical of the libertarian crowd. Defund maintenance for public toilets, complain that public toilets are filthy, insist that the reason they are filthy is that they are public, have the public toilets demolished, and then when people start urinating on the streets, either complain about the police (if they do something about it), or complain about all the urine (if they don’t). Either way, it demonstrates yet again just how ineffective government is, so it’s a win for the libertarians.
The alternative is privatising them, which means that whoever gets the tender makes sweet, sweet money by basically packaging and reselling the city’s sewerage system. Sans pesky, intrusive, unnecessary regulation on how a public toilet block should be maintained, the owner will either spend as little money as possible, or will have two blocks and differentiate them – a nice, expensive one for people who can pay and a disgusting one for the plebs. Society pays twice for the simple job of having a place to take a slash.
And let’s not even get started on the corruption and bribes, not to mention the “dirty tricks” that rival toilet-block kingpins use to take each other’s toilets out of business.
Will it be more expensive, overall? Of course! The only reason an entrepreneur goes into business is to get money. If he’s not printing it, then that money comes from other people. Competition keeps things lean. Competition doesn’t exist where things are natural monopolies (transport, communication, mining).
Where was I? Oh yeah – cops and Down’s Syndrome. How about getting ’em all chipped, so that police can use an RFID reader to tell the difference between someone who’s going to violently stab them because they are retarded, and one who is going to violently stab them because they are a criminal? You might notice a little overlap there. And that’s not a coincidence. Many violent criminals are violent criminals because they can’t cope with the complexities of holding down a job, paying the bills, living as an adult in modern society. They don’t have the mental capacity. It happens. Saying the cops shouldn’t get rough with mental patients is making a false distinction.
They should be in hospital. They should be in a home. They should have a team of rubber-soled white-suited burly individuals on call to strap them up for a few minutes and inject them with sedatives when the bad circuits in their heads activate. Who’s going to pay for that, if not the taxpayer?
Nice strawman there, Paul. Maybe you could attach some strings to it & get a friend to pull them & make it dance around a little, so your attack on it isn’t quite so boring and silly.
The moment has probably passed, so I’m not expecting an answer, but beyond that odd detour about public toilets, Paul actually hints at something I’ve pondered at times.
My understanding is admittedly rudimentary but isn’t that why once upon a time we had taxpayer-funded institutions, to ostensibly keep mentally ill individuals out of harm’s way, both for their safety and that of the public at large? Obviously, that wasn’t what happened, because that didn’t take into account the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality that allowed doctors and orderlies to mistreat and otherwise prey upon those who could not fend for themselves, not to mention the corruption that can arise from a government-enforced monopoly. Eventually the exposure of such actions in the latter half of the last century, combined with the attitude of ‘why are my tax dollars paying for these horrid places?’ led to the institutions being shut down and the criminal justice system stepping into the void of dealing with the people left behind.
What then, would be an acceptable minarchist solution that keeps police from victimizing mentally ill individuals but also prevents those individuals from endangering themselves or others?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think that caring for the most vulnerable members of society is one of the few acceptable & moral functions of government. Don’t you? It’s certainly a lot more defensible than endless imperialism, mass incarceration, the maintenance of a vast force of thugs whose mission is to inflict violence on peaceful adults, welfare checks for corporations, employing an immense bureaucracy of busybodies…
Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted your initial answer to Paul. I agree with what you’ve just said, but your dismissal of Paul’s post as a strawman led me to think that you weren’t just dismissing his treatise on the maintenance of public toilets, but also his claim that people should be taxed in order to provide for those most vulnerable.
It certainly is a more defensible action than the things you’ve listed, but since the government can only provide services through taxation, and if all taxation is theft and therefore morally indefensible, how can these two ideas coexist?
If at some point in the infinite future you and I meet again on a plane where there are such things as Utopias and moral purity, I’d be happy to discuss this subject with you if you wish. Until then, I suggest you reread my essay “A Necessary Evil“.
I remember reading that essay, and once again, I agree with you. I should start using disclaimers because many times when I reference absolutes that I’ve read elsewhere such as “all taxation is theft” and the like, it’s not because I believe in them myself, but because I’m trying to question those who use them (not you specifically Maggie, but in general) and try to figure out what leads people to come to those conclusions.
I do appreciate your taking the time to answer, Maggie. With your tight schedule, I certainly did not expect it.
Trump Supporters = Obama fans. It kills me that FreeDomain Radio uncritically backs Trump on account of his rhetoric. (Never mind that sealing off the US/Mexico border will be impractical, expensive, and counterproductive.)
Any time a government builds a wall to keep the bad people out, it usually turns out that the real purpose of the wall is to stop people leaving.