Bad Boy!

190
13645
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

When I leave my gym, there’s a red light at the intersection that literally takes five minutes to change. Often, it will skip the green arrow for people waiting to make a left turn from the side street (that’s me). You are supposed to wait for the next cycle. Another five minutes away. I routinely “run” (that is, ignore) this light. With my V1 radar detector on to screen for road tax collectors, I make sure the traffic is clear in either direction and just… go.obey 1

I mean, why not?

There is no reason not to – other than deferring to the conditioning that tells you to obey.

If there is clearly no traffic coming, if it is therefore objectively safe to proceed, why just sit there like a well-trained German Shepard? Unless that’s what we’re supposed to be, of course.

Which of course, we are supposed to be – and punished if we’re not.

If a road tax collector happens to see me perform this maneuver, he will “cite” me not for causing any harm but rather for my failure to …. sit there like a well-trained German Shepard. Because I did not obey my master’s voice. It will actually state this explicitly on the form itself and later, in court – though not using the same phraseology. The “defendant” – aka, the German Shepard – will be scolded for having done Thus and So against the strictures of the traffic code. Which is the equivalent, in two-legged terms, of being told bad boy! and swatted across the snout for climbing onto the sofa.

Are you sick of being swatted across the snout by your master? bad

I am, too.

Which is why I routinely ignore his “voice” – his edicts and commands. His rules and regulations. As much as I can possibly get away with. For two reasons:

First – for the almost erotic satisfaction that comes from getting away with it. It is like successfully kicking a bully in the nuts. It feels good to be bad – when “bad” is nothing more than exercising your own mind’s judgment rather than  shutting it off in deference to the judgment (often arbitrary, not infrequently ridiculous) of faceless others who presume they know best, that you are an idiot – and must be treated accordingly. As Seinfeld once put it, Who are these people?

And why must we fear and obey them?

If you are right – and “the law” is demonstrably wrong – why (leaving the possibility of potential punishment aside) obey? It’s mindless – literally, devoid of mind – to obey for the sake of obeying. When you know there’s no reason to obey – other than “just because,” or “it’s the law.” There is nothing intrinsically wrong with disobeying “the law” – and often, a great deal to be said in favor of so doing. It’s something most people never think about, but really ought to. No, more than that. It is essential for them to consider the difference between “the law” – and right or wrong. That “legal” does not necessarily mean right. And just as important, that “illegal” does not necessarily mean wrong.

We are not talking about moral transgressions here – things such as taking what’s not yours, or causing others harm. A fully functioning human being does not require his master’s voice to refrain from such. Because his inner voice – his own moral sense – tells him not to. For good reason. Because it is wrong. Not “just because” or “it’s the law.”

The second reason is far more subversive: To show others it can be done – and so encourage them to do it, too. To get them thinking… to get the wheels turning… figuratively as much as literally.red

That red light at the gym I routinely “run,” for instance. Others seem to be running it, too. The average person seems to need an example – someone else to do it first before he will risk the attempt himself. Submission conditioning is more (or less) effective on some people than it is on others. But if you show the way… show that it can be done… and far more important, show that it is stupid not to to do it – odds are good you’ll at least get others more conditioned to submission to think rather than blindly submit. The guy waiting behind me at the light will see no harm or chaos resulted from me “running” the light. It may – and hopefully will – arouse annoyance in him. Not at me – but at the idiocy of just sitting there, wasting gas and time… because a light is red. Not because there is cross traffic. Not because it isn’t “safe” to proceed.

But because a light is red.

This is how animals are conditioned. Men – human beings – are supposed to be defined by their capacity to think. To use reason, to exercise judgment. It’s time for more of us to begin acting that way – and show others they can, too.

Traffic law – one form of his master’s voice – is merely a good place to start.

Throw it in the Woods?

190 COMMENTS

  1. Be aware that Statutes are subservient to Common Law and the Constitution at all times. This began with the Magna Carta in 1215, where we all gained the right to free travel on public roads, unencumbered, using any mode of transport available.

    The US Constitution retained parts of the British Constitution, but most of the principles are the same. Australia decided to take parts of both.

    The Constitution is there to protect the people from the tyrannies of gubberment, not for the gubberment to control the people. No matter which Constitution, the application of the law is essentially the same. Don’t forget you also have international rights that the US agreed to.

    Each state in Australia has Road Rules, each almost no different from one another. The BIG thing is, that there is no Hansard in Parliament bringing the Road Rules into law, which means they are simply rules, not an Act, Law or anything

    S.76 of Australia’s Constitution:

    76 Additional original jurisdiction

    The Parliament may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the High Court in any matter:
    (i) arising under this Constitution, or involving its interpretation;
    (ii) arising under any laws made by the Parliament;
    (iii) of Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;
    (iv) relating to the same subject-matter claimed under the laws of different States.

    Maritime Law is inapplicable on land, which is why we have Common and Mercantile Law.

    Further, there is nothing in our Constitution stating that any of these maritime Statutes must be obeyed. In fact, there’s no law or Act in existence that binds a flesh and blood human being to a Statute without that human’s CONSENT to be so bound. They CANNOT deny it, especially if you’ve made it clear from the outset that you DO NOT CONSENT.

    Therefore, once a police officer EXECUTES a Statute beyond power of the Constitution, their action is Ultra Vires (beyond lawful power) because they are no longer protecting our freedoms and Rights that they are Constitutionally BOUND to follow, they’re engaging in fraud and may no longer be obeyed:

    Justice Latham in the Uniform Tax Case in the High Court of Australia..

    Common expressions such as: ‘The Courts have declared a statute invalid’, “sometimes lead to misunderstanding. A pretend law made in excess of power is not and never has been a law at all. Anybody in the country is entitled to disregard it. Naturally, he will feel safer if he has a decision of a court in his favour, but such a decision is not an element that produces invalidity in any law. The law is not valid until a court pronounces against it – and thereafter invalid. If it is beyond power it is void ab initio” – Uniform Tax Case HCA (High Court of Australia) 1942 (65 CLR 373 at 408).

    Case in point:

    S.8(12) of the Imperial Acts Application Act (Constitution):

    That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction, are illegal and void.

    This has VAST ramifications.

    Firstly, ANY fine awarded to you that’s NOT an order from a Chapter III Court of Competent Jurisdiction, can be lawfully ignored.

    Second, any THREAT of vehicle impound or or ACTUAL seizure before a ruling of the above Court is also illegal.

    Once you’ve made it clear, the cop NOW knows he can’t impound your car if it’s “unregistered”, BUT – if he’s already given you an illegal fine and says you can’t drive it and have to get it towed, bad luck. He’s already acted outside the law because of the fine. His order isn’t valid. “Am I under arrest or free to go?” They don’t want to arrest you unlawfully. Drive away.

    Important: The difference between “driving” and “travelling” is this:

    Black’s Law Dictionary (and most if not all others) define “Driver” as: “One EMPLOYED in conducting a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle,with horses, mules, or other animals, or a bicycle, tricycle, or motor car, though not a street railroad car“. See Davis v. Petrinovich, 112 Ala. 654, 21 South. 344, 36 L. R. A.615; Gen. St. Conn. 1902.

    A “driver” is paid to transport goods or people and requires a “driver licence” because an extra tax and control is to be fairly imposed when using public roads (paid for by the public) for revenue. A “traveller” isn’t required to have this “permission slip”, unless grandma pays him for his time. The term “driver licence” or “driving” is so misused these days they think they’ve got us screwed.

    Check out Charlie Sprinkle. He hasn’t had a driver licence for decades:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS43EIQQ7ak

    Your private car is not a motor vehicle (commercial term):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkWAJbX-SOU

    Not many of our sheeple Aussies know all this. Most judges and magistrates do, but never act on it unless it’s mentioned in court, where it catches them out. See, they were hoping they could enforce a wadful of fines. Once you show them that all activities against you were unlawful from the outset (ab initio), they fall flat on their arse.

    The last cop I had an argument with said:

    “oh.. so ya read something on the internet huh..?”

    “Yeh – The Constitution from the Australian Legal Information Institute, as used by Barristers countrywide.”

    He got the message, but his continued blustering was really sucking at unicorn farts, so he let me go.

    Check all your US laws on the subject. If you make a stand in court, use everything you have. Here’s somewhere to start (this is BRILLIANT – AND it’s US based!):

    http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/DLbrief.shtml

    Я Ξ √ Ω L U T ↑ ☼ N!

    • My question is, for everyone of these guys (like Mr. Sprinkle) who gets a judge that understands this game and lets someone go to preserve the greater scam gets a judge that just finds them guilty? The judges are usually just as conditioned and programmed as most everyone else.

      There’s a longer list of people sitting in jail/prison than there are who were successful.

      Not sure how this is sustained charge after charge either.

      Those operating the mechanisms often lie too. Perhaps it takes someone much better at social games than I. Perhaps the key is in how to counter-attack and how to socially manipulate those with power better than they can do it to those without. Now that I think about it, knowing the written law has helped me with cops and then they don’t press anything.

      That might be the key, the social maneuvering. The written law used as a social tool.

      • The written law is the key. We do have such problems as Common Law whereby older precedents by corrupt judges have confused the issue of real law and polluted the system, but if we have enough people make this corruption public eventually the system has to listen. You always have the right of appeal.

        Be aware, I tend not to use lawyers. Reason being they swore an oath to protect the system and, in this country at least, they refuse to use the Constitution for what it is and they say it’s ignored in court.

        That’s just crapola, considering the Constitution ALLOWS Parliament to make those laws and they couldn’t open Parliament’s doors every morning without the pomp and ceremony that the Constitution prescribes necessary.

        In the US (correct me if I’m wrong) you’re actually taught the Constitution at school, but here it’s suppressed and many don’t even know we have one.

        The system’s corrupt, but you can always appeal on the grounds that the previous judge failed to consider all the facts, failed in his Oath of office to uphold the law and upheld attempts to extort moneys from you considering the entire ordeal was fraudulent from inception.

        You have to stand your ground and the best chance is to make it public when possible.

        “Perhaps it takes someone much better at social games than I. Perhaps the key is in how to counter-attack and how to socially manipulate those with power better than they can do it to those without.”

        You only have to form “reasonable doubt” to get off. Start with the little things and throw lots of them in there, each one adding more doubt that you’re guilty.

        If the fine says “driving over the speed limit”, you can prove you weren’t “driving” if you weren’t being paid to do so.

        Often the case doesn’t make it to court because the officer can’t make it, same as waiting for your case to come up for the day, the informant can’t make it.

        In the case of a fixed speed camera where there’s no operator, the CAMERA is the informant. The case lawfully can’t be run as you have the Right to cross-examine your accuser.

        In the case of a red light, they must prove you entered the intersection on red. A camera must have a photo proving this. After all, you could have entered on green or amber because of slow traffic.

        Don’t fall for the tactic the judge might use that “everyone’s in the same boat and pays accordingly”. The FACT is that it’s against the law. For him to ignore his sworn Oath regardless is at minimum fraud.

        I’ve seen cases where a simple parking fine got chucked out because the accused mentioned the 1988 Federal Referendum whereby the Council that issued the fine is no longer recognised under the Constitution. The judge said “Let’s not get into that” and dismissed the case.

        Start with the little things. THEY must prove your guilt first.

        • The last time I actually had to put on a defense in traffic court the judge told me I was lying (I simply referred to the illinois vehicle code and the MUTCD which it incoporates and had photographs of the poorly designed intersection) and that all he needed was a preponderance of the evidence (the cop’s word is greater than mine, even when I am citing the law).

          Now I would not be surprised if the judge lied to me, however it would have cost me $160 to appeal and even with the maxed out fine and court costs, it wasn’t that much.

          In the USA, traffic court has been separated from criminal court for the most part. It’s some quasi area where there are no rights or rules apparently.

          • If it says on the ticket that you may take the matter to court – without it stating on the ticket that it might cost you more – then the costs are illegal. That must be stated on the ticket. That’s Mercantile(contract) law. If they want to try the case under that instead of criminal law, then they must abide by their own contract.

            Obviously, the “judge” was lying. An appeal would have proven this fact as he clearly failed to look into the matter and the law to determine fault or guilt, not that I know the exact nature of your case however.

            It can be an uphill battle but eventually, when you win, you’ll have the right to claim all these costs back.

            “In the USA, traffic court has been separated from criminal court for the most part. It’s some quasi area where there are no rights or rules apparently.”

            Same here. They try to avoid it becoming a criminal trial because then they’d need an actual victim, which they don’t have.

            But in actual fact, either something’s a crime and it’s caused a grievance against somebody’s life, liberty or property, or it’s not.

            It’s always a good idea to ask the judge at the outset what kind of case this is. If he says quasi-criminal then I’d quote the above paragraph and either demand a victim or have the case dismissed.

            The State can’t be claimed as a victim, as the State is not responsible for personal safety.

            The fact you had the evidence didn’t matter to this joker, it’s all about fleecing you as fast as possible.

          • In the state of Illinois there is no such clause. In C(r)ook county fighting the ticket is punished if you lose.

            There are several Illinois state laws that apply only to C(r)ook County or the City of Chicago. The state writes them based on population. Court costs is one of those. It’s set low enough that it no longer only applies to c(r)ook county.

            Outsiders might not understand where I am coming from, but Illinois government at all levels is practically openly criminal. You might not know, but the previous two governors are both in prison. It’s that bad.

            I ultimately don’t know how to use such tactics on people who will just at that point revert to the fact they have the guns and can use them without repercussions.

          • It seems you might have to prove that laws made by prior Governors that are now in prison may not be proper laws anymore, if they ever were.

            I note that the States of the US and each of their laws can differ vastly, however any laws made in excess of Constitutional power are still not laws, which is exactly why there’s a term called “Ultra Vires”.

            If your livelihood is directly and negatively affected by such Statutes, you should take it higher. If not, you might just have to suck it up for now and prepare better for next time, such as a camera or 2 in the car (preferably hidden), a small recording device on your person etc. Evidence is the key, but it’s better to have overwhelming amounts.

            Obviously, the best thing to do is not get a ticket in the first place, but ultimately, your Common Law Right was to avoid causing harm to any person, their liberties and property, which I assume is exactly what transpired.

            NOW, through their PROVEN greed for revenue, they are doing exactly to you what you avoided doing to anybody.

            I’m aware your system is full of firearms and twitchy cops with a bent to looking good for their commanders, but if your Rights are being stomped on you have recourse.

            A traffic fine may seem very simple and many courts don’t give a shit because it’s considered “minor”, however the system will come down on you with force if they don’t get their pretzels, escalating everything.

            Note though that all you did (if you haven’t paid it yet) is lawfully object to their claim and demand they show cause why you should be treated so harshly for having done no harm to anybody, IF you actually did anything at all.

            It does eventually look bad on them, but it could be a hard road for you, even for questioning the ticket. But if one of them does something clearly wrong and you have video evidence, it can only work in your favour – especially if they lie in court – which is often the case.

  2. Thriving under Dissonance of a rigged Fiat system:

    Draft#2 (thanks for your reaction, methyamine)

    Egoists frequently reject society’s ability to impose any general obligation to keep promises, seeing them as just another attempt to bind the individual into a variant of slavery. When you need electrical service hooked up, honesty is the first policy, the least fraudulent and potentially harmful effective ruse is the second policy.

    The egoist, it turns out in practice, must stoically embrace the heroism of the lie to Leviathans to keep the truth of himself and his brothers in petty victimless crime. He must be willing to break even his own word “in order to determine himself instead of being determined.”

    Sometimes one must “spend it forward” without asking for permission, and pay back this existential loan as soon as opportunity avails itself. The human race has become a fiat race, if you don’t live by your own judicious NAP fiat, you will die by the statist omnipresent fiat.

    Get fired, or falsify your timecard today, and look for the opportunity to pay it back later. Not even something worth a millisecond of consideration, other than how to go down with your ship of lies if caught with NAP aplomb, all the while looking to build a life-raft and live for another day.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    Just wiki’d him now. Alistair > Yahweh because he never claimed it legitimate to rip off my foreskin, because, well, I promised[sic?]. Circumcision is a mark of a slave. This actually happened to me and 30% of the males on the planet.

    Rather than Alistair’s religion, this is a commonly held belief of Stirner, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Sartre, Rand, Industrialists, Wildcatters, Miners, Inventors…

    Darwin is someone I’ve read extensively, and find instructive. The Tavistock slide Social Darwinism popped up 70 years later in 1944 to refute earlier philosophical beliefs and to blank out thought with a false dialectic of being for 1 evolution and survival of the fittest, or 2 being for christian altruism.

    I do acknowledge a specific obligation to keep promises to people that are in my life who have provided me with things. Those who have given me no consideration, have no binding contract. Making me fill a form, or say something “So help me God” is irrelevant.

    Do unto your neighbor, as you would have him do unto you. Not the atrocious new translation of OTHERS. Zero Promise Breaking is a stupid as Zero Tolerance. I agree promise breachers lose favor rapidly, but if Grandma sends me $50,000 (she still has $1,000,000) and makes me exactly promise how to spend it, what do you think is logical for her to expect to happen?

    When a nation and a national religion have become Leviathan Weeds into every nook and cranny. EVERYTHING is out the window. It not the character of Mexicans that’s deficient to USA. It’s that to live and enjoy their lives, they often have no avenue but to break promises, and to breach OFFICIAL mandatory agreements that can’t be avoided.

    Vast swaths of America are becoming places where ANYTHING GOES. And believe me, I’ve worked for a 20 million and a 10 million net worth boss at different times. And shit happens. What do you suppose $1000 American given to a Guadalajara Bill Collector buys you? Probably some nasty shit that let’s guess costs $50,000 here for now. Another 10 years of falling net worth and $1000 cash money will buy you almost anything here too.

    This general obligation to everybody for everything. Including forced honesty, and forced promises is collectivism. Otherwise, libertarianism folds up its tent and goes away. Parents are forced to promise their kids will be “Clovers” and then what?

    Say in Australia when you pay your vet friend to put in some stitches and fill out a false from about your cat being neutered and microchipped so it only costs you $8 and they leave you in peace for a year. And you lie to the kids, wife about it as well so they’re not involved.

    Driving around OZ, you’re not going to Gandhi your way out of that Panopticon prison where it averages your car’s speed between cameras and sends you a ticket in the mail. You’d need false ID and false plates.

    If it were possible to pay $x.xx to obtain false US Social Security Administration, Maricopa County recordation of live birth, and all accompanying records, why wouldn’t that prudent to do so, and not a true cri under natural law.

    Does it matter if Tor Munkov is three different men in a Phoenix workhouse sharing the same Userid?

    When I was 13, I dug out a crawlspace under a room in my parents house and made it into a bedroom, so that I would have access to a door outside their control and some hope of freedom. The drywall was a bit janky, but to my eyes, it was the Trump Tower, it was Ego Property, and I could see putting “Tor” in gold letters on it.

    When I was 15, I had a girl I wanted to get to 2nd base with supposedly steal a $500 necklace from my sister. My Clover Dad calls the cops, she disappeared, and all the usual lessons were regurtitated.

    I moved out a few weeks later to “make more money” flipping houses for them, but really it was a ruse to trade worth working 7 days a week and going from unit to unit, to have my autonomy and distance from these aliens who cared not a whit that it would take 3 more years to reach 2nd base and 7 more to score a run.

    Like Bevin, I have read every word of Ayn Rand, and there’s lots of them. My take away is a type of scientific solipsism that maximizes wealth and minimizes aggression. There really is nothing else but me and my life. In a pinch, my fellow man is nothing but food to me.

    I am really a second-hand tolerator of broken promises. I do have an out of wedlock kid, but was never made to promise anything. Maybe you’re right that this would get me shunned and impoverished, because you believe in a Free Shit Army constructed social apparatus where general norms are enforced without exception. I haven’t been sucked into this grist mill as of yet.

    I can’t condone making spoken words, and signatures on a page as TYRANTS over men in the general sense. I’m violating my IP agreement every day regarding copyright “law” and assisting in an anonymity network. Pseudo promises I can’t avoid making if I want to be on the net IMHO.

    Just because I can do something, with no regrets, doesn’t mean I have ever had to. But like Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, sometimes one may have to break promises, to TPTB, in order to keep more important promises to actual individuals or identifiable groups of individuals.

  3. I don’t agree with this Tor:

    Egoists frequently reject any general obligation to keep promises, seeing them as just another attempt to bind the individual. The egoist, he suggests, must embrace the heroism of the lie, and be willing to break even his own word “in order to determine himself instead of being determined”

    It smells awfully like Alistair Crowley’s “Do as thou wilt, shall be the only law”.

    Very social-darwinistic.

    Both a failed philosopy, and an impractical lifestyle. You’d be shunned and shuffle into the poor-house if you pulled this in a truly free society. Whatever THAT is

  4. There is no choice but to be a Bad Boy. Even in language and rationality, which of late have come to constrain and oppress the true creators. Conventional forms of intellectual discussion are in need of upgrade and replacement, the doubling of the world’s knowledge is happening more and more rapidly. New chunkings, parsings, and duty-slimmings for informers must be brought to the table tout suite.

    There is a necessary antipathy between the egoistic individual and the state. This inevitable hostility is based on the conflict between one’s conception of autonomy and the obligation (if any) to obey the law.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    At one point in time, according to some notes I came across:

    1 Gold costs 5,900 dollars per pound.

    2 Cocaine costs 61,000 dollars per pound

    3 Pamidronic acid, an anti-cancer drug, costs 133,043 dollars per pound. The price of the ingredients to make one pound of pamidronic acid at that time was twenty-three dollars.

    According to concensus and natural law, it is not a crime to synthesize gold.

    Yet it is often called a crime to synthesize cocaine and pamidronic acid, and this is Hayek’s “fatal conceit.” of a type that is costing lives and threatening our continued survival as free autonomous beings.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    “Own will and the state, are powers in deadly hostility, between which no ‘perpetual peace’ is possible.” Advanced societies have come to value self-mastery incompatible with, and valued more highly than, any obligation to obey the law.

    Old concepts of the legitimacy of political obligation are being discarded wholesale. This rejection stands irrespective of the foundation of that political obligation, and whatever the form of the state. “Every state is a despotism, be the despot one or many.”

    Even in the case of a direct democracy in which a collective decision to mandate seatbelts is made unanimously by 100% of the voters, the egoist would still not be bound by the result. To be bound today by ones “will of yesterday”, would be to turn my ‘creature’, that is ‘a particular expression of will’, into my ‘commander’; it would be to freeze my will.

    Advanced egoist societal members reject even one’s own diktat, thus, it no longer holds that ‘because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such’

    Promise-keeping is another early victim of this commitment to, and understanding of, self-mastery. When we sign a contract or agree to terms the very institution of promising is seen to be a form of illegitimate constraint, since the requirement that duly made promises be kept is incompatible with one’s understanding of individual autonomy.

    Egoists frequently reject any general obligation to keep promises, seeing them as just another attempt to bind the individual. The egoist, he suggests, must embrace the heroism of the lie, and be willing to break even his own word “in order to determine himself instead of being determined”

    One’s enthusiasm is reserved not for deadbeats and cynical criminals who do this by rote, but for those who break their word in the service of some larger intellectual and economic goal, for those individuals who are willing to break their word for their own individual autonomy’s sake. For the continued ability to be Mises’ acting men.

    • Is this the next libertarian paradise? They’re already trading oil for gold; now weed’s legal. Let me have a full-auto .50 BMG and I’ll even fake being Muslim.

      Notice Iran is the fourth country to trade oil for something other than Federal Reserve Notes–Iraq for Euros, Libya for Euros and gold, and Syria for Euros.

      Break the petrodollar–and break the US.

  5. So, today we will all be sending our children to elementary prison, turning in our guns, complying with OSHA teams at our workplaces with breathylizers… does anyone have anything they’d rather be doing?

    • Dear Tor,

      Actually, compared to

      “sending our children to elementary prison, turning in our guns, complying with OSHA teams at our workplaces with breathylizers… ”

      merely marching up and down the square sounds pretty good.

    • I love the not-so-subtle message from this skit–all it takes is withdrawing consent.

      Don’t frag the major. Just walk away.

  6. In 1983 I was in the army, stationed at Ft Bragg, North Carolina. I would sometimes drive home (up north) on long weekends, with 2 other guys. We were all about 19 at the time.

    We would take I-95. Anyway, we would drive thru the night, and make a few bathroom breaks in small towns along the way, and gas up.

    I remember I was driving this one night, and after we finished gassing up, I headed to the I-95 entrance ramp. This must have been Virginia, (or northern NC) I guess, don’t really recall. It was like 2:30 in the morning.

    There was this toll machine sitting there, on the entrance ramp. No gate, no human, just this little machine that wanted like .15 cents, before I got on the interstate. It had a red light on it, that changes to green once you throw the .15 cents into the basket.

    So I stopped the car, and just looked at it. The other 2 guys were passing me the coins. And then I just drove past it and got on the interstate. I didn’t put any coins in it. I think the machines lights were flashing red as I passed it, like it had a motion detector that knew a car passed without paying. But this was long before cameras and stuff.

    My 2 friends were like “WTF, why did you do that??” (And they were laughing at the same time.) I was just like, “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to”. The next half hour was a bit tense, waiting for the local sheriff’s lights to come on behind us. But it never did. The town will never miss the .15 cents, I put no one in danger, it was just a moment of clarity where I said to myself, “Am I going to let a machine tell me I can or cannot drive on the hi-way?”

    Good times. We were a lot freer then.

  7. When I ran my red lights today I thought of this:

    U.S. Army Starts Targeting Children
    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/no-child-left-behind.html

    … So as I ran my red lights I also thought: If that’s the way they roll, WHY the Hell should I pay attention to Anything they say?

    At the same time I thought of the Daily Bell, what if this is how I’m being programmed to behave?
    Am I being funneled?
    Are we all?

    Manipulating bastards.

  8. One person said something to the effect of, all red lights should be treated as stop signs, but I don’t think that would work too good.

    As far as treating stop signs as yield signs, yeah, I guess that might make sense but it’s not really enforced anyway, is it? And I kind of like the idea of having the people who are too dumb to do it (treat stop sign as a yield) come to a complete stop anyway. Makes it a little safer for me. I think it’s best just as it is. It’s very rare that I ever have to come to a complete stop because there’s an oinker around 🙂

    Also, a lot of people don’t handle yield signs very well either. They slow down for no reason.

    Finally, I don’t believe changing lanes without signalling should be enforced, but I hate when people do that. It’s a courtesy that makes driving safer. Just because it’s not enforced, people think they are therefore justified for being inconsiderate. That’s just as dumb as being blindly obedient…

    • I always signal when there’s a reason to signal – the presence of other traffic within my orbit. If I am the only driver on the road (as happens often out here in the Woods) why signal? It’s mindless. Some will say it’s just a good habit. My counter is that a better habit is to use your brain!

      • Yup…I was driving with a friend and used my signal to turn…He said “That’s the first time I ever saw you use your signal” I said “It was the first time I had to”. He looked confused……

        Indoctrination is an awful thing…Turns men into mindless blobs. People who mindlessly use their turn signals are quite often mindless drivers and a danger to aware human beings.

        • I always signal, then again I can’t recall the last time there wasn’t traffic about when I was driving or bicycling. Trying to compute who can use the information is more effort than signaling. By signalling it can make life easier on someone well behind me. They can then plot their path around some clover or some such.

    • Why wouldn’t treating all red lights like stop signs not work well? If you have a brain, it makes perfect sense. The red only determines who has the right of way- just like a stop sign. But it just changes once and a while.

      • You’re right. I’m betting that, if you presented John or Jane Clover with this video, the most common response you’d get from them would be “Well, that’s in England. It would never work here (remember, in Clover’s mind, Amerika is the exception to every human civilizational norm).

  9. With few exceptions, like here, Americans are: “blank-boy” or “cipher-boy.” A great big tall gilded glass of…nothing.

    I would recommend Darwin’s – Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
    Americans, especially males, are arrested undeveloped infants when it comes to emotions and being functional humans.

    Chap VIII …laughter is primarily the expression of joy, of ludicrous ideas…gradation from loud laughter to gentle smiling. High spirits – the expression of love -tender feelings-devotion.

    Chap I. …serviceable actions become habitual in associations of with certain states of the mind and are performed by you whether they are a service or a hindrance to you…the force of reflex and habit must be harnessed to thrive and survive in ones environment…

    Chap III. …expression of extreme pain, great joy, and terror; contrast between emotions which cause and do not cause expressive movements – exciting and depressing states of the mind.

    Chap VI&VII. …screaming and weeping of infants…age at which weeping commences…effects of habitual restraints on weeping and sobbing…general effects of grief on the system…

    http://darwin-online.org.uk

  10. Something along the lines of not being a good doggie: Recently, my wife and I went to Cancun, Mexico for a vacation. We live in Dallas, TX and this time we were flying out of the DFW airport’s fancy, new, overpriced, under-needed International Terminal. Of course being new the terminal had all the latest gadgetry including the dreaded porno-scanner x-ray search machines. This was my first ever experience with these dreaded contraptions. I told the TSA goon “I do not wanna go thru that thing”. She said “stand over here”. Of course over here was right by the damned thing, and I was supposed to wait for someone to “frisk” me, all the while probably soaking up as much radiation from being near the POS as from having to go thru it. A little later, as the TSA goombot ran his hands all over me, I noticed everyone else cheerfully going thru the machine, probably thinking “it’s for our own good”. I thought “what morons”. I also thought that if everyone would simply refuse to go thru them the machines would be done away with very quickly, but no, people have come think that if you do not do what the government tells you to do, then you are the bad guy.

  11. I haven’t read all of the comments, so I apologize if I am repeating what someone else has said.

    Bastiat drove home for me the “legal” versus lawful argument in The Law. Just because something is legal does not, as Eric eloquently points out, make it right. This legal positivism provides a thin veneer of legitimacy to a system that is designed specifically to condition us and strip us of our true right to be free. Free of mind, body and soul.

    Eric, your writing is exhilarating and I appreciate it very much. Thank you for your words.

    • Been doing this for the last several months. Started at the obnoxious light in front of work, and it felt good. So, other safe opportunities are being taken to disobey these stupid laws and exercise my ability to think for myself. Its especially enjoyable to ignore the light when there’s someone right behind me that’s obviously not a cop.

      Great article.

      http://pure-liberty.org
      helping you help others to understand how little we really need government

  12. Uhhh, it’s German Shepherd…and they (mine at least) takes umbrage at being lumped in with well trained sheeple… Liberty (my GSD’s name) is certified Search & Rescue, she thinks for herself, she saves cold, lost, and afraid people…and _she’d_ bite these guys for even suggesting we follow their arbitrary rules!

    🙂

    • Thanks for sharing, Dan. Liberty sounds like one helluva beautiful pup! Good to hear that’s she’s a SAR dog rather than a “police” dog.

      On a related note, I’ve always considered the “K-9” concept to be one of the most sickening forms of animal abuse. In addition to regularly shitting turds that are smarter than the “brightest” of their porcine handlers, these poor pups are actually trained to be aggressive on cue, something both unnatural and stressful to the dog and dangerous to society as a whole (it’s an exercise in state-employed sociopaths living out their violent fantasies vicariously). These poor pooches also suffer the intolerable indignity of being brought home, boarded, and sometimes even adopted (GOD, the ultimate degradation and horror!) by their porcine masters. All in all, an existence that would make even life out on the streets as a stray look inviting by comparison.

  13. You would be surprised. I have been honked at by drivers sitting at red arrow lights with me for my having the temerity to proceed through when it was perfectly safe to do so. The horror!

  14. Eric, I have a quote here that is the perfect summation to your article…
    “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find then tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” – Robert A. Heinlein

    And I have a link to a book 138 pages in length, written by a former Texas attorney, and now a sovereign lawyer. This book explains the prison America has become, and a way out of the jail cell. Excellent reading. I spoke with Mr. Barcroft and he personally sent me the most recent update which has streamlined excess information. I would place that file directly into this message, but am unable to do so. If you like this book, then contact me and I can supply the latest manuscript.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/98757198/The-Greatest-Story-Never-Told

    • Tom–thanks for the link, I’m skimming it now and will read it in depth later. Looks like good stuff!

      Love the Heinlein quote, too.

  15. Pay a fine, wreck a sign Is my policy. The little bus stop signs are at least $85.00 plus all the labor. 5 guys, three trucks to replace it. If everyone did it the pigs would be afraid to write tickets. I’m 52 and never had an accident. If the armed robbers force me to give them money. I make them give a lot more to city workers than they stole from me.

      • Man I’ve thought about doing that so many times. Just going into the station parking lot at night and slashing all the tires on all the cars. That’d be one way to get the cops off the streets.

        • I would never encourage vandalism.

          On a different subject, it would be a pity if you spilled the bag of roofing nails you just bought on the way back from the hardware store. Clumsy you.

          • There was a great scene in American Graffiti – I think it was AG – in which some guys snuck up on the pigs, ran one end of a heavy chain around the oinkmobile’s axle, the other end anchored to a fire hydrant…

      • Even more fun, if you could get away with doing it without making any noise and calling attention to yourself, would be to remove the lug nuts on all four tires.

        • I once broke two studs off my Camaro rear wheel after what I assume was someone doing something similar as a prank. Damn nearly required a trouser change when the rear wheel started flopping around at 60mph. Three lugs were still on but only by a couple of threads.

          I never get in my vehicle without doing a walk around check now.

          • I never get in my vehicle without doing a walk around check now.

            But you’re much smarter –and much less arrogant and careless– than the average cop.

          • Well, less careless at least….. some would argue the rest… 🙂

            BTW, my dad was a cop at one time. He quit back in the late 70’s, disgusted by the corruption and hypocrisy in the RCMP. That was when people still had some respect for cops. I can only imagine it has become exponentially worse as several of his colleges also left around the same time for the same reasons. The ones that stayed (morally corrupt sociopaths) are now in charge of training the new breed of swine.

  16. Your post reminds me of a fun song, Get Down, by Gilbert O’Sullivan from the 70’s:

    “You’re a bad dog, baby, but I still want you around.”

    The cops will cite you Bad Dogs if they catch you but they still want you around to pay the fines and taxes that feed their fat faces!

  17. There’s a No Turn On Red sign which I run routinely near my girlfriend’s house. The intersection is at the crest of a hill and a firehouse is on the right, so I understand the concern, but unless you’re a stooge it’s easy to decide when it’s safe to make the turn. The powers-that-be assume that drivers are too stupid (and about 40% are) to make competent decisions, so they always make safety their top concern. I don’t agree.

  18. New Hampshire is doing a lot with traffic circles. The “flow” of traffic is much better than the “stop and go” of traffic lights.

  19. Count me in! I have done the same thing most of my life with similar mixed reactions from friends although most come to realize the logic of figuring things out for yourself. I don’t think most of them wind up applying the principle consistently but anything is a step in the right direction I guess.

    As I recall, the definition of “Original Sin” has something to do with “the tree of knowledge of right and wrong” or some such… seems like all major religions want to encourage the notion that SOMEONE ELSE has to tell you what’s right and what isn’t. Textbook definition of immaturity, of course.

    Wilhelm Reich uses the phrase “external regulation” as opposed to “internal regulation” to describe the fundamental issue. Good to know that there have always been, and hopefully will always be, individuals with the courage to do their own thinking.

    Maybe one day we’ll have a truly grown-up society — how cool would that be?

    • Dear Marc,

      “Textbook definition of immaturity, of course.”

      Damned straight.

      I too have long argued that political change, as important as it is, is actually mere effect.

      The root cause is social psychological maturity, or more precisely, the lack thereof.

      It’s not really a secret. It’s really an open secret. It shows up in our language, constantly.

      Paternalism. The Nanny State. Big Brother. The City Fathers. The Father of our Nation. Even I’m sad to say, the Founding Fathers.

      It’s funny when you think about it. Millions of ostensibly mature members of the “intelligentsia” the world over, prattling on about “mature democracies.”

      As I see it the term “mature democracy” is an oxymoron. Akin to “military intelligence” and “congressional ethics.”

      You are so right. We won’t get a genuinely free society until a critical mass, which is fortunately not synonymous with a political majority, matures psychologically and chooses to take full responsibility for themselves.

  20. In Paraguay and Venezuela after dark, no one pays attention to traffic lights at all. It’s an unwritten understanding among the drivers. They use caution and slow at intersections. It would be interesting to see the statistics on accidents per km traveled day/night in these places. I got all excited recently in Santiago Chile when all the power was out in the whole city. We were driving to a restaurant and all the lights were dark, not surprisingly, the cars just kept flowing. A few more horns and flashers, but peaceful. Unfortunately, the lights were back on when we left the restaurant. I didn’t notice any accidents at all after the 2 hour outage.

  21. This message is off topic and it is for Eric. Sorry for this, but I have breaking news.

    He wrote an article back about black surveillance boxes recording every move, trip or ‘violation,’ installed in automobiles. Our enemies in DC now want it mandatory in all vehicles for American consumption.

    Here is the link: http://cryptome.org/2012/12/nhtsa121312.pdf

    The so-called ‘conspiracy guys’ have one up on us…

    • Right now, before they make them illegal to sell:buy a GPS jammer.

      They come in ranges, from around 25 feet to hundreds of feet. It’s trivially simple to overwhelm the extremely faint satellite signals and disable GPS.

      Unless they’re using the more expensive and less reliable dead-reckoning systems with accelerometers, these black boxes will not function without a GPS signal.

      I suspect they’ll force the carmakers to integrate them in such a way that selective disabling is impossible…although bureaucrats are reliably idiots, so maybe they won’t.

      • suspect they’ll force the carmakers to integrate them in such a way that selective disabling is impossible…although bureaucrats are reliably idiots, so maybe they won’t.

        A workaround is possible for ANYTHING computer-based, especially in automobiles. As I brought up in another post here before, while I’m not familiar with the code base used to program automotive computers, if change management, versioning, and security of said code is anything like it is for other applications, it’s probably not difficult at all to hack. I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever that the auto industry has in place any sort of configuration control or code security compliance best practices (I’m certainly willing to be proved wrong here if anyone has evidence to the contrary) for coding the electronic components of new cars, so disabling, working around, or “jailbreaking” the code probably isn’t rocket science.

        • Ah, you’re right of course–I said “impossible” when I should have said “inconvenient or difficult”…you rightly point out, ANY computer system can be hacked. If they can’t keep the multi-billion-dollar-revenue XBox secure from hacking, they won’t do so for cars!

          I remember that conversation; we were tossing around the idea of a fake OBD-II port that would feed out whatever bullshit you wanted.

          It’s been done; they’re OBD tool “testers” 🙂

          So, the black boxes will be just another hurdle for the creative and entrepreneurial among us to profit from.

      • They’re already technically illegal. However, it’s nearly impossible to detect one in use, so the risks are very low.

        I’m willing to bet that “kits” for GPS jammers will always be easily found.

      • If you can find it, you can always build a Faraday cage around it too, and keep it earth-grounded with a strap of the car. another farely simply blocker of radio signals.

        Of course the next step form the pigs would be “no GPS signal, the car won’t start” logic or some other shit…

        • “no GPS signal, the car won’t start”

          Yup. DRM for cars coming soon.

          Just like Diablo 3 and many new games your car won’t be yours at all. It will have to ‘phone home’ and you will have to ‘log in’ with the insurance mafia, car manufacturer and DMV every time you want to start it.

          It will be forced on us as a way to prevent theft and insurance avoidance.

  22. This is why I love spending time at my cabin on an island in washington. Around there stops signs are there to remind to look both ways before you hit that corner at 25.

    • Zionist? How?
      Just two days ago, he was on a complex tear about the nuances of the Israel/Palestine “conflict”–which isn’t a conflict at all, except as manipulated by the psychopaths in Israel who call themselves “Jews” but are in reality cynical manipulators.

      It’s those–who would use Judaism as a mask for their control-freak lusts–whom I term “Zionists”.

      Interesting factoid: the “Star of David” is a recent invention, and is merely appropriated from the original red hexagram design on the Rothschild coat of arms…no surprise, considering the Rothschilds funded Israel’s modern beginnings. Israel in its modern incarnation has always been about a wedge, divisiveness, an irritant in the Middle East–and a cynical ploy by the Khazars like Rothschild to use the very sincere Jews as political pawns.

      • Israel in its modern incarnation has always been about a wedge, divisiveness, an irritant in the Middle East–and a cynical ploy by the Khazars like Rothschild to use the very sincere Jews as political pawns.

        What always flusters and confounds the Warvangelical “Christians” is when the fact is brought up to them about Zionism being a secular political movement – NOT a religious one. In fact, Zionism has generally and historically been hostile to religious Judaism. Theodor Herzl and the rest of the original founders of Zionism were all secular-humanist socialists who, far from being fixated on returning the Jews to “Palestine the Promised Land,” would have been satisfied with land in Africa, Latin America, or even Australia – it didn’t matter where the land was, just as long as they could call it a purely Jewish homeland. That the British, represented by Lord Balfour, were “gracious” enough to steal land in Palestine from the Arabs (via the occupying Ottoman Turks) and cede it over to the Zionists can be described as one of history’s coincidences.

      • The Star of David isn’t a recent invention, it has actually been a minor sort of symbol in the Middle East for centuries. Only, now people with an agenda have taken it over and its other users can’t use it any more without being saddled with its more recent association of ideas. Readers may recall another symbol that underwent the same fate…

      • Have Jews as a People done some rather nasty things, they most certainly have. However… notwithstanding the fact that Jews have made profitable political/financial use of Old Testament nonsense and the Holocaust, this old Redneck atheist is convinced that it is in America’s interest to treat Israel almost with the consideration due a 51st state.

        I reject any and all antisemitism that is based on the alleged role played by Jews in the Crucifixion of the mythical Jesus.

        Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)

  23. I deal with my passengers all the time…
    “OMG you blew that stop sign!”
    “Whoa you just turned left at a red light!”

    “Well, yeah, I looked and didn’t see a reason not to.”
    Of course this gives me a chance to basically tell them what you just posted here. So not only is it important to do this when you’re by yourself, but even more important to do this when you have a passenger in the car with you.

  24. Bad law and outrageous fines facilitate unlawful revenue collection. Although there is still – and should be – some genuine concern for children, the rest is increasingly obvious revenue collection.

    I would rather see a thousand lawmakers* and judges given a full metal metal ticket to hell than to see a single Individual harmed by a bad law or injudicious enforcement of a good one.

    tgsam

    *I value their lives about as much as they value mine.

    • Every time I bother to look up documents Alex Jones refers to…he’s right. He sounds nuts–at first. Until you read the same Elite documents he points to…then you discover it’s just as nuts as he says it is–and some.

      And it’s historically precedented, too. Nothing the Elites are doing today is much different in substance from what they’ve done for thousands of years.

      I give Alex Jones a TON of credit; the guy’s honest and hard-hitting.

      • Dear methylamine,

        I concur.

        Alex Jones sometimes sounds looney fringe even to me, at least when I first hear him.

        But usually after I’ve delved into the details, he turns out to be dead right.

        He deserves a lot of credit for being fearless in the face of certain ridicule by mainstream shills and sheeple.

      • Alex Jones I think overstates things much of the time. Not the overall theme or the foundation documents so much as individual news stories on legislation and so on. I find his sites best not for their writing but for their source links. I intentionally avoid citing Alex Jones and crew, but I’ll often cite their cites. This way I can use my own interpretations and calm down the language some.

        • Dear Brent,

          It’s a style vs. content issue I guess.

          He does get a little over-excited at times. But it does make for good theater!

          Having a “shock jock” with a large viewership on our side is not such a bad thing.

          I guess I don’t mind it as much as you do.

  25. While we’re talking about ridiculous lights, what’s the deal with keeping green left turn arrows on 24/7. Is this just a Michigna thing, or is it everywhere?

    The same “technology” that seems capable of making minor intersections go to flashing yellow / flashing red at off-peak hours can’t seem to manage to turn off the stupid green arrows for left turn lanes during off-peak hours.

    So now, we have oncoming and cross traffic sitting there like trained dogs so that the zero traffic in the left turn lane can make their turns “safely.”

    I suspect it is revenue.

  26. Endless programming of the masses, yet another violation of our rights. The gov’t constantly violates our rights.
    They violate the 1st Amendment by caging protesters and banning books like “America Deceived II”.
    They violate the 4th and 5th Amendment by allowing TSA to grope you.
    They violate the entire Constitution by starting undeclared wars.
    Impeach Obama.
    Last link of “America Deceived II” before it is completely banned:
    http://www.amazon.com/America-Deceived-II-Possession-interrogation/dp/1450257437

      • Yep. This is why I laugh when people talk about “things under Obama are worse than under Bush.” Fer cryin’ out loud, Obama did nothing but grab the baton from Bush and continue the race. We’re about to start Bush’s fourth term in a month or so.

        • Or Rothschild’s 36th term.

          Clinton was the start of the *major* push toward Slave Plantation Earth..The fall of the Soviet Union was their ignition switch.

          Socialist/Fascist Slave Planet was planned a long time ago….

          • Or Rothschild’s 36th term.

            You’re right; Rothschild is probably the more accurate reference. I’d say, however, that if we assume that “Rothschild” has always, since Day One of the current “constitutional republic,” been the de facto president (the occupants of the office being mere figureheads), then by my calculations we’re about to see the start of Rothschild’s 57th term.

          • Reagan never would have been elected if he had not bowed to the PTB (Rockefeller, et al) and picked Bush the Elder as his running mate

          • Accepted Bush the elder, Reagan didn’t pick him. Yeah I know but I think the correct language is meaningful in certain places.

            I believe Reagan was the last ‘accident’ president. He put a lot people who fight the NWO into government jobs with access to things they couldn’t have seen otherwise. Then they came the shooting… Ron seemed to play ball after that.

            Biden I think is vice-president for much the same reason. The PTB didn’t quite trust Obama. But Barry seems to have done a wonderful job for them overall.

          • I meant to write “Rothschild’s 26th term”.
            I think they got absolute control about the time of that psychopath terrorists Teddy Roosevelt…Seems to me, anyway.

            The Therns seem to have been behind the Karl Marx-Abraham Lincoln Axis of Evil/Borg Collectives….

          • Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati was their guide and very well may still be…An enlightened planet free of the twin-terrors of Politics and Religion. That I am in favor of – Death to sky-daddy theology and land-daddy statism – Death to external authority. They maybe using socialist slavery as a way to both impoverish and unite in order to free the little people’s minds of the twin-terror.

        • I have to AGREE!!! And I get yelled at all the time by the Partisans say I am insulting either Obongo or Shrub… And I loathe them both!!!

          • People who think there’s any fundamental difference between either “wing” of the authoritarian bird – the DemoPublican Party – are still living in the matrix. Might as well fret over whether the Giants beat the whoever they ares….

        • “This is why I laugh when people talk about “things under Obama are worse than under Bush.” ”

          That seems to be a common delusion after every election cycle. You’re right about the baton pass. I’ve watched that happen for decades. Wobbly handed off to Bubba. Bubba handed off to the Chimp. The Chimp handed off to the Kenyan. On and on it goes with the ratchet continuing to tighten it all down.

          The last two election campaigns have been particularly entertaining, with silly looking “conservative” candidates being anointed by the morally retarded GOP fatboys with the obvious intention of throwing an election to a clearly unqualified candidate of the morally retarded Dems.

          I still laugh at the memory of the GOP serving up Dole as a soft pitch to Clinton, in exactly the same way that Kerry was offered up to W. What’s really funny is that the electorate seems to ignore the obvious fact that there are always two indistinguishable shitheads being offered as a choice.

          H.L.Mencken wrote some hilarious observations of the electoral process in the 1920s and ’30s. It just goes to show that this ridiculous circus has been touring for a very long time.

          We may as well laugh at it. Crying does no good, it seems.

          • I still laugh at the memory of the GOP serving up Dole as a soft pitch to Clinton, in exactly the same way that Kerry was offered up to W. What’s really funny is that the electorate seems to ignore the obvious fact that there are always two indistinguishable shitheads being offered as a choice.

            The game has become so goddamned obvious over the last two decades (or probably ever farther back, if we look far and hard enough) that the fact that it continues can only be explained by willful ignorance on the part of the Clover majority. I’m sorry, but no adult human being with a functioning cerebral cortex, however underused it might be, can possibly believe that the last half dozen elections have been anything other than carefully scripted farces.

    • Dear Fred,

      I echo Eric on this.

      The two major parties are Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

      Romney is Obama Lite. He would not have “saved America” had he been elected instead of Obama.

      The GOP is not an “alternative” to the Democratic Party. It’s an accomplice.

  27. I do this routinely. There is a red light on my way back from work where what appears to be some industrial complex has an entrance to the main street. The light lasts for ~2 minutes and typically allows 1-2 cars to enter. Way too long. The kicker is that the local police park a cruiser within the complex ~50 yards from the intersection. There is never a cop in the car but everyone sits at the light craning their neck at all angles to try and find the non-existent cop. When I am fortunate to be at the front of the pack, I enjoy running that light to show everyone that they are being fooled and there is no cop. Oddly(?), no car has ever followed me through the light. Drivers in San Antonio are trained very well by their masters.

  28. I totally agree. I’ve always been of the belief that red lights should be treated like stop signs. All the traffic light does is say who has the right of way- not that nobody should go. So i regularly turn left and right at red lights- after looking of course. Two things I really hate are No Turn on Red signs, and left turn only arrow lanes (usually because they are across two lanes of traffic). Don’t tell me that I am unable to judge what’s safe or not.

    I also treat many stop signs as yield signs, as conditions and situations allow.

    • I also treat many stop signs as yield signs, as conditions and situations allow.

      Yep, exactly. As Eric and one or two others here have pointed out, the YIELD sign is one of the most criminally underused traffic signs in Amerika. At least fifty percent of all existing STOP signs should be YIELD signs, as the flow of traffic at these intersections is insufficient to justify a complete stop under all circumstances.

      • It’s also widely misused. I’ve seen intersections which had yield signs for all approaches. Yeah, we live with people who won popularity contests making technical decisions and people wonder why things are all sorts of screwed up.

  29. This can be filed under “fine points of the law”. But the entire purpose behind individuals being required to possess drivers licenses before operating a motor vechiles is so they can be charged and fined for running red lights and violating other traffic laws, which may or may not make sense at any given time. In other words, if an individual violates traffic laws (no matter how severe) but has never obtained a driver’s license, the arresting officer would be unable to charge a person with violating a traffic law, and can only charge the individual with “driving without a licese”. This is true, simply because there would be no driver’s license upon which to write a traffic citation.

    • Under this scenario, Officer Oinky then finds a pretext upon which to escalate the situation to where it involves physical violence. At this point Oinky charges the unlicensed driver with “assault on a police officer” and hauls him off to the slammer on a felony charge.

  30. Comrade this sort of behavior by a mere mundane is unacceptable and should be reported to Comrade Kommissar Hussein the Immaculate rockstar Messiah who will smote such behavior with his magic rainbow scepter. Rules are for serfs and not the enlightened ones and should be followed at all times by taxable units err citizens I mean subjects.

  31. With my V1 radar detector on to screen for road tax collectors, I make sure the traffic is clear in either direction and just… go.

    I did this on Sunday morning in Tempe, AZ. I was stopped at a side street that intersected with a major thoroughfare adjacent to which runs a Light Rail Line. Being Sunday morning early, the streets were completely DESERTED. Yet the red light at the intersection lasted for almost three minutes and STILL showed now signs of change. At that point is was F*** IT! I floored it out into the intersection and didn’t look back.

    The whole experience felt so satisfying that I’m going to start making it a regular practice – even here in Tucson where they’re still addicted to “red light cameras.” Should I find myself at a local intersection with no cross traffic and interminable red light, I won’t be waiting for a light change. I’ll also go to court and make a declarative statement of the idiocy of the red light timing. Let them fine me if they want.

    • Yeah liberranter, I did the same thing at a turn arrow a couple of weeks ago. I was on my bike and it won’t set off the magnetic trap buried in the road. I knew I would have to sit there until a “real” vehicle pulled up behind me to trip the light. After a few seconds I thought “Screw it! What would Eric do?!”, looked around, no tax feeders, no oncoming traffic and blew the light. Felt damn good! Next time I’ll be sure and wheelie too. 😉

      • Excellent!

        In small ways and large, it’s time to demonstrate our contempt for the system. Because that is the first step toward de-legitimizing the system.

      • Ha! That happened to me once here in Melbourne, in an area that was just being developed and the only other traffic about was from the developers who were putting in everything including the systems (there wasn’t yet a through route, except for a narrow gap where a bicycle could get in and out along the river pathway). So I waited and waited and let them just pile up behind me until the lights eventually changed. As I see it, if they’re the ones who put in a system that can’t cope with real world vehicles, it’s their own fault.

  32. “I make damned sure I run the speed limit or a little under.” – I have cops ride my tail all the time and I’m playing with the idea that next time one does this I’ll hit the brakes just hard enough for him to rear-end me.

    No doubt I’ll get a ticket for forcing him to hit me.

        • Well sure the implication is that they know what they are doing and you don’t.

          A few years back a cop pulled out onto the expressway near Detroit and got T-boned. Deader than a doornail. Of course the guy that hit him ended up in jail because he did something wrong. I don’t remember if he was speeding or drinking but whatever the case it was the cops fault. He pulled directly in front of a car that was traveling at least 65mph.

        • Years ago, I was watching a motorcycle cop sitting on a 4′ hill/berm at the edge of the road. He was waiting for his next victim. He saw one, drove his bike down the dirt ramp, over the curb, and into the right lane. He was immediately clobbered by a car he had not seen. He was knocked unconcious. The motorcycle lay in the road on its side. I watched for a few minutes. Someone made the appropriate call to 911. I don’t like to see people hurt, but there was still some satisfaction that he had it coming, preying on people as he was attempting to do. Motorcycle cops are the most arrogant of the bunch. There’s something about a large thrumming engine between a cop’s legs that makes him so, IMHO.

          • My heart has hardened. I’m not sure I’d bother to call. I know this sounds terrible – and maybe it is. But I can’t stop myself from thinking that anyone who chooses to do this sort of “work” is someone not worth my sympathy.

      • After you peel him off your back window you could be a hero by calling 911 for him. Or not.

        No matter what you do in such a hypothetical situation, you’re screwed. If you decide to “do the right thing” and divert an otherwise productively-employed ambulance to scrape Porky off of your windshield, his thug buddies will arrest you on charges of attempted vehicular homicide. If you do what most of us would probably be most tempted to do (i.e., leave Porky to slowly bleed out on your windshield), you’ll also be arrested for attempted vehicular homicide, probably along with a charge of “depraved indifference” for letting Porky croak.

      • After you peel him off your back window you could be a hero by calling 911 for him. Or not.

        Erm…..

        You might be far wiser to leave the road-side-tax-collector sticking to your back window and just call 911. As quickly or slowly as you wish.

        Since you (as a mere tax slave) can be charged with assault for merely sneezing on a cop, any first aid is out. Cop will just have to wait 10-15 minutes for another tax parasite to respond to the call.

        Seems harsh, but it’s following the “law”.

    • I have cops ride my tail all the time and I’m playing with the idea that next time one does this I’ll hit the brakes just hard enough for him to rear-end me.

      I’ve come VERY close to doing this on several occasions with tailgaters, both cop and non-cop. The only reason I haven’t is because I know that the hassle of dealing with porcine lie-sheets (a.k.a. “police accident reports”), if the lazy bastards even show up at the scene (which increasingly, for “operational budget reasons,” they don’t), and insurance paperwork would probably make it a losing proposition.

        • I could always claim “I saw a [insert wild animal indigenous to this region here] dash across the road in front of me.” It’s completely plausible and Porky’s dashcam wouldn’t be able to catch such evidence, even if he was right behind me.

          But, like I said, even if navigating the legal bureaucracy was easy, the insurance process wouldn’t be.

        • One simple sentence…”I saw a squirrel jump out!” You now have an excuse to brake quickly and said “squirrel” simply ran back off the street.

          Next sentence, “Officer, why weren’t you driving with due care? I’d be ticketed if I didn’t leave enough room.”

          Third sentence, “STOP HITTING ME YOU ASSHOLE” 🙂

  33. Although I might do the same thing in your scenario, I don’t endorse the concept of blowing red lights. No matter how great a driver one may perceive oneself to be, and no matter how clear the road may “appear,” we know that sooner or later, mistakes will be made, and more accidents will happen, that would not have happened had the light not been blown.

    The lion’s share of the fault though, lies with the city engineer who set up such a horribly timed red light. They are making it ridiculously tempting for drivers to blow that light. Inciting…almost inviting you to break the law.

    So “BAD” motorist! Even MORE BAD traffic engineer…for setting up such a dangerously out of synch signal!

    • I completely disagree, Mike.

      What’s more intelligent–a traffic timing signal, a simple circuit or a human?

      Let’s go to the extreme…it’s 3AM and you’re at a four-way stop, light’s red for you.

      Do you sit there? Because by your reasoning, there’s an infinitessimal but real chance you’ll be t-boned.

      I’ll take that chance. Life IS risk; calculated, careful risk-taking–and that’s one I’ll take every time.

      Blow through a busy intersection at 5PM without even slowing down? There’s a risk I won’t take. It’s too extreme.

      In both cases I’ve exercised my own judgment and actually LIVED–instead of behaving like a robot.

      Which is what the PTB want, after all–robots.

      • Well said, using your OWN judgement and observation instead of a times system that isn’t even aware of the environment it’s trying to coordinate.

      • They’ve put in roundabouts where there used to be a pitifully busy, and slow, four-way stop. Now, if the idiots have their eyes open, you can go through the intersection with minimal hassles. No stop, no lights, just keep eyes open and pay attention. How much simpler can it get?

    • How is a red light any different than a flashing red light or a stop sign? When it’s flashing you’re expected to look both ways before crossing the street. Same with a stop sign, so what’s the purpose of solid red light?

      Implicit in these arguments is also the assumption that a red light is a magic force field that will protect you from cars traveling in the other direction thus introducing the wonderful moral hazard of not looking both ways before crossing the street.

      • The irony here is that it’s usually good common sense even when approaching a GREEN light to look to the sides anyway to make sure it really IS safe to cross. (i.e. some moron isn’t trying to run the light with you clearly approaching)

        So even when you do have “permission” to proceed (ugh!) good practice says look and be safe anyway. If the light is red, you’d look first, then proceed. Nothing changes in the driver’s attitude because of some arbituary light, so how again can they justify? 🙂

        I find this annoying too, and a few times I’ve been at a red light with a cop on the other side redlight, no traffic coming at all, and you can tell he’s just as eager to go as you are.

        The difference is half the time, the flashing lights of the cop will come on, they run the light, and before they’ve even completed the turn, suddenly there is no emergency anymore!

        Gee, funny how that works…you do that and the flashing lights will be for YOU of course, but they ALLOW the cop to do the same action…both cases no harm being done at all. Stupid system.

    • Hi Mike,

      It’s one thing to stop, look both ways, make sure the way is clear and then safely proceed – vs. “blow” a light (the implication being you didn’t stop – or look – before proceeding).

      The first is reasonable – the second, idiotic.

      • To quote mamba….
        “The irony here is that it’s usually good common sense even when approaching a GREEN light to look to the sides anyway to make sure it really IS safe to cross. (i.e. some moron isn’t trying to run the light with you clearly approaching)”

        And what if that “moron” is in fact an anarcho-libertarian who just got tired of waiting at that stupid red light, and looked both ways to make sure it was clear and safe to proceed, but for some reason just didn’t see you? Surely, the fault would be yours, for proceeding through a green light without making yourself “visible” enough. 😉

        • Mike,

          “And what if that “moron” is in fact an anarcho-libertarian who just got tired of waiting at that stupid red light, and looked both ways to make sure it was clear and safe to proceed, but for some reason just didn’t see you?”

          If you aren’t certain the way is clear and it’s safe to go, don’t. Simple. If you do – and cause a wreck, then you are responsible and should be held accountable.

          I never – ever – “run” a light unless I can clearly see there’s nothing coming. If it’s questionable, if the sight distance is inadequate, I wait.

          This is called exercising judgment and common sense.

          It’s not dangerous or imprudent to do so.

        • Well Mike, let me ask you this…at a crosswalk you have the legal right to proceed and cars have to let you have the right of way.

          So do you just barrel out into the crosswalk eyes closed? Of course not, because you use judgement that regardless of what the “law” says, you’re going to check anyway.

          If the moron in your example didn’t see me and went out, LEGALLY in the eyes of the cop THEY are at fault of course, but we’ve already established that we’re not talking about the law, but common sense.

          SO thus said, you change one key detail from Eric’s example to your own. Eric would never run the red unless he was 100% sure that it was clear. when you’re stopped at a light and can look further than 50 feet in front of you, that shouldn’t be a problem. It WOULD be my fault if my car was invisible or camoflagued, but it’s not…it’s a huge metal object with lights on it. 🙂 (p.s. I do get your joke and it was a good one)

          IF there was any doubt that the way was clear, he wouldn’t go, simple as that!

          BTW, using your example modified slightly, the cops are coming with their lights flashing and they run the red light. You’re listening to music and see the green and don’t hear the sirein, so you proceed as you wold normally do on a green light. You smash into the cop, who remember ran a red light (legally). You think the cop’s going to be at fault? Therefore this magic lights permission system doesn’t mean jack in the face of simple observation of what’s around you, which is what I think Eric was trying to drive home. 🙂

          But you’re at a 4-way light, sunny afternoon, and the road is obviously empty. Only a REAL moron would look at a clearly empty road in broad daylight and think “Gee, wonder if a car’s coming?”, so I don’t think your example really applies to Eric.

          Again, it’s common sense vs “do as your told”.

          • “So do you just barrel out into the crosswalk eyes closed? Of course not, because you use judgement that regardless of what the “law” says, you’re going to check anyway. ”

            Reminds me of the comic, Redd Foxx on the same subject. He said something like:
            “That white line (at a pedestrian crosswalk) won’t stop a car. That ain’t what it’s there for. It’s there to give them somewhere to measure from to see how far yo’ body was flung, to see if yo’ family wins a turkey”.

            Sorry for the interruption. 😉

    • Mike — a couple of points I would like to make regarding your statement, “No matter how great a driver one may perceive oneself to be, and no matter how clear the road may “appear,” we know that sooner or later, mistakes will be made, and more accidents will happen…”

      First point: The purpose of the stop light is (1) to promote the smooth flow of traffic and (2) to protect human life. If there is no traffic to interfere with then going through the red light is not endangering human life. Now, to remain stopped by edit of a mindless machine when there is no traffic to interfere with and no life to endanger is illegal because at that point in time, the mindless machine is now stopping you for NO REASON! And, Mike, to be stopped for no reason is illegal.

      Second point: Your argument that, “… more accidents will happen…” is bogus. Check out the experiment going on in the U.K. — The Brits have been removing red lights and have discovered two interesting things are occurring as result. They have witnessed that traffic flows smoother and that accidents have been reduced as result of REMOVING the red lights. The problem with stop lights is that clovers obey without thinking. They see a green light and proceed without looking right or left. Wham! Some jerk misses his or her red light and smacks into the clover. When the traffic signals are removed, drivers make eye contact with other drivers and voila, accidents are reduced. One account states, “Accidents at one major intersection fell from 36 in four years to two in the two years after traffic lights were removed.” Check this out by following this link: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/london-seeks-to-reduce-congestion-by-eliminating-traffic-lights/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_wjo378h4 and read this blog — http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18072259

    • In the neighborhood I grew up in, there are now several stop signs that weren’t there the entire time I was growing up and for most of my adult life. They were planted there a few years ago. It’s the same residential neighborhood. No more or less traffic than there always was. There are times where I ignore some of these stop signs. They aren’t needed. I lived without them most of my life. I don’t see how I am going to make a “mistake” with a stop sign that some idiot who won a popularity contest decided was needed after all these decades had passed without one.

      The same is true of many an intersection where a traffic light has been put in or double left turn lane set up. Suddenly now it is unsafe to use my own judgment? What about where the road is improved and the speed limit is dropped?

      What about obeying the signal and the other guy doesn’t, but because of counting on the signal there’s a collision when without one someone would not have proceeded? Not assumed the other guy would have stopped?

      The clover majority doesn’t understand engineering systems so traffic control devices are often used based on the ‘feelings’ of those elected and appointed to office. There is no engineering involved. And then there’s the “engineers” who do this stuff. I’ve had some ‘debates’ with them when usenet was more intellectual than it is today. They believe in tables and standards and such that were probably okay for a Ford Model T driven by the least capable legal driver. But they have no relevance now.

      I don’t see how our own judgment became invalid through this process.

      Part of the engineering process is to only use traffic control devices when and where they are needed. By sprinkling the roads with traffic lights and stop signs based on feelings it only serves to create problems. Like with speed limits, the ones that are needed get lost in the noise. Boy who cried wolf.

      Some traffic lights are designed to optimize traffic flow at peak times. They have no relevance at times far from the peak. What then? They aren’t there for safety, but to better handle large volumes of traffic and there you are 3am on Saturday, alone, dealing with a system designed for the Tuesday morning commute.

      The problem is that we are reaching a point where only a fairly small minority of traffic control devices exist to deal with blind corners or places where people will likely make less mistakes with the device than without it. Most are for other purposes like traffic control, someone’s feelings, revenue, etc. I don’t think we are safer with all this. The ones based on feelings and revenue need to be purged. The ones based on traffic flow need to be adaptive. All it would take is a clock and sensor up the road. If 3am and red and approaching traffic detected then turn green. Simple.

  34. This sounds much the same as the arguments put forth by bicyclists who don’t follow the rules of the road.

    I’ve never had much luck with disobedience. I prefer breaking the system through obedience. The american system cannot run with out people breaking the rules. The problem is only certain people can break the rules. Who can break the rules is decided upon by the social order and the perception of the person breaking them. This is why Sally Soccer Mom can drive so poorly and not get a ticket for 20 years. It’s why cops can drive the way they do and get away with it. Social order and perception.

    So I don’t do right on red at RLC intersections, I follow the vehicle code to the letter on my bicycle. Things like that. It angers a lot of people. Yet, they would cheer on the system to punish me if I did as they would like and got ticketed. After all, they want the non-conformists, the people who think and do for themselves, and so on punished.

    It’s not just in traffic but throughout american culture. Be popular and well liked and you can break the rules. Not well liked? Not sufficiently conformist? long haired freaky person? whatever it may be, the rules will then be used like a hammer on you.

    • To an extent you’re right but I think Eric’s point is that our cars are a great weapon with which to nullify faux state authority. We do it all the time on the interstate don’t we? Thousands of cars exceeding the posted speed limit, not signaling when they change lanes and the cops just let them. Why? We’re breaking the law. The answer of course is because they simply don’t have the resources to enforce it.

      So Eric proposes stepping it up one and bringing it to the local level. If everyone at a stop light just went, even if a cop did see, what could he do? He might stop one person but all the others would go unscathed. Our strength is in our numbers.

      We outnumber them 1000:1 and when we figure that out, their way of life will be over.

      • The limited access highway speed limits are designed for massive non-compliance. Designed such that cops can pull over whomever they want whenever they want. It’s not so much that they can’t enforce it but they can do so selectively and do it day in and day out. Not on Sally, she doesn’t get pulled over, she’s good people, no that dark skinned guy driving the too nice of a car, he gets pulled over.

        It’s about the social order. Showing people who’s on top while maintaining a illusion that this is a free country. After all so-and-so broke the law. It’s not because he’s black or drives a fast car or has long hair or looks like some non-comformist or anything else, it’s because he ‘broke the law’. But when some good clover gets nailed by some Barney Fife cop then there’s a news story about how unfair it is and so on. Unfair. the law is never wrong, we need the law, it just can’t be applied that way… meaning on socially acceptable people who are well liked.

        The technology exists already to force compliance. Is there a single state that uses toll transponders to issue speeding tickets? If so, why not? The system could be completely automated. They could very well fine everyone. But they don’t. Because the laws are social. The clovers masses would be offended and revolt. 10 over clover thinks he’s a safe driver. They only want ‘bad’ people ticketed.

        There’s no desire to enforce these speed limits to obtain near 100% compliance. They are meant to be broken. 100% compliance would cripple the system. It’s about them being able to harass anyone they want when they want and have a steady revenue stream.

        The red light cameras, speed cameras, etc and so forth all are set up and designed for non-compliance. Non-compliance is fundamental to the system. That’s how the money is made, that’s where the power is.

        • I think you’ve nailed it, Brent. This is also why there are so many silly, archaic, unenforceable laws on the books at all levels of government. They’re not on the books because TPTB have any real interest in consistently enforcing them. They’re on the books so that they can be hauled out on a whim and selectively used as legal bludgeons against whomever the State considers to be a “troublemaker,” on any given pretext, at any given time.

        • BrentP understands the system very well. Kudos. Now sit back and relax, you should be hearing from your neighborhood reeducation authority very shortly.

    • BrentP, we’ve had this discussion before; it’s practicing destructive compliance. When silly-ass rules and regulations gum up the works, I’ll usually just comply to “the letter of the law.” Then it forces the people in charge to acknowledge the stupidity of the “the law”, regulation or policy and either change it or pay me for the extra time it takes to follow it. Because of Clover drivers, Clover rules and Clover airline policies, I went from driving to the airport the morning of my departure to going to the city the night before my flight and checking into a hotel when I was still traveling. Since the work I was doing (environmental compliance / alternative energy) was primarily for municipal, county and state gun-vernment, I figured I was accomplishing two things: (1)I was being much “safer” since I never “had” to speed, and (2)I was diverting funds that would otherwise be used to arm, equip and deploy more members of the thug-scrum.

      And if I have a member of the thug-scrum is following me (especially if there’s oncoming traffic where he can’t pass) I make damned sure I run the speed limit or a little under. There’s nothing like giving a professional Clover a little taste of “civilian” Cloverism. I’ve had more than one of them blow past me at the earliest opportunity glowering the whole way because they knew what I was doing to them. What can they do? Write me payin’ paper for following the law to the letter? Hardly and they know it.

      But on the other hand, when breaking the rules makes sense, or in one case I deal with regularly, is safer, I break the rules. There’s a stop sign (which common sense would dictate should be a yield sign) at a dirt road I often travel. It puts you in the blind spot of the curve the side road merges into if you stop; so you run the risk of pulling out in front of someone coming around the curve. But right before you get to this intersection you can see a good tenth mile down the paved road it feeds into. If there’s no one coming I just accelerate right through and merge at speed. If there was someone heading into the curve you are well ahead of them by the time they come into sight. It’s safer for everyone and I see a lot of other drivers do the same thing; but it is technically running a stop sign so it’s “illegal.” It makes me wonder how many other intersections have been made less safe by overprotective nosey-busybodies around the nation.

      • And, wasteful!

        When I leave the house, I head up the road to where it “T” intersects with the main road. Of course there’s a stop sign. But this is out in the boonies – very little traffic, usually. And more important, whatever traffic there is can be seen coming for a half-mile before it gets to the “T.” So, I routinely “run” the stop sign – slowing, but not stopping. Why should I waste gas getting back to speed from a stop? Why should I wear my brakes? Just because “it’s the law”?

        Screw that!

      • I’ve been pulled over for doing that to a cop. Aggressive, tailgating cop… idiot. I got in front of him because he had no strategy… then he pulled me over because he didn’t like the way I looked at him when he took the first opportunity to get by me, nearly clipping my car in the process.

      • Boothe:

        Your comment that “When silly-ass rules and regulations gum up the works, I’ll usually just comply to “the letter of the law.” Then it forces the people in charge to acknowledge the stupidity of the “the law”, regulation or policy…” reminded me of a dissident that got sent to the gulag in Russia. He researched “the regulations” and discovered that if a complaint was made in writing to the district “commander” of the gulag, they had to investigate and respond within 60 days. If they didn’t respond, then a letter could be dispatched to Moscow which then required an investigation of why the district commander hadn’t responded and to provide written response to the claimant. So he organized about 50-100 (the number varied depending how many people were willing to participate, died, got transferred, etc.) and they ALL wrote a minimum of one complaint letter each day about the food, conditions, etc….and so gummed up the bureaucracy that eventually they just deported him…because he forced the bureaucracy to “follow the law.” It’s a great tactic for dealing with any bureaucracy.

        • Ah, yeah tazman, that’s what I was trying to explain the other day.

          So I wonder: what are the equivalents in amerika today?

          For educational purposes can anyone think of one? Or two?

  35. Traffic laws are followed without question in the “civilized” Western democracies. In every “uncivilized” third-world nation that I’ve been in, traffic laws were followed only on the condition that the cops are on the street corner, looking for someone to shake down. But here, in these (dis)United States, it’s “Blessed Be The Regulations” and don’t even think about questioning them.

  36. Dude, get out of my head. Not only do I agree 100%, I’ve used almost the exact same words and of course do the exact same thing.

    Nothing burns my ass more than a Barney Fife. You know: the rules are the rules. My brother-in-law is a Barney. He’s told me more than once: “the law is the law”. Wanted to slap.

    • Don, next time your BIL gives you that line, just ask him if it was ok that it was against the law to be Jewish in Nazi Germany. That one always throws them for a loop. If you have a camera available it would be a good time to capture the expression on his face.

      • I often find it difficult to comment, because ninety percent of the time one of you guys has already posted my thoughts.

        I love the posters on this site! It’s like our own Neal Stephenson ‘phyle…just wish we could materialize it physically.

        There’s a totally unnecessary four-way light across to minor streets on my way to my son’s school; you know, one of those lights put up by some suck-up councilman–no doubt by his ne’er-do-well brother-in-law’s company at great tax expense–to assuage some pinch-faced skinny-bitch soccer-mom two decades shy of looking like the saggy-dugged harpy she already is spiritually.

        Needless to say I offer her, and her sniveling toady town councilman, a hearty middle finger every time I run it.

        As you guys noted already, it’s a thrill to see how many sheeple snap out of their trance upon seeing this gross violation of Our Betters mandates.

        I watch them give the quick one-two furtive side to side look for a cop…and then follow me across! Whoopee! Civil disobedience! Take THAT lousy PTB!

        We’re pathetic.

        But a little less pathetic than we were and that’s a start.

        • “There’s a totally unnecessary four-way light across to minor streets on my way to my son’s school; you know, one of those lights put up by some suck-up councilman–no doubt by his ne’er-do-well brother-in-law’s company at great tax expense–to assuage some pinch-faced skinny-bitch soccer-mom two decades shy of looking like the saggy-dugged harpy she already is spiritually.”

          I like your way with words.

          I started running a stupid red light at 5:30 in the morning, when it was obvious no one was coming. There does come a point where laws don’t have any use, or any meaning. Would that we could get them changed. but humans don’t seem to be that smart.

      • Good one mikehell but may I offer a better version of your Nazi themed question?

        I always ask the law-and-order nitwits who would they rather be when they meet their maker: the law abiding person who turned in the Ann Frank family or the policeman who did his duty by following his orders to enforce the law and helped arrest the Ann Frank family or one of the people who broke the law and helped hide the Ann Frank family?

        Be sure to wear safety glasses before you do though. Head explosions send skull fragments everywhere.

      • It wasn’t against the law, precisely. The Nazis were sneakier than that. Think how in the U.S.A. it’s perfectly legal to buy, sell and smoke marijuana that has a valid tax stamp (that is never issued). It was just against the law for Jews to do and/or avoid various things that most of them needed to survive, that got squeezed ever tighter over time. But even when the Russians reached Berlin in 1945 there were still some elderly Jews maintaining the Jewish cemetery there who the Nazis hadn’t got around to yet, partly because they were considered a small threat and partly because of the propaganda value of being able to show them off to visiting neutrals to “prove” that Jews who obeyed the law came to no harm and only law breakers were at risk.

    • The mind of the hypothetical cop:

      “You can’t run that red light”

      “Why not?”

      “Because it’s against the law”

      “No I mean the REAL reason…why does that law exist?”

      “I don’t know and I don’t have to know”.

      “Well if you can’t see any reason for punishment, may I go?”

      “No, becasue you broke the law”

      “You mean the law you just said makes no sense and helps nobody?”

      “Exactly…that one.”

      “But you admit it’s no fair. I protest!”

      “Go for it…the judge will happily hear it, but I can’t be bothered. Here’s you ticket. Have a good day!”

      “I was until I met you, moron!”

      out comes the taser! Unacceptable response and gotta be retrained…

      …and people wonder why we don’t respect the law? They half the time can’t even explain it themselves!

      • I say something very similar whenever someone tells me the law is the law. I say that I don’t want the excuse for what you’re doing, I want the reason. A cop writing a traffic ticket b/c it’s his job, or the law is the law, is just an excuse for his actions not a reason for them. There is no reason like protecting the safety of others since I was posing no threat in the first place.

        • Christ on a Cracker Brad, you’re a scary-looking mofo! 🙂

          We need more long-haired frightening libertarians to counteract the beltway-libertarians with their trendy glasses and coiffed hair.

          Maybe if more of us adopted the Ted Kazynski/Ted Nugent vibe the PTB would be even MORE scared of us!

          • I don’t think it would be a bad idea to have a few more militant type Libertarians. I don’t start fights but I know how to end them and I don’t get pushed around.

          • Don’t listen to em Brad, I think you look just fine. As far as pro wrestlers go, I’d say they have come a long way from when I was a kid, they look much better in their speedos then waaaay back then. 🙂
            My best friends brother when I was kid loved to get’ya from behind in the “sleeper hold”, I’ll never forget the day he tried to attack me face on…I managed to get both feet on his belly and pushed him up and off at least six feet, he learned to fly that day. 🙂

            Anyway, you look just fine Brad. 🙂

  37. There is nothing immoral about breaking a “law” when it serves no purpose. I tend to ignore any driving law that is useless. But then so does everyone else where I live.

    • “There is nothing immoral about breaking a “law” when it serves no purpose.”

      True, that. I remember reading that George Mason (I think) responded to a comment that ‘the-law-is-the-law’, “But what if the law is an ass, sir?”.

      Laws are, for the most part, asinine. Laws are passed by asses, for the sole purpose of expressing their desire to control others.

      The law is an ass, in most cases. The times I’ve been arrested and locked up, in every case, was for the violation of some asinine law, never for having harmed or robbed anyone.

      As one early Virginian observed, any law which cannot show a victim for its violation is no law at all, but simply a money trap.

      Running a red light or exceeding the speed limit harms nobody, and the punishment is a fine, the payment of which corrects no wrong but merely enriches a government.

    • Hi Folks,

      Equating law to morality seems a non sequitur to me. Morality amounts to arbitrary rules based on religious dogma. I’d think this would be more of an ethical issue. That said, I’d like to point out that any and all governments are essentially based on slavery and thus any and all laws, especially stupid laws, separate the slaves from the free people….(e.g. clovers vs. non-clovers). Scattered logic but worth a bit of discussion.

  38. Im with you eric even though i dont drive. back when i did though iwas the same way it never made since to just sit there. Bevin, where have you been ive missed reading your post considerable hope all is well. great article eric

    • Dear Runaway slave,

      I’ve been devoting my energies and attention to some other interests of mine, non-political in nature.

      But when The Foreigner suddenly attacked me out of the blue, I was compelled to speak up.

      • Good to have you back on the blog Bevin. Since you’ve been back, I’ve been investigating Taiwan. The more I look into it, the more it seems like fertile soil the size of the two states MA+CT but with double their population and ten times their chutzpah. A great place for a new anarcho-something type of community and mindset.

        No more NEWS about whether Randolph Duke is the good guy, or is it Mortimer Duke. It’s a trick question, the only way to win the lesser-of-two-evil Arch dialectic is not to play or even pay attention when your teacher or constable demands to know which of the two Arches you want to be frog marched through for the public good.

        The wishbone pulls and gentlemen wagers are for the egos of the Rich People who fund our advanced societies, us non-millionaires chattering and kibbitzing within their expansive earshot is mind-numbingly irrelevant and a waste of our scarce insignificant to the world lifespan.

        I can’t worry about Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros, & Slim, it’s better letting them keep playing Monopoly in the big room while I play some Go or Shogi on the kids table with the producers, thinkers, and other non-reptilians.

        Polo fields, golf courses, private nature preserves, are all fine with me, anything but those damn proleprison Courts, Soup Kitchens, National Parks, Forests, and Libraries crap for the elite FSA who pretend to be middle-class because they get fancy free shit on credit from the fifth-third bank of Hitler, Marx, & Bernanke.

        http://www.michaelturton.com/taiwan/crime.htm

        Taiwan is strongly capitalistic yet highly resistant to cloverism. It’s been a nice diversion to read about it.

        • Dear Tor,

          Good to be back!

          By all means, investigate the Taiwan/Mainland relationship and its implications for liberty. Given China’s vast population, it is a highly pertinent but utterly neglected issue. I’m probably the only person in the world who has written about it!

          A word of caution about ex-pats like Michael Turton however. They are textbook “We must make the world safe for democracy” types.

          Some are Teddy Roosevelt rightists. Others are Woodrow Wilson leftists. But none of them are libertarian anti-interventionists, let alone free market anarchists.

          I penned an article on free market anarchism’s relevance to the Taiwan/Mainland relationship that Lew published at LRC:
          Market Anarchism, the Solution to the Dilemma of Taiwan Independence
          by Bevin Chu
          http://www.lewrockwell.com/chu/chu13.html

          I recommend my slightly edited version, in which I later changed the order of some of the paragraphs for clarity:
          http://thechinadesk.blogspot.tw/2006/03/market-anarchism-solution-to-dilemma-of.html

          I don’t think I need to tell you the “We must defend Taiwan’s democracy against Communism” ex-pats’ reaction was.

          Typical kneejerk mainstream sheeple reaction to the “A” word.

          Some of these Taiwan independence “fellow travelers” later wrote Lew, trying to drive a wedge between myself and LRC.

          Lew emailed me with their complaints. A three way dialogue ensued. It soon became clear what was what. Their foreign interventionist agenda soon revealed itself. And that was that.

  39. It costs almost as much to rent a parking space in Taipei as it does to rent an apartment!

    Needless to say, given the convenient subway system, I have chosen not to own a car on Taiwan.

    But as a pedestrian I routinely ignore red lights, provided it’s obvious there are no cars coming. I also jaywalk, but only when the coast is clear.

    For me it’s not that “The rules are rules.” For me it’s that I want to walk the way I drive, sensibly, considerately, unlike a Clover, who callously inconveniences others.

    I acknowledge that in the event of an accident, I will not be able to file a claim against the other party, but it’s a chance I am willing to take.

    • That’s one of the reasons why I never owned a car while living in Japan. The cost to rent a parking spot was ridiculous. On top of that was the insurance, gas, inspections, yada yada yada… and you get the point. It just wasn’t worth it. The train station was only a couple of blocks away and I just hopped on it and was in the heart of Tokyo within the hour. By car? Forget it.

      • Dear MoT,

        It’s a classic case of clouds and silver linings.

        The urban density makes car ownership highly inconvenient and impractical, but at the same time it makes mass transit highly convenient and eminently practical.

        The density is a “problem” that contains its own solution.

        Of course if cities were privatized under free market anarchism, the infrastructure, including MRT systems, would be even more efficient.

          • Dear MoT,

            Flyover country. That’s good!

            I remember “effete snob” film critic Rex Reed refer to “those states whose names begin with a vowel that you fly over on the way between New York and LA.”

            I have to admit that as a life-long city slicker myself, I laughed my ass off at that.

          • ERIC! Excellent article from central “flyover” country!

            HEY! Not funny! I live out here and we love it. I often leave my license plate off my car or motorcycle for MONTHS until I get stopped. I usually pester the officer asking him if I would need a plate if I didn’t have a license and the lawful private conveyance was untitled. They usually don’t know what to think.

            I then, peacefully hand him my license and point to my plate in the back seat. Good doggy!

            The thing is, each time I “obey” it is a choice. Since I realized that if there is nothing unsafe or infringing on other people, the action is not dishonorable. Just do it.

            Tip: you can leave the plate off your motorcycle or your trailer for a VERY long time. I’ve gone for over a year on a trailer, had cops follow me for miles. They’re trained to see the plates on trucks and cars, not trailers. Motorcycles to. It has to do with the revenue. The amount of time you can leave a plate off of a vehicle and not get pulled over is inversely proportionate to the amount of revenue that plate brings in.

            Bikes don’t cost much to run and they don’t cost much to insure and they don’t cost much to plate. Never been pulled over. I’ve put 100,000 miles on a couple different bikes. Never been pulled over. Probably 10,000 of that was without a plate.

            Here’s a high five to all you bad doggies that really arent bad at all, you’re just not quite as much of a slave as some of the other pooches out there.

          • But the key in these disobediences is to not be worth selecting or appear to be someone that won’t be selected.

            It’s like the recent LRC blog post that quoted from a reader, an older white woman, who had her own way of dealing with the TSA. Because of her demographic it works. But it only works because of that.

            The law is social. It’s not rational or logical or applied fairly or anything of the sort. Successful long term open disobedience is about being the guy that doesn’t get selected for one reason or another. He has nothing to take, he’s knows the right people, he has the money to fight it, whatever it may be.

            Law throughout the society works this way best I can tell. It’s always selective. Those who aren’t often selected don’t understand the perspective of those who are.

    • Just returned from 20 years in Taiwan & China myself last year. Weird place, North America! Everyone SOOO obedient, so uncritical… In rural Taiwan I learned to “disobey” authority to the point of sometimes even being able to drive without a license plate – and I continue to break as many strictures as possible here, too…

      • I returned from Europe in ’07 after 10 years there and I felt and still do feel the same as you.

        Man especially in eastern Europe, nobody pays attention to the law and they do just fine. I was in Romania and I think there was one murder in the 4.5 years I was there. Lots of petty theft – keep your wallet in your front pocket and lock your bike up – but violent crime was almost nonexistent. People worked together as communities to accomplish things and to defend themselves. The cops there were even less educated than here – many w/o high diplomas.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here