A Practical Guide For Dealing With Cops

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Never pick a fight with a superior opponent – especially if he has back-up and you don’t. The over-riding objective in such a case ought to be evasion and obfuscation; getting out of the situation with your teeth intact and your balls not kicked. This is bar wisdom, learned the hard way. It’s also sound policy for dealing with the state’s costumed highwaymen.avoid cops 1

Cops.

Never forget: He has a gun, the legal authority to screw with you – and the back-up of the entire apparatus of the state. A fair fight, it’s not.

Therefore, don’t fight fair.

Certainly, it is noble – brave – to assert your rights. Which he’ll ignore. To challenge his authority – which will probably provoke his possibly fragile ego, resulting in a demonstration of Who’s Boss. And to not assist him in your own demise – so to speak – by answering his questions with silence or statements that you won’t be answering his questions. Which will likely result in another demonstration of Who’s Boss.

I admire anyone who has the guts to do the above.

But it’s almost certain you’ll get the damned ticket.

What if you don’t want the ticket?

Then it’s time to play The Game.fat pig cop

And the cardinal rule of The Game is pretended deference to his authoritah. Your body language and tone of voice must convey plausibly believable amiability and (hold your nose) submission. In your mind, you can play out all sorts of scenarios. Radiate contempt. Question his right to hassle you. Point out that you did nothing to anyone – and that he is the ethical equivalent of Luca Brasi from The Godfather. That he has no more business ordering you at gunpoint to “buckle up for safety” than you have to do the same to him regarding his clearly “unhealthy” beer gut.

Just don’t say any of it out loud.

And never argue with him. Per Robert Heinlein and trying to teach a pig to sing.

No matter how in the right you may be – ethically or even legally.

Feign a cooperative attitude. Smile – and express a degree of rueful regret over your actions without (if possible) openly admitting to anything specific. Your goal is to convey “solid citizen” – who “respects the law.” Keep in mind that to challenge the law is by inference to challenge the cop, who is the law incarnate. If the law is illegitimate, then what is he? You do not want to go down this road. Not, at least, while you are under his authority by the side of the road. Once he’s gone – and you’re out of harm’s way – it’s another matter.

Cops use psychological tricks on us. It’s just as effective when reversed. Appeal to his empathy (if he has any). Try to get him to look upon you as a person rather than a “perp.” Engaging in friendly banter can accomplish this. There are several ways to do this, depending on your situation. If you are young and female, for instance – and assuming the cop is male – it is no shame to use your young and female status to advantage. Prey on his male nature. Try to trigger his protective instincts. Hopefully, these still exist. Most men – even cops – will soften a little (without realizing it) in the presence of women. Exploit this.oink behind you

If you are old and female – or old and male – use the age disparity to your advantage. Play Helpless and Tired and Fearful. Try to get the cop to look upon you as he might a parent or grandparent.

If you are young and male you are in the greatest danger – as cops view young males as the greatest threat to their “safety” – and also the class most in need of being “taught a lesson.” Imagine two silverbacks confronting one another. It’s a dominance game. And while you might have a shot if he were just another silverback, never forget that he is not just another silverback. He has the gun, the uniform – and the authoritah.

Therefore, try to defuse the testosterone tension. Be non-confrontational in word and deed. One little trick I use that has served me very well in several encounters has been to present my concealed handgun permit (CHP) along with my driver’s license – at the same time telling the cop, “Here’s my DL and CHP . . . just wanted to let you know.” In some states, you’re required to do this – inform the cop that you have a CHP- but in my state (Virginia) you’re not and by doing it pre-emptively, I find it is often taken as a gesture of goodwill and helps normalize relations. The CHP immediately conveys the fact that you haven’t got a criminal record and also that you’re not a threat to his “safety” (cops know that CHP holders are among the least likely to pull out a gun and take a shot at them, or do any other violent thing).cartman cop

I have found most cops appreciate the consideration (from their point of view) this shows. And – even better – it often leads to you and the cop “talking guns.” Most cops like guns – and if you can get him talking about something other than the ticket he’s pondering whether to give you, the odds of him deciding not to give you the ticket increase. I do the same thing with cars. Most cops like cars, too. If you happen to be driving something interesting – and can get him talking about that instead of whatever it was he pulled you over for, you’re already halfway to home. You’ve created an empathetic bond, however minimal.

And often, it’s just enough to do the trick.

Remember: The object is to minimize the damage – not  to make a point. Much less take a stand. There’ll be a time for doing that.

But that time is not now  . . . not over a traffic ticket.

Throw it in the Woods?

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206 COMMENTS

  1. @ gary….

    k-12 indoctrination, aye…but that’s an eddy, of many, in a flowing process. resting one’s case there assures it must float away.

    montessori could be no promissory against canalization by suppliers & demanders of locks & pumps vs lockes & lysanders. huge cartelized “markets” vs boutiques, in other words…& reality vs “egality” (some sort of egalitarianism that posits kid-stuff is all the same clay, would all turn out “thinkers”, if only they were spun on the right potter’s wheel).

    “prepare” a child. not all. nor even most. such children also emerge from k-12. such children emerge, period, whatever the cultural-institutional circumstances, because those externalities are only part of the equation – & probably not the most important part. perhaps a better approach, like montessori, would facilitate more emergents than now, or even “then”, but not so many as to dimple, let alone dent, the fat part of the curve.

    & if montessori was the norm, & ayn’s take was accurate & scaled/generalized, who would exist to populate her cult of personality collective?

    whatever the edu-structure, ayns & brandens & greenspans will always be with ye. and will always scale up, up, & away, too. rothbards, in & out in 6 months, will remain rule proving exceptions. aj nock prolly would have been in/out in 6 minutes (& has a much closer to it take on education, i think).

    fire roads, not walls.

    • @Ozy – If it ever did reach deep penetration it would be taken over and perverted before reaching critical mass. As has K -12 by John Dewey and his followers since the early 1900’s. As Orwell so accurately said of the herd “the prols don’t count.”

      I give culture, which is the rulers tool of choice, more power to affect and effect people. Example: The lifestyle addiction of tracking smartphones by the younger, and a mere tool or convenience by the older generations. Or global climate change means taxing/ wealth transfer to save the world mass acceptance. But without a quantifiable or workable plan presented, proven to be desirable, or beneficial.

  2. Garysco,
    I used to volunteer as a Montessori teacher at a Unitarian Universalist church in the afternoons. Usually had about 20-24 kids for an hour or two, and then the parents would arrive and pick them each up. Somehow the usual training was waived for me, maybe they were desperate, not sure.

    It’s interesting, how easy it is to keep track of a large amount of kids, even though I was usually by myself. (Also seems non-Montessorial, as I understand it, there shouldn’t ever be that many students per instructor)

    Now this is going to take a sharp left-turn. What would everyone’s “Practical guide” tell them to do in “For Dealing With Chicks” in cases such as this girl you find in this picture?

    https://plus.google.com/111150353828169794654/posts/738fGEpFTb2

    Because 6 year old girls soon grow up in Carolina
    Half a mile from Tucker Cherry’s farm
    Young quiet girls with bright eyes full of fire
    With daddy’s pride and all their mama’s charm

    Playing ring around the rosie, pockets full of dreams and posies
    Patty-cake, and bakers man, tag you’re it, kick the can
    And I, I think I hear my, my mama calling, gotta go
    Man, I loved her so

    High school days, with me and Angel learnin’
    What it really means to be in love
    Give and take, holdin’ back for heaven’s sake
    Fightin’ for a week, then makin’ up

    In my case, I’d probably met this girl earlier in the day prior to this picture, and already taken her first and last months rent and 1/2 months security deposit, so I’d probably just leave her be and say stay indoors while doing that kind of stuff, keep it to yourself. (Because she’s not actually the girl in my imagination, I’m tripping thru time like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5)

    My “Practical Guide” tells me to fiercly definitively mercilessly cut down anyone who shows any inclination to get in someone else’s business. Any one at all who is paying money. Or to talk outside of school, or cause any kind of scene or confrontation.

    I’d never say anything to anyone’s face, but any malcontents who so much as bluster about what is proper would soon discover their rent was to be increased for some random reason, or their unit was no longer going to be available, due to a some kind of renovation. But really, any long term resident knew my only law was the ancient gypsy law of invisibility and occultation.

    When people are poor and powerless enough, they learn all to quickly what the market they are able to participate in is, and how they should behave, if they want to consider to continue to be a dignified party of the free and self-owning world.

    If I were far younger and unencumbered, I’d say she looks to have all kinds of potential. Buy her a pack of smokes, wine and dine her. Clean and polish her up a bit, give her something real to pursue and yearn for. Listen to her dreams and aspirations and even her boring stories of utter stupeficaton and total incapacitation.

    Almost everytime, when someone in her status spends time around someone who has no interest in such base unrewarding vices as portrayed in this pic, usually quickly loses interest in them as well, and choose other more rewarding things to do with their valuable and finite life span.

    To me this was once the soul equivalent of finding an sportscar with minor easily repairable damage at a real bargain. The secular thrill of getting a high performance creation back into shape and experiencing the high speed curves, hills, and valleys of life with her in the passenger seat. Or maybe even at the wheel.

    I would see her and at a minimum pull her back into the fold
    and perhaps later reminisce about the time
    I once spent with a creature so very much just like her

    She’s sun and rain, she’s fire and ice
    A little crazy but it’s nice
    And when she gets mad, you best leave her alone
    ‘Cause she’ll rage just like a river
    Then she’ll beg you to forgive her
    She’s every Red Barchetta I’ve ever known

    Drive like the wind
    Straining the limits of machine and woman
    Laughing out loud with fear and hope
    I’ve got a desperate plan
    At the one-lane bridge
    I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
    Race back to the farm
    Tires spitting gravel
    I commit my weekly crime
    To dream with my Angel at the fireside

    • @Tor – The easy answer “Practical guide” – Find the source of her pain. Not the drugs, sex and the usual surface crap. The source. The treatment is more time consuming and risky, because she may not be ready or able to deal with the fix.

      We have been sold wayyyy too much social services type intervention, that is only a profit center, and almost without positive results. But a lifetime of needing more of their taxpayer services.

      Not to brag, but I got to the point of predicting a 6 year old’s future from a short conversation with them and their parents. Very seldom was I wrong in later years. But then I was not tasked with fixing them. Not my job as it were. That would have gotten me chewed out, and I usually had more pressing business to attend to.

      • Not to brag myself, but by the age of 6 I had already held head of household status for 4 years. Wouldn’t want anyone to upset Grandma’s favorite little sprout or have him go ballistic and chop down everyone’s magic beneficiaries beanstalk.

        Or let outsiders in on the terrible secret that Tor’s terrible twos had already lasted four terrible years too terribly long. The terrible twos that some say still rage and remain in effect right up til this very day.
        – – –
        You learn the tautological treatments on the job, because every derelict auto-mental-mobile can regurgitate every syllable and sig code of every haunted sermon ever uttered by Scary A Nation and her skinpeeling shriekery over evil demon spirits and hearths of hell burning each and every man who even imagine fondling the devils darlings flesh.

  3. I see the website owners are having to bin clover comments at ludicrous speed. Gil Clover Mike et. al. overfilling the trash doubletime, all hands are in all sockpuppets and shilling on all decks.

    Masters Of Puppets Can’t Pull the Strings
    When you’ cut them all and deny such things

    End of their passion play, it all crumbles away
    They’re the source of self-deconstruction
    They pump your veins with fear
    Vampires sucking darkest clear
    Duty calls you to pave the road to your own destruction

    Affirm your name you will see
    More is all they need
    Keep their time
    You’re dedicated to
    How they’re killing you

    I have no name I must acquit.
    Or know name of place that I’ll admit
    Their time I do not recognize
    Nor date, nor history, nor all their lies

    Come crawl at me faster
    Won’t obey you master
    Won’t make my life a disaster
    Never obey you master
    Master

    Master of puppets are pulling your strings
    Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
    Blinded by them, you can’t see a thing
    Role calling your name, to hear your screams
    Master
    Master

    Busywork the way, never you betray
    Life of death becoming clearer
    Pain monopoly, ritual misery
    They watch you thru telescreen two-way mirror

    Heed them you will see
    More is all they need
    They’re dedicated to
    Helping you start killing you

    No!

    First crawl, then walk,
    Then start running faster
    You must escape your master
    Must train your mind
    To reason and think faster
    You must arise and then outwit your master
    Master
    Master

    Metallica s/b America
    http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lgpp0342+master-of-puppets-album-cover-metallica-poster.jpg

    Cycle of [government] addiction
    http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/AddictionCycle.jpg

    Real American Anthem
    http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/11/59/66/1159666fdf32222fa9983b474ca8fefb.jpg

    how much is known about the master of puppets
    https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3315426304/h597B4FC0/

    Master of Puppets – Song w/ Lyrics
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKhsTXoKCI

  4. @Ozymandias esq.,

    I really like the entire post that includes this bit a lot.
    “dichotomies (2 half lobotomies make a whole robotomie…), just wanna’ have fun, & die…in each others’ arms….how’d the boss sing it?

    baby this town rips the bones from your back…”

    maybe it’s only cock and bull, but I like it like it yes I do!

    • The alligator has alligator mouth and is so ornery because he’s got all them teeth, and no toothbrush. – Bobby ‘Waterboy’ Bouche’s mother
      http://91.207.61.14/m/uploads/v_p_images/1998/01/1748_5_screenshot.png

      Challenger New vs. Old: Vanishing Point Revisited
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpPRFkiFzo

      In a few brief seconds, the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 Hammers down a desert road with a thin-rimmed steering wheel and pistol-grip shifter — Four hundred and forty cubic inches and a four-speed — that’s raw. Powerslides unhampered by electronic intervention — that’s raw.

      In 1970, when Kowalski drove this very road — U.S. Highway 50 through Nevada — and broke the ring of evil of the deep blue meanies, he felt it — and it was raw.

  5. Some years ago, on the way to work at stupid-o-clock one morning, I drove through an amber light that went red just after my rear wheels crossed the line. The cops, on the other side of the intersection, did an illegal u-turn through the red light to harass me. About 400m later was pulled over by the constabulary for my hideous, infanticidal crime. We both alighted.

    COP: [in an unusually friendly manner] Morning.. You know what I pulled you over for?

    ME: Umm.. Nope.

    COP: OK. Just sit back in your car a minute.

    Got back in the car and just knew things were going to get interesting. Constable alights again. Seems a decent guy so far, so I won’t be too tough on him.

    COP: The reason you got our attention was that you went through a red light back there.

    ME: Nup. It was amber when I crossed the line and I don’t do emergency stops for amber lights. But you didn’t have the green for the turn to chase me.

    COP: Ok.. Your car’s also unregistered.

    ME: No it’s not. You got all my details by punching in the plate number, right?

    COP: [suspicious] Yes..

    ME: That means it’s still registered. I haven’t formally disposed of it and handed in the plates.

    Cop riding shotgun (literally covered in weaponry that’s illegal in most countries) alights, tries to remove plates from car.

    ME: Hey – don’t break anything. You don’t have permission to touch and trespass..

    COP: It says your registration’s cancelled.

    SHOTGUN COP: [still trying to steal] The plates are fake..

    ME: The car’s still registered with VicRoads. So I didn’t pay the renewal fee. No law against not paying a fee..

    COP: [straining] You know what I’m talking about, right?

    ME: Sure, but I just didn’t pay the renewal – an extortionate 180 bucks a year for a VicRoads computer to automatically “manage” my rego. Not value for money..

    SHOTGUN COP: But the plates are fake..

    ME: Still the right rego number. Ever pulled anyone over for having their plates covered by pushbikes where they’ve done the right thing and written their rego on a piece of cardboard? And rego numbers painted on the back of unregisterable trailers?

    COP: No, we don’t see any..

    ME: [wry smile] Geez, look harder mate. The reason these plates were printed on paper is because Dandenong police thought the car was unregistered a while back and stole them, while it was parked and they still haven’t notified me. Plain and simple theft since I paid for those plates.

    COP: But what about insurance?

    ME: [laughing] Another form of gambling. I’ve dutifully participated in that rort for decades and never needed to use it. That’s 10 grand down the drain. Besides, rego and insurance don’t stop crashes and I can’t be forced under any law to join any insurance company. I’m done with the fraud guys [rolling a smoke]..

    BOTH COPS: It’s not fraud..

    COP: I pay rego for for my own car..

    ME: Feel silly now? VicRoads has nothing to do with the law, they’re just a corporation.

    COP: But they’re only trying to make a profit.

    ME: Oh sure. Hardly value for money though.

    Speaking amongst themselves, they quietly noted they couldn’t take my printed plates because they were my property.

    COP: Ok. I still have to fine you for unregistered..

    ME: That’s ok, but you should understand that the Imperial Acts Application Act, Section 8 Clause 12 states that all promises of fines and forfeitures before conviction of any person are illegal and void..

    COP: [trying to interject] Umm.. but..

    ME: ..a Commonwealth law, which ensures that by fining me for anything will mean you’ve committed a Federal offence, and STILL have to prove I committed a crime and then provide a victim. Then again if I have to pay any fine, I’d still have to drive to work for the money.

    COP: But you really can’t drive your car. Just wait here..

    They get back in their car. Less than a minute later and handing back my licence..

    COP: Here.. You can’t drive your car though..

    They get in their car and drive away. No fines, cavity searches, backup calls or arrests. Not even a mention of the many (9 at last count) warrants for unpaid fines. I wait ’til they’re outta sight and drive to work. Nice. Maybe just luck? In any case, I had a blast by the results. If I see a fine in the mail, a simple “Return to sender. Please remove from mailing list” which I’ve been doing for years now.

    • I can do something similar when bicycling. But if I tried something like this when driving I’d end up in a lock up somewhere and my car would be towed to some private contractor yard where it would promptly disappear.

      • Then don’t pull over Brent. Remember those flashing lights are for emergencies, they don’t mean you’re under arrest. Unless they say you are then you have the right to continue unencumbered providing you’re not posing a danger to anyone.

        The Melbourne Supreme Court ruled a little while ago in a case where 2 cops wanted to ask a pedestrian some questions, and he bolted. The judge said he had no obligation to answer police questions and was within his rights to run as he was not officially under arrest. I’ll see if I can find it.. [rummage]..

        http://www.news.com.au/national/supreme-court-rules-person-is-entitled-to-do-runner-if-not-under-arrest/story-e6frfkvr-1226205953554

        Remember, under Common Law, precedents from Australia can be used in court in the USSA and vise-versa.

        • Dear Rev,

          Good information. Knowledge of the Common Law can indeed help when one is in a legal bind and standing before a judge.

          Knowledge is always better than ignorance. One never knows when it might come in handy.

          That said, given the lawless nature of “Law Enforcement” in today’s Amerika, there are risks no matter how one responds in a police encounter.

          The ignorant goonvermin may not give a tinker’s damn about law, period, common or statutory. They might just gun you down on a whim, and plant a throwdown on you afterwards.

          Given the Caligula mindset of the PTB, there is no surefire formula for surviving encounters with goonvermin thugs. If you flee, you could get shot in the back. If you stick around, you could be beaten to a pulp and wind up in a coma.

          It’s worse than living in a dystopian Mad Max Road Warrior world. There at least you can shoot back and not get railroaded by “society” on an “illegal weapons” charge.

          • Bevin;

            “Knowledge is always better than ignorance. One never knows when it might come in handy.”

            I can’t remember who said it, but “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”.

            It’s true we never know what’ll happen if we don’t pull over, or even if we do. Damned both ways eh?

            Always useful to have a high res cam on a swivel anytime you go somewhere in your car. That way you can prove the cops rammed you and tried to stop you for no significant or lawful reason.

            If I’m near home then I’ll pull up my driveway. Once you’re on private property there’s a lot less they can do.

        • The USSA is fully corrupt, ignorant, and stupid. If you don’t stop for them they chase you until you crash or are forced to crash. It doesn’t matter how many innocent people are harmed in the process.

          From your stories it appears that cops and judges down under still know the real law. In the USA they don’t, they only know the scam version of the law. Oppose them on it and they may get violent. Judges will just lock you up. Now the bicycling stuffs they don’t know and know they don’t know it so I can argue there, but the car stuff they know the wrong stuff and think they know it all. That makes them very dangerous.

          If I ran the time I accosted by cops while walking home with my dinner… and I could have run for it, entered my home and locked the door behind me, they would have made a full assault out of it.

          The cloverian majority cheers this sort of thing. And that’s the problem. Sure I could make the point. I’ll be dead or locked up and nothing will change.

          Be thankful you can still argue with them where you are.

      • Thanks Eric. I did receive fines in the mail from these jokers a few days later, in an unmarked envelope with only my address on it. Naturally, I sent it back unopened return to sender as I do with all mail where the sender is a PO box or unnamed.

        I’ll bet the following happened:

        They referred the case to the unlawful Infringements Court which accepted their “evidence” unquestioningly, bypassing the required separation of powers.

        After 28 (or 42 days I think it might be now) elapsed without payment, the computer court spat out a “reminder” with more illegal costs added, to which I would have mailed back as above, because they try to hide where it’s from so you get stuck as “accepting” it if you opened it. There’s no law anywhere that requires you to accept and open any kind of mail – ever.. Unless it’s directly from the Queen or the President, possibly.

        The case would have added to the list where eventually my “driver” licence was suspended by VicRoads (DMV) – a private corporation acting for grabbermint vehicle record keeping.

        Their problems are many. First is this:

        Since the enactment of the Magna Carta in 1215, we humans and sovereigns of our respective countries have had the Right to use the very public roads we pay for. Those Rights transferred to Australia due to our still being connected to England. It’s not a long stretch to connect that to the USSA either and, SCOTUS has made precedents regarding such travelling Rights and registrations (see above post for link).

        Go back to the days of horse and cart. The only ones that needed licensing and registration were those that were actual “drivers”, as they were being paid to be behind the wheel and derived income from the public highways. This is the only place grabbermints can interfere and have control. All else, unless you’re posing an immediate danger to the public, must be left alone or be charged with obstruction and fraud.

        Over generations, grabbermints have changed the minds of the lazy and uninformed and got everyone to sign away their Right for a privilege – the driver’s licence and registration with compulsory (unlawful) insurance.

        Roadside fines are unlawful blackmail and fraud. You MUST be innocent until proven guilty. In Australia, the High Court (status like SCOTUS) ruled in 2006 that all courts must return to the way they were at Federation (1 January 1901), with either 2 judges and/or a jury of one’s peers. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t happened. The “administrative” courts we (and you) have today are nothing more than the Star Chamber courts of old that were outlawed in 1641!!

        So these courts here have no jurisdiction unless we give it to them. Further, we have S.115 of our Constitution stating that:

        115 States not to coin money
        A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and
        silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts.

        They’ve changed this to suit themselves. Our coin used to be actual gold and silver, but quickly went to copper and nickel, then starting in 1980 we got our “gold coloured” dollar coin. Eventually the 1 and 2 cent coins were dropped. So we now have pseudo gold and silver coins, not precious metal as intended.

        Our Currency Act, sections 9, 11, 16 and 22 describes everything to do with our currency and payment of debt. Unfortunately for them, S.16(c) states that you can’t pay more than 10x the value of your largest coin, of which ours is $2. Magistrates hate hearing of this after they’ve been drooling over how much they wanna fine you.

        “I’m sorry your Honour, I can’t break one law to satisfy another.”

        They try and argue that the Currency Act is too old (1965) and that it doesn’t pertain to “fines”. A fine becomes a debt the very microsecond it’s awarded and, the Currency Act has not been repealed and is still in force. There’s nothing replacing it or it would have been repealed.

        Their faces tend to go a mild hue of purple at this point. There’s HEAPS more I use against them. Magistrates try and talk verdicts over the top of you, completely ignoring actual law, their Oath of Office and basically wishing stuff into law to hang you with. That’s why you demand a jury.

        I’m just biding my time until they get a bit fierce and ACTUALLY arrest me. Then I’ll demand a full jury which everyone under Common Law has the Right to be tried by. I’ll also demand a full Court of Competent Jurisdiction as per Chapter 3 of our Constitution. Any non-compliance will be noted during the trial. They’ll be a mess.

  6. In Australia:

    Any Statute Law (Act of Parliament) that attempts to supersede the tenets of Common Law is void, in law. Because Common Law is the law-of-the-land, and supreme. Constitutional Law backs Common Law and Statutes merely describe infinitesimals in between. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Statutes override any and all laws.

    Statute Law is merely the law-of-the-sea, inapplicable on land, and subservient to Common Law in all cases. Historically much has been written about this, in particular by Sir Edward Coke, and Lysander Spooner. Australia’s statutes are maritime law. Interesting huh? The Constitution Act (THE Constitution, the one we’ve never been taught in school actually exists – attached) states in section 76:

    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.

    In the Imperial Acts Application Act, it specifically states on page 43, section 8(12):

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

    The above means you have the Constitutional Right to ignore all on the spot fines, as you haven’t been convicted by a Court of Competent Jurisdiction (at least a jury of your peers and a judge – as the High Court ruled at Forge v ASIC 2006 ALL courts must return to – which they haven’t). You can never front the Infringements Court, because it’s a computer court. You CANNOT legally be convicted by a computer. You have the most basic Common Law Right to be innocent until PROVEN guilty. Note that the computer at the Infringements Court/Civic Compliance only takes into account the amount of time passed and if payment isn’t received, you get another notice with illegal costs attached (computers cost money to tick over, apparently). If the fine isn’t satisfied, the computer finds you guilty. That’s Un-Constitutional and highly illegal, considering that the computer and the Infringements Court accepts police evidence without question, overriding the Constitutional requirement of separation of powers between the Parliament, the police and the courts..

    Common Law is based on those “traditions & customs” of our land. First specifically written down in the Magna Carta, 1215. It sets the scene for peaceful co-existence. In essence Common Law says that the peace shall not be breached, and that no harm, injury or loss to any other individual is acceptable behaviour. Life, liberty and property are to be protected.

    And that says it all.

    Under Common Law a Human being has the Natural Right to “travel in a conveyance of their choice”. This Natural, Basic, Inalienable Right is unrestricted, except for the necessity of peaceful co-existence, above. Common Law also says one has the Natural Right to one’s own property, unless a Court of Law (including a Jury of one’s peers) decides against this Right, in a specific instance.

    Consequently, under the law-of-the-land, any Statute that attempts to modify these basic tenets is void and, engenders no dishonour whatsoever if ignored. “Registration” transfers superior Ownership to whoever accepts the registration. Thus the property in question has a superior Owner who can – under the law – direct it to be destroyed. Whoever thought they were the Owner, actually becomes merely the Keeper.

    “Licencing” is “asking for permission”. Nothing can be licenced unless it is fundamentally lawful anyway. Consequently if controlling an automobile on the public highway is capable of being licenced, then it must be fundamentally lawful. If it is fundamentally lawful, then there is no need to ask permission to do it. “Asking for permission” is the act of a child. Adults, acting in full responsibility for their actions (as per Common Law), do not need to “ask permission”.

    Consequent to all of this the DEMAND of “registration” of automobiles and other vehicles is an unlawful act. “That it is somehow necessary” is a DECEPTION. The DEMAND that “licencing” is necessary is a similar unlawful DECEPTION.

    The penalties for these kinds of massive unlawful deceptions, perpetrated over an entire population, and for such a great length of time, must be terms of imprisonment. It is hoped that, as the truth of this situation gradually becomes more widely known (as it surely will), the population of Australia will have mercy on the perpetrators. I will vote for the mercy to be extended, but with condition. And the condition is that it stops immediately. The reason for that is because they can no longer claim they “didn’t know”. Publicly they have now been told.

    The Sheriff’s Office of Victoria is a registered corporation with an ABN/ACN. That makes it a corporate entity which is not recognised by the Commonwealth Constitution. Therefore, demand they prove their authority or jurisdiction over you and show you a valid wet-ink contract between them and you in which you actually agreed to pay the alleged unproven debt.

    Further note that any alleged warrant based upon the “Infringements Courts Act 2006” must comply with section 71 of the Commonwealth Constitution, otherwise section 109 of the Commonwealth Constitution renders the Infringements Courts Act 2006 invalid and without any legal effect on a sovereign-subject. Also the alleged “Infringements Courts Act 2006” must comply with the Commonwealth Constitution pursuant to section 15A of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Commonwealth) which it does not do so presently. Section 15A states: “Every Act shall be read and construed subject to the Constitution, and so as not to exceed the legislative power of the Commonwealth…”

    Further, every natural man or woman has the right of due process and a fair trial pursuant to section 51-24 of the Australian Constitution which states: “No man can be legally bound by a judgement given behind his back and without his having had an opportunity of being heard.”

    Also note that “driving”, as per almost every law dictionary on the planet is defined as “one employed..”, or being paid to be behind the wheel. Everything else is “travelling”, which is everyone’s absolute and inalienable Right to use whatever ordinary private conveyance of the day to carry oneself and his own worldly possessions on the very public highways he already pays for through every tax imaginable – Fee Simple.

    In the USSA, SCOTUS has ruled on these matters and has set precedents:

    http://www.realtruth.biz/driving/supremecourt.htm

  7. my two millibitcoins on Washington and those early land barons of his archetype:

    It’s important to understand why George Washington is not one of us. We are holding ourselves to be free honest people who earn our wealth. Purchase our own house, and buy our own land through trade and value exchange.

    George had a few slaves he freed at his death. But his wife had been married to the richest man in America before George and she still retained her three hundred slaves obtained as a widow in a life estate. They were only to be released upon her death.

    George and the founders operated using two different sets of books. For the few elite men like him, there was master morality. For the vast multitude of everyone else, there was slave morality. That is still how the UK, Europe, Israel, and the USA function today.

    What is meant by master morality vs. slave morality? You give the most powerful men and the state the benefits of consequentialism (they own everything and they defend it so it doesn’t matter how they obtained it) while applying a deontological approach laterally to your fellow slaves (well, the law says this, the law says that, or “honest” people do this “honest” people do that).

    Nothing improves because you’re operating off of two different sets of moral principles – one for yourself, another for the state and the small number of elite at the top that wield the power of the state.

    Considering only the deeds of the founders, 1776 was a mere flag change, and nothing more. The difference is their rule was initially weak. It was the second tier elite, ambitious smugglers and men of high merit, who really made the USA something new.

    These second tier noveau-elite found that if you amassed enough capital by any means, you became part of the power structure of this second tier of free elite.

    You rose above common men and slaves who had to follow the christian rules to the letter. Second tier men of means had to continue to profess these rules, but then also traded in liquor and tobacco and kept stables of attractive female slaves around for other than merely domestic chores and farm work.

    Anarchy arose in this vast new world, because it was mainly held by weak-handed owners. Indians, Spaniards, French, generally loss their titles to the New American Founders.

    These founders originally acquired vast tracts of land through all manner of means and left no one around to protest. This land wasn’t completely unowned at the beginning, there was no one they paid to own it, yet by some magic they controlled the presses and wrote down that they were to be seen as noble and satisfying the “honesty” requirement?

    Where did the state buy all its land? The natives had it first, then the Spanish and French took it by force, then the Americans bought it from the French and took it by force from Mexico in the Mexican-American war. At no point was this land ever purchased from any rightful owner. It was just taken or purchased from other Nation/Gangs.

    These founders as a group were a mixed bag, you can’t call what they did legitimate, because then you’re promoting a slave morality. You can’t give the master morality to any government where they simply take what they want and impose rules on others without ever buying or working a damn thing and then pulling out the whip for the middle class, poor, and slaves because they choose not to obey the new rules the faux founders just made up.

    If we let go of the myth of the founders and there ever having been a legitimate authority, we can begin to make progress. There’s still plenty of land for everyone, if we just erase governments name from the deed.

    It’s hard when we’ve all been raised as slaves and we instinctively want to ingratiate ourselves to the master by promoting the morality the master gave us.

    The one he himself doesn’t follow. We do this because it pisses us off to see a fellow slave get away with something we don’t have the guts to do ourselves.

    No one yet owns most of the Western lands. A dissolution and privatization of unused lands will be a great boon for us all. We might be able to carve out a section of wherever and build a well-defended libertarian town/city/etc. And just buying it from the state is not good enough. We’ll have to fend off authoritarians when they still try to enforce a parasitic right to our property by imposing taxes and laws.

    Fuck the current government, and their progenitors, the founders. Today’s government has no use for all its land; it’s just used by elites who swing their dicks around arbitrarily in the hope that the people who worship their power will strike down anyone who hasn’t absorbed a slave morality imposed on them by the master.

    Yeah, massa, he the one. I saw my neighbor break a law. He tried to leave the American plantation! Whip him, massa! Whip him good. Give me a whip, I’ll do it myself! I’s a good christian slave massa. My eyes have seen the glory of da coming of the Lord Godvernment my refuge and protector.

    • Dear Tor,

      Well said indeed.

      Every libertarian must remember that rights and liberty have NOTHING to do with written constitutions and statutory law.

      The only way to truly understand rights and liberty, is to reboot one’s political consciousness, the way one reboots one’s PC to clear the RAM. In fact, one should go even further than that. Wipe your existing OS from your hard drive, and do a clean install of an NAP based OS.

      Start over clean, and formulate your concepts of rights and liberty from nature and the objective requirements of man’s survival. Do that and you will quickly realize that written constitutions and statutory laws are total bullshit. They were never anything more than hypnotic spells to keep We the Sheeple duped and malleable.

      Always have been.

  8. I have to admit, this Organic Law stuff is interesting
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_law

    Talking only about Washington, Adams, et. al. is a clover’s game. You have to go beyond individuals to underlying structures somehow (not sure how). Adding a person to the mix makes everything incalculable, since a human being is infinitely complex and irreducible to finite arguments.

    An organic law is a law or system of laws which forms the foundation of a government, corporation or other organization’s body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state.

    It turns out Oregon was based on the laws of Iowa Territory. Bundles of fasces and a fish. Way back in 1843 and 1847 even, there was already Roman symbols of fascist rule included from the beginning.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Oregon_Provisional_Government_Seal.png

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Laws_of_Oregon

    U.S. Code (2007) defines the organic laws of the United States of America to include the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, the Articles of Confederation of November 15, 1777, the Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, and the Constitution of September 17, 1787.

    Under the current Spanish Constitution of 1978, an Organic Law has an intermediate status between that of an ordinary law and of the constitution itself. It must be passed by an absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies.

    Under the current Constitution of France, organic laws are a short, fixed list of statutes (in 2005, there were about 30 of them), whose existence is provisioned by the text of the Constitution itself. They are of constitutional scope and have constitutional force. This means that they overrule ordinary statutes.

    The Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China, namely Hong Kong and Macau, have basic laws as their constitutional documents. The basic laws are the highest authority, respectively, in the territories, while the rights of amendment and interpretation rest with the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.

    • “You have to go beyond individuals to underlying structures somehow (not sure how).

      really?

      so human nature, social humananimal hierarchy, the prequel-sequel-prequel ebb-flow-ebb of centuries, recorded & unrecorded, does not qualify, meet the rx?

      that is the underlying structure. & if you want to go the last yard, to what underlies that, pulls the strings, you’re at existential angst. & you’re not gonna’ teach the world to sing like epictetus. ☻

      Rodney Crowell – “Dancin’ Circles Round The Sun” (Epictetus Speaks)

      Disregard what don’t concern you
      Don’t let disappointment turn you
      Avoid adopting other people’s views
      Know what you can and can’t control
      Don’t let envy take a toll
      It’s nothing more than weather passing through

      When your back’s against the wall
      When you’re headed for a fall
      The tables set to make a run
      Dancin’ circles round the sun

      Through action wisdom is revealed
      And too much talk is like a shield
      In silence lies the keys to how we grow
      When focused on the truth at hand
      The critics try to make you bland
      But they don’t understand what they don’t know

      Make your own cracks in the sky
      Grit your teeth and learn to fly
      And when the right thing has been done
      You’ll dance circles round the sun

      Forgive the ones who meant to harm you
      Don’t let superstition charm you
      Conform your wishes only to what’s real
      Your reputation doesn’t matter
      Let idle gossip chirp and chatter
      No one else can tell you how you feel

      In between the masks you wear
      Wash your face and comb your hair
      You’re not hurting anyone
      Dancin’ circles round the sun

      Your mind cries out to God alone
      Please send me someone I can own
      Your soul says son you’re walking on thin ice
      Possession in the broadest sense
      Compounded by coincidence
      When all it takes is one roll of the dice

      In between the good and bad
      Think of all the fun you had
      It’s the same for everyone
      Dancin’ circles round the sun

      Evolution comes in fits
      It stops and starts, it coughs and spits
      Picasso and Mile Davis come to mind
      True artists, bold unbridled passion
      No concern for fad or fashion
      Sexy beasts in love with woman kind

      Bend the rules until it breaks
      Stand your ground until it shakes
      That’s the way to get things done
      Dancin’ circles round the sun
      Hey, sod convention let’s have fun
      Dancin’ circles round the sun

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

      the names that get discussed just happened to be; if it hadn’t been them with those names, it would have been the same sorts with different names queuing up in the same hierarchy. & it will be thus going forward, for as long as the species lasts.

      • Good song I like. I’m thinking of trying to up my game and become a master of reality. Maybe I could be a self-taught veterinary or something.

        A man who can perform dog and cat cavity fillings is a man to be respected. General teeth cleaning for the masses.

        Galen and Hippocrates and a few feral exiled pets are all that stand between my current self and a man of greatness and purpose.

        Being a PTB on a small mammal scale in my spare time will yield great insight into what it takes to truly tame nature and to live as man of wealth and comfort in an independent non-hierarchical manner.

        Every morning, there are dozens of feral cats and hundreds of pigeons all waiting to be means to my end. What must it be like to be the PTB? I’m only one kill and autopsy away from taking that journey it would seem.

        Veterinary Dental Maxillary Canine Tooth Extraction in a Dog
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7sCCAugeI

        Feline extraction technique-upper canine
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoF-LnalaHk

        Behind the scenes dog teeth cleaning
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMAzyfxT7Q

        Veterinary Surgery Tutorial – sterilization
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhhprswcFzI

        Vet Performs Surgery on Houston Toad with Cancer
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImzpK0pTtq4

        I wonder what Mama liberty could teach us if she created a pseudonym and posted anonymously somewhere? I’ve always wanted to know more about architecture and construction engineering.

        The principles of consumer vehicle maintenance are applicable to far more crucial principles that we need to survive. Sewage. Electrification. HVAC. Water purification. Food prep and storage. Simple maintenance and repair of all our property.

        Through mastery of hard skills and real competence over time and across disciplines, we can steadily approach our desired destination of being our own liberators and means of production.

    • Dear Gary,

      Agree.

      The “rule of law” is BS of course. The rule of law is rule by those who make up the laws.

      But until a critical mass has been converted to voluntaryism, the Cop Block approach of using the law against the “law enforcers” is a shrewd one.

      Anything that can undermine the Myth of Authority without getting one murdered and eliminated from the revolutionary forces.

      • @Bevin – Ever since the Miranda decision (1966), which was the result of police abuse, the black robbed ones can’t make up their minds on many things and swing back and forth (search & seizure). But the basics have never changed. Just use common sense & knowledge and don’t go off half cocked.

        I just remembered confronting a drunk 12 year old at a “mom & dad are away so lets get the class over for a party”. He informed me on the street that his teacher told him I can’t hassle him because he has rights. His evening did not end well for him.

        • Dear Gary,

          Right.

          Often these discussions about principled resistance against state violence lead to gross misunderstandings and bad blood among fellow libertarians. It’s unfortunate when that happens.

          Basically I have no objection to any libertarian who is willing to go head to head with the state’s goons. I will respect his courage. If “Prime” for example, actually has the cojones to go head to head with the state’s goons, he is fully within his rights, and I certainly understand how he feels.

          Will I do the same? No I won’t.

          Why? Because I agree with the reasoning in this editorial.

          http://www.christophercantwell.com/2014/06/08/dead-men-dont-start-revolutions/

          If you feel as I do, that life without liberty is not worth living, if you are ready to kill and die for freedom, then what we need you to do is say so. We need you to write, and make videos, and join a community of people who feel that way too. Raise children. Arm yourself, train, prepare. Produce, work, acquire capital. Understand the problem, see the solution, explain it to other people. That’s how you spark a revolution.

          As John Adams put it,

          “The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”

          • & as more honest, less authoritarian, people than adams have said, “meet the new boss(es), same as the old boss(es)”……

          • Dear oz,

            Speaking only for myself, when I quote someone on a specific issue, I am not making a blanket endorsement of the person quoted. I am only calling attention to a specific point that person made.

            You may have a different policy. But that is mine.

            Hope that clears it up. This disclaimer will apply to future quotes as well.

          • bevin…my policy as applies to adams (et al) is that he was a scumbag lyin’ sob & that anything he said that “sounds good”, in whatever context, was for consumption, which is to say not fit to eat or regurgitate…

            i know you’ve cited hoppe & are familiar with the reality that the revos were better off, by far, with a king/monarchy across the water than with bastards like adams down the road.

          • Dear oz,

            Yes. I agree. Hoppe is correct.

            The Adams quote was not about lionizing Adams. It was about the “how to” of revolution.

            I was rebutting fellow libertarians who express impatience with the often thankless ideological groundwork, and want to rush ahead to the fun part — the running gun battles.

            People like Thomas Paine, who was a borderline market anarchist, knew better. His pamphlets were a major contributor to the “revolution in sentiments.”

            Hoppe and others at LRC, most of whom no longer defend the Framers’ minarchism, are doing the same thing Adams did. Promoting a voluntaryist revolution through their writing. That part of it is not wrong.

          • Dear oz,

            I really think it behooves us to distinguish between quoting a person and expressing admiration for that person.

            They are entirely different things.

            For example, consider this magnificent quote:

            “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
            — Hermann Goering

            I for one, am not about to apologize for quoting it enthusiastically and repeatedly.

            Let us not confuse agreement with the message with admiration for the messenger.

          • bev…buddy…”adams did” is taking at face value some pretty words that this particular f*** completely, egregiously, contradicted in action. between word & deed there ain’t but one to focus on. adams woulda’ imprisoned or executed you for the stuff you write. tyrants everywhere are full of “noble” gases.

            the framers were framers. as in conniving coup de villians. not minarchists.

            as for “the fun part”…shit. sieges lose that steam quicker than a ruptured radiator.

            • Hi Ozy,

              Yup. Adams was “the chimp” of his era, only smart.

              The Alien & Sedition Acts were inexcusable and efface whatever good he did, as far as I am concerned. Also his desire to be an elected dictator – elected by a select group of “nobles,” so to speak.

              I used to admire many of the founders, but as I dug deeper and became more aware, my admiration dimmed for most of them.

              I still have a soft spot for Jefferson and also Paine (and Franklin).

              But I throw Adams and Washington and Hamilton (especially Hamilton) in the woods. They were archetypical/prototypical neo-con Republicans, who would be at home in today’s partei.

          • the difference is that goering didn’t slap on a coat of prehensile bs with this quote – never pretended to be anything other than the superior prussianprick he was (& f*** you, he’d say, if you don’t like it, little untermenschen…).

            been smoking a butt all day & the pork is ready to pull. that’s some greasy (succulent – such a different connotation, eh?) meat that’s fit to eat…over & out.

            • Yes, indeed.

              The Reichsmarschall was many things. A thug and a bully and a murderer among them. But he had a pair, I have to give him that. Alone among his cringing comrades at Nuremburg, he did not play patty cake or pretend he had not done what he did. He defended what he’d done.

              The rest of them embarrassed themselves.

              He’s one of the few Nazis I respect to some extent. Note, not approve of.

              Just, respect.

              Just as I respect a big rattlesnake.

          • Dear oz,

            I came to the conclusion that most of the Framers were nowhere as saintly as I once thought they were years ago.

            You’re reading way too much into what I said. I know what I meant, and what I didn’t. You’ll have to take my word on that.

            I say let’s not beat a dead horse, and move on.

          • I don’t think I’d put Washington in the same boat as Hamilton or Adams. I may not have dug as far as you have. But, Washington was offered the right to be king, and he turned it down. He only reluctantly took the Presidency. He refused to serve more than two terms (when he could have stayed as long as he wanted.) His government was NOWHERE NEAR the monstrosity that government is today. His government ran on somewhere between 1% to 3% of GDP, IIRC. I don’t think I know anyone who supports as small of a government as Washington did, at a personal level.

            Was he perfect? No. Was he an ideal leader? No, in fact there is no such thing. Were there abuses of power? Yeah, the Whiskey Rebellion comes to mind. But even that was pretty minor compared to anything that happens today.

            I still respect Washington a lot, more for his actions outside the Presidency than in. But he wasn’t so bad in the Presidency (in my knowledge) that his other accomplishments should not be respected. Heck, Jefferson was a great philosopher and kind of a lame President as well.

            Mind you, again, I’m not saying I love Washington. I don’t think he deserves a freaking monument (I don’t think any human being deserves a freaking monument, but that’s another issue.). But I don’t despise him the way I do Hamilton, Adams, or Lincoln either.

            I’m open to learning more that would change my mind though.

            As for cops, why not just take the ticket and go to court? Why not take the opportunity to challenge their moral right to do what they do? Is it really even that big a deal? What are the odds of the cop showing up anyway?

            • Agreed, David –

              Washington restrained Hamilton – who wanted to execute the Whiskey Rebels. George pardoned them.

              But, he allowed himself to be misled by Hamilton, who was an obsequious courtier toward Washington very much as Martin Borman was in relation to Hitler (no comparison intended regarding Washington and Hitler beyond this one thing).

              He favored a strong central government and thus threw his lot in with the wrong crowd.

          • My question, for Bevin or Cantwell or anyone else, is “How do you explain the solution to people?”

            I’ve been having political conversations with my father for years, even before I was really a libertarian (although I always had some libertarian-leanings.) He’s watched the process of my thought and if he doesn’t understand it, he should. He’s been exposed to voluntaristic philosophy ever since I’ve been converted to it back in the middle of 2013 (I was a pure, absolute minarchist from Feb 2013-Aug 2013, and have been a near-minarchist since 2012.) Even still he rolls his eyes a little when I make certain statements that wouldn’t even really be controversial among libertarians, things like “I understand some cops mean well, but there’s really no such thing as a good cop.” Or “Taxation is theft” (well, I guess a minarchist would make an exception to that, but they would at least understand it.) I can’t even imagine what his reaction to Cantwell’s comments about cops. I don’t even really want to know. And yet my dad is more libertarian than most other people I know. I have family members that have defended prison sentences for disrespecting cops, and who still think Bush was the best thing ever. How do you even get through to these types of people?

            I don’t know if Cantwell is preaching to the choir or if he’s actually intending to influence non-libertarians with his rhetoric, but I cannot imagine he’s do anything to a non-libertarian by gloating over the deaths of cops other than ticking them off. I understand his reasoning. I really do. I disagree, mostly on religious grounds (I think anytime anyone dies, even if its justified, its a tragedy.) I also draw the line in a little bit different place when it comes to the NAP. But I get his arguments. The reality is that a normal person would not even listen to something like that. Heck, the average idiot on the street thinks that Ron Paul is “extreme”. Even though Ron Paul is always nice, and rarely if ever attacks the hired underlings of the State directly (I’ve never seen Ron say that its wrong to join the military or the police, for instance. I don’t really fault him for this, I’m just saying that Ron is a heck of a lot “softer” than Cantwell and he still gets flack for being extreme.)

            Even speaking for myself, had I been exposed to Cantwell first back in 2010 before I found out about Ron Paul, I don’t know what would have happened.

            That’s not to defend softening the message at all. I just don’t know how education is actually going to work. I made a comment about cops once with my dad and my uncle in the car, a comment that was fairly “soft” compared to anything I’ve heard Cantwell say. Basically, it was something to the effect of “I don’t approve of cops because they have to enforce the law even when its unjustified.” Well, needless to say, my uncle was ticked off, both because he felt like I didn’t have enough life experience to make the statement, and because he had had a good friend who was a cop who had died a few years earlier. Now, of course, I was not claiming that I was happy about the death of his friend (I guess Cantwell would have been *shakes head*), I was trying to educate, and it still ticked him off. I doubt he’s alone. I think most of my family feels similarly about it. Everybody knows somebody. Heck, I do too, and it makes Cantwell mildly annoying to me even though I do “get” his reasoning (and have defended him against other libertarians who have said he was murderous and other over the top criticisms.) How do you get through to people without just ticking them off? Is it even possible? Is someone getting ticked off proof that they just weren’t meant to be free, and shouldn’t be respected?

          • more oarsman than helmsman. maybe the guy banging the drum, “ramming speed!”

            good (washing)ton, bad (hamil)ton, badminton shuttlecocking…..

          • Dear David,

            Re: how to explain why constitutionalism and the rule of law are nothing more than frauds

            Rule One: Avoid higher level concepts, especially Latinate legal concepts.

            Higher level concepts cover too much ground. They enable clovers and sheeple to remain mired in Myth of Authority ooga booga.

            Avoid especially such terms as “sovereignty,” “authority,” “jurisdiction.” These are all part of their paradigm. The moment you use them, you are on their home court.

            Basically, KISS. Keep it simple. The way Larkin Rose does it is exactly right. Use plain language. Underscore the obvious nonsense.

            If terms such as “social contract” or “consent of the governed” find their way into the debate, rebut them using plain language not Latinate legalese. Demand to be shown the alleged “contract.” Demand to know when you consented to be enslaved.

          • @Eric- I think if Bush or Obama were to be dealing with a modern day Whiskey Rebellion, they would just drone them to death. And as you said, Hamilton wanted to kill them. I’m not defending what Washington did at all, there’s no justification for it from a voluntarist POV, but frankly, trying to think of it from a statist perspective, what he did was pretty tame (comparatively speaking.)

            Washington probably supported a “large central government” for HIS day, but his “large central government” is probably absolutely miniscule compared to what we’re dealing with now. I don’t really think of him as a “big government guy” even though he probably was compared to Jefferson or Franklin. But, if we could even get back to Washington’s government, that would be a massive step in the right direction.

            I respect the guy. And not just in a “I respect your ability to use force” way.

            He led one of the only, if not the only, defensive wars in US history.

            He won, despite being hugely outnumbered.

            To the best of my knowledge, he did it without murdering any civilians.

            He had a Ron Paul type foreign policy.

            He has some great quotes about foreign policy (I know anybody can say good stuff, but still.)

            He turned down the option to be king.

            He turned down a third term as President.

            He freed his slaves shortly before his death (Yeah, I know this is kind of lame from modern standards, but its significant back then.)

            I’m not saying Washington was a saint. And again, I don’t think he deserves a freaking monument. Monuments to dead politicians freak me out. But as far as it goes, I respect the guy. If he were alive today, and had a similar perspective that he had back then (ie. he wanted to shrink the government back to what it was when he was in office) I’d definitely support him for office. And I think the stuff that he said is worth considering (note that that does not mean automatically accepting everything he said.) As far as ranking Presidents from least bad to worst, I wouldn’t say Washington was the #1 least bad (I’m undecided between Tyler and Cleveland there) but I’d probably put him in the top 10. Hamilton… by contrast, if he had been President it would have been a nightmare.

            @Bevin- I’m with you on not using legal concepts. The problem is that I don’t think that’s the problem. The problem is that most people have a moral paradigm that says its OK to use aggressive force if you’re part of the State, and that its not OK to defend yourself against the State. Heck, I still wrestle with it emotionally to some extent, and I’m a market anarchist. Its perfectly possible that I haven’t broken completely free of statist tradition yet. I have to think on it some-more. The average person is barely willing to think about it seriously.

            • I’m lukewarm toward Washington.

              To give him his due, he was a superb political general (Arnold was a superb field commander). He – probably alone – kept the squabbling factions focused on the larger goal. But we must keep in mind, as a matter of historic accuracy, that it was the intervention of the French – specifically at Yorktown – that won the American Revolution. Not Washington – who lost virtually every engagement, with the exception of the Christmas raid on the Hessians in Delaware which was of psychologic value but little strategic value. Much as it was the Soviet Union and not the “greatest generation” rah-rah USA! that defeated Nazi Germany.

              Washington’s main sin (so to speak) was his promotion of Hamilton, who rose to the rank of brigadier general solely because of Washington’s refusal to head the Continental army when asked by Adams to return during the French contretemps. And not only that. Hamilton wielded immense de facto power during the Washington presidency, acting as prime minister for all intents and purposes. He guided the policy of the US during this time and – there is evidence for this – acted as an agent of Great Britain during this period. He was extremely hostile toward Jefferson and his ideas; regarded him as a “libertine” and did everything he could to undermine him personally and otherwise.

              And Washington enabled this. Permitted this. He was cuckolded by Hamilton.

              Which is why I am no great fan of his.

          • @David- Why are you trying so hard to do that? Respect their opinions as much as you want them to respect yours and move on to receptive minds in greater numbers.

            As Bevin quoted:
            “The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”

            If we are not all corralled into the future Brave New World techno state first, it will take people asking why and how near end of the fourth turning in 2 -5 years. By then you should be a journeyman in your skills and an experienced resource.

        • Garysco – hard to imagine doing your job, the number of foolish, or worse, people you had to deal with every day. And I’ve worked a lot of customer service and tech support jobs! I bet when you had a situation like Boothe broke down by the side of the road, it was a relief to be talking to a normal joe. Glad you’re here.

          This should make you smile:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PKtGnyGuKM

          • @Horse- I left before the (planned) Homeland Security federal takeover of the nations police agencies (9-11- mission accomplished).

            These days it is scarey for me to see the brainwashing the young ones are exposed to and the embedded chiefs and policy administrators who will do and say anything for that rank, paycheck and retirement. What the street cops don’t know is that those same upper people and agencies will sell them out at the drop of a hat. Then let the front line take the Las Vegas type push back while they take the company car home, hide under their desks and shed crocodile tears for to the media.

      • revo forces. steiger character nails it; rule-proving exception coburn character gets it:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAxJb1v-SnU

        the myth of talent:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K5QvQT13D4

        no clip, so script: the myth of talent myth:

        Losing a race isn’t your problem.

        Front-running isn’t your problem!

        What’s my problem?

        Vanity!

        lnsisting you have no talent
        is the ultimate vanity!

        No talent, no limits.
        lt’s all an act of will, right?

        l couldn’t do it.
        Leave it at that!

        l got news for you!

        All the will
        in the world won’t get…

        …a person in a million to run
        a : mile! That takes talent!

        And talent in a runner is tied
        to specific physical attributes!

        Your heart probably pumps more blood
        than anyone else’s on the planet.

        That’s the fuel for your talent.

        lt’d take a hammer to hurt your bones!
        lt’s the foundation of your talent.

        Your talent is not some
        disembodied act of will.

        lt’s literally in your bones.

        lt has limits.

        Be thankful for your limits.

        They’re as limitless
        as they get in this life.

        Good night.

        Just a minute.

        Bill, just a fucking minute.

        Do you really believe
        you know everything about me?

        Did it ever occur to you
        that l might know…

        …something about myself
        that you don’t?

        You vain…
        …inflexible son of a bitch.

        You don’t know me
        any better than yourself.

        And you’re never
        going to change you, Bill.

        talent’s not a myth. neither is authority.

        social organization is hierarchical. that’s the “bones” of authority. case by case rule proving exceptions can be found, in the tight spots (but it’s gross error to generalize from rare particulars, & gross hope to expect rarity to become commonality). 100% won’t defer to milgram. but most will f-troop all the way to z. & dutifully f you up en route. whatever other myths f-troop does banner will not be countered by this even more mythical attempt to debone them.

        myth-head wwz, or Zihuatanejo?

  9. What the heck anonymous mask icon guy?

    There are thousands of reasons not to use your real name on the internet.

    Here’s a summary of those reasons:

    None of your fucking business, since when is each individual to be allocated only one identity?

    So you wear an anoymous mask, but use your real name. Why? It’s ludicrous. Am I missing something? Anarchist my ass is what comes to my mind. This is painful to write.

    I imagine real life paid authors who use their real name are trying to make money on the internet by doing so. This includes establishing a reputation and being accountable to your potential customers who so far are unknown and not providing revenue.

    Most people are on the internet trying to eat their illusory free lunch in peace, all the while having their every keystroke analyzed by a hundred 100Ghz microprocessors for any remnants of authentic unique humanity to be mercilessly eradicated.

    You late adopters joining the internet are bringing the exact kind of destruction to a freedom space that city folks bring to rural residents.

    If we’re all just going to be only ourselves on the internet, why waste all this money on electricity and computers? Go talk to your neighbors in person.

    It’s not an either or situation. You can be yourself on some sites, and post under a pseudonym on other sites.

    Having a reasonable level of anonymity lets you say things you otherwise would never say. It puts users on a more level playing field. It means ideas get discussed, not personalities. But it also doesn’t put money in anyone’s pocket, so understandably, it’s not the priority.

    How is an identity limit any more legitimate than a speed limit? This is cloveritic idiocracy at its worst. This is further proof anarcho-capitalism is a mirage. The capitalists and site owners will always be made to resort to authority eventually, it’s the most efficient use of their scarce resources. The rent collectors of the internet will leave site owners no choice in the matter.

    This be yourself long con will be the death knell of internet freedom itself. Well played clovers, well played. You finally got them. Libertarians and anarcho-capitalists can be squeezed until they accomplish nothing. Anarchist assholes remain the free man’s only sliver of hope.

  10. WRONG WRONG WRONG. This is all wrong. Oh, you’re gonna get a ticket? Boo-frickin-hoo. Consider it the price of admission for the opportunity to heap scorn and derision on the cop. Think about the price you pay when you get out of the ticket by demure or cordial. You encourage that cop to continue what he does. Being nice and polite to the cop just makes him feel better about being a cop. Treat that cop like the pig he is. He should go home every night feeling bad, wondering if all of the insults and contempt he gets from even law-abiding people have some basis in truth. He should receive so much of it that it contributes to his decision to quit that damn anti-social job.

    • Hi Prime,

      Well, one could say the same about income taxes. I assume you file their damned forms? Play along?

      Is it not the same with regard to roadside tax collection?

      I’d rather not pay – or pay less.

      • These are battles that the individual can’t possibly win. It takes a shift in thinking from masses of people. I’m pessimistic about the chances of that happening in my lifetime. Only time will tell.

      • I assume you file their damned forms?

        Just the one required to get hired.

        Is it not the same with regard to roadside tax collection?

        I wasn’t suggesting one disobey. There are more severe consequences to endure for that. I am saying to not just be not nice, but to speak in an especially nasty way. Follow instructions, but speak your mind as you do.

        • Hi Prime,

          I don’t advocate behaving obsequiously; doing so might provoke the cop as much as being overtly confrontational.

          I do, however, advise being civil, speaking in a calm voice – and not arguing with the cop. It’s pointless as he is not going to concede the law (any law) is ridiculous or unjust, at least not openly. But it’s a good bet he believes that some laws are ridiculous – and if you play your cards right by not being confrontational about it but instead successfully humanize yourself in his eyes, there is a decent chance he’ll drop it and let you go with a verbal warning.

          I’ve been at this game a long time. Just my 50 based on experience.

    • Dear Prime,

      There may have been a time when the cost of a ticket would have enabled one to vent one’s spleen on a LEO.

      But do you really not know that those days are long gone? Skim sites such as Pro Libertate, Cop Block, and Police State USA to see what happens if you fly off the handle. You’re lucky if you don’t wind up dead or in a coma.

      As I noted before, you really have to ask yourself how a Frenchman would respond at a Nazi checkpoint in occupied Vichy France. Would he really give the Nazi soldier a piece of his mind?

      We are dealing with thugs who need little if any excuse to murder you in cold blood. Until libertarians can convert a critical mass and disabuse them of the Myth of Authority, confrontation is likely to amount to suicide.

      Inconsistencies referenced a webpage that is pertinent.

      http://www.christophercantwell.com/2014/06/08/dead-men-dont-start-revolutions/

      Dead Men Don’t Start Revolutions
      by Christopher Cantwell • June 8, 2014

      If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I believe violence will be necessary to bring an end to the State. You know that the violence done by the State, is a far greater crime than any violence a free people could ever hope to do against its agents. You also know that I’m not dead or hiding from murder charges.

      People always ask me “Why don’t you start shooting then?” and no matter how many times I answer, they still think this is some breaker of arguments. The answer is simple, because I can’t do anything for liberty if I’m dead or in prison.

      While force will ultimately have to be met with force, throwing oneself onto the pile of bodies prematurely does absolutely nothing positive for the cause of liberty. When you get yourself killed or captured, you remove from this world a person who was willing to die for their beliefs. You deny mankind the benefit of hearing you speak without fear. If you feel as I do, that life without liberty is not worth living, if you are ready to kill and die for freedom, then what we need you to do is say so. We need you to write, and make videos, and join a community of people who feel that way too. Raise children. Arm yourself, train, prepare. Produce, work, acquire capital. Understand the problem, see the solution, explain it to other people. That’s how you spark a revolution.

      When you… get killed by the enemy, or spend the rest of your life in a cage, all of these things become impossible.

      • see what happens if you fly off the handle.

        You can insult someone while acting calmly.

        ask yourself how a Frenchman would respond at a Nazi checkpoint in occupied Vichy France.

        It’s not to that point just yet. Acting completely subservient will only help to get us there. Resistance needs to go beyond blog posts.

        • Dear “Prime,”

          Like Eric and others contributors to LRC, I use my real name, openly, on the Internet. The PTB can put me on their shit list if they want, and probably already have.

          There may well be hell to pay for my decision. But I consider the price well worth it.

          I encourage you to join us in our struggle, and do the same. Use your real name on the Internet. Do not be afraid of the LEOs. Do not assume you need to hide behind an alias.

          Remember, the more people who dare to openly take a stand, the more persuasive our call to reject the Myth of Authority will become.

          • If the cops want to know the real name of who is using this alias, they’ll find it out without any trouble. The alias is to shield my family from non-govt harassment, and to make ad hominems less likely. I’m not saying anything under this account that I wouldn’t or haven’t said in person.

            • Hi Prime,

              Just so you know: EPautos does not “share” user IDs or info with anyone. We do not “partner” with Goo-guhl or Facespace, either.

              I use my name openly, knowing it’s done me damage professionally to write about the things I’ve written about. It’s not exactly going to the mattresses, but it’s something.

              I try to do what I can!

          • It isn’t necessary for you to share deliberately anything with them. The little icon next to my alias is a Gravatar which is linked to an email address, which is linked to a domain, which is linked to a web host account, which is linked to me. The email address is probably stored in plaintext in a mysql database where the website is hosted, which the fuzz can also be given access too, and probably isn’t too difficult for an outsider to retrieve. And there are likely simpler ways to get the info, too. This will stymie a random person who gets upset at what I say. But it’s not an obstacle for the govt, and it’d be a minor challenge at best for a hacker.

          • There are probably a million people named “David” or “Eric” in this country. If the NSA didn’t already know who was making the posts (which strikes me as unlikely) I don’t think just a first name would help them that much.

            • I’m pretty much a cooked goose, David. We’ll have to arm wrestle to see which of us gets the best bunk at the FEMA camp!

      • Wow, I didn’t think of that. Jared also made himself up like slenderman.

        Slender Man Now Linked to Another Teen Attack and Las Vegas Cop Shootings
        http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/slender-man-now-linked-to-another-teen-attack-and-las-vegas-cop-shootings/

        I consider myself a brutist – the first and most important freedom is to be your unfiltered brute self.
        http://georgeg.liberty.me/2014/06/10/how-to-be-a-libertarian-brutalist/

        Jared was from Indiana. I wonder if he had an unpleasant experience in prison after which he ceased holding law enforcement in the highest esteem and no longer saw cops as heroes who keep him safe?
        http://indianaprisonwatch.blogspot.com/

        The costumed animals in blue experienced a not-unthinkable dose of blow-back. Oftentimes the predator becomes the prey, that’s how nature works.

        I afford Jared the same animal right of retribution that I would accord to any other animal. Technicalities of course can be discussed. Optimality and alternatives can be considered. But in the end, each man has the right to act as he sees fit. And to endure the consequences of those acts as well.

        http://www.reddit.com/r/brutism

        I’m just at the beginning of fleshing out the philosophy of brutism.

        Why isn’t modern man entitled to all the freedoms of the modern world as well as those of our not-so-distant “savage” past? Why wasn’t Jared entitled to “over-react” in self-defense. Did he violate the NAP, or was he merely reacting to the imposition of a territorial monopoly of force he never agreed to be subject to?

        • Tor – I read yesterday that one of the cops, Igor Soldo, was a former prison guard…err….”corrections officer.” I hired a guy to do some work around my place that had spent a good deal of time in Hotel Graybar for a meth violation. He explained the sadistic shit the guards did to them on a routine basis, simply because they could. Anytime I see something like this happen just “out of the blue”, I have to wonder what seeds the victims planted in the past to bring this on themselves. I realize bad things sometimes happen to good people; that’s what the story of Job is all about. But there’s a reason for everything and its usually not the official story.

          As you noted, blowback may very well be the biggest part of the problem; the more oppressive the regime becomes the worse it’s going to get and since cops are the front men for the PTB… And of course the official answer will be more surveillance, more warrantless searches and more restrictions on firearms. We do indeed live in interesting times.

          • Dear Boothe,

            Speaking of blowback, this Larkin Rose video

            provoked one clover to post this comment.

            Cort Chubko
            4 months ago

            VERY DANGEROUSLY THIN ice you are skating on here with this video. 12 reasonable people could EASILY think you advocate killing police officers. Your inflection at certain points in this video clearly demonstrates that. You MAY want to run things past an attorney before you post them so as to CYA. 1st amendment allows what you say and I am all about the Bill of Rights,but this is a DANGEROUS statement to be making over and over again in your video. I would suspect you will get a visit or two or more regarding this video. BE CAREFUL MY BROTHER thats all Im trying to convey to you. 
            Reply
            ·
            7

            I came to Rose’s defense and posted this comment:

            Bevin Chu
            8 hours ago (edited)

            Larkin Rose is 100% correct. Murder is intolerable. One is morally justified, perhaps even morally obligated to prevent one person from murdering another.

            Does this fundamental moral principle change merely because the person who is about to murder another happens to have a shiny badge pinned to his shirt?

            Of course not!!! Murder is murder, no matter who commits it.

            One is morally and ethically justified in shooting and blowing away a cop or any other “law enforcement officer” who is about to commit murder.

            Any person with the guts to do so is a hero. So is any person with the guts to uphold this moral principle and say, “Yes, it is okay to shoot anyone who is about to commit murder. Who gives a damn whether he is a cop or not?”

            This should not even be controversial. The fact that it is, shows just how thoroughly brainwashed We the Sheeple are by the Myth of Authority.

            Does this mean that under this corrupt system we currently endure, there will be no negative consequences from doing so? No, of course not. There probably will be. But that does not mean one was morally wrong to shoot the cop. That merely means that some murderers, those with shiny badges pinned to their shirts, are protected by a corrupt system and can get away with murder.
            Reply
            ·

          • I remember reading comments on the Blaze (Yeah, I know, I should be ashamed, I get it:p) about this video and the sheer stupidity of the comments were, well, stupid. Larken never actually answers the question in the video, he simply provides information for thought. And he is correct. When a cop is about to kill someone other than you, I would say you have a moral obligation to protect that person if you can (I say “other than you” because you could choose to lay down your own life.) Mind you, I freely admit I might be too cowardly to do it in a given situation, but it would be the right thing to do.

            Does that mean you should shoot a cop every time he does anything at all that’s unjustified? No. And Larken wasn’t saying that either. But the stupid idiots hear “shoot cops” when the real question is “when should you shoot a cop.” Big difference.

          • Bevin tell us what our society would be like in Larkin’s case where he says he has the right to kill police if they are doing anything in his mind not right. He believes it is his right to decide if police are wrong and he should then kill them. Bevin that is why we have a court system. So that you as an insane individual should not decide when it is OK to kill police. If you do not like our country then the first step is to leave. Millions of people like the way it is. We like it that when Bevin is stopped for a traffic violation that he does not make the decision that it is wrong to be stopped and therefore he feels he has the right to kill.
            Clover
            Bevin you and Larkin have mental problems that are very dangerous to our society. It is people like Larkin in our society that our police need to be ready for war because in his own words he is ready to start shooting whenever he feels like it.

          • Dear David,

            You understood what Rose was saying. You understood the distinction. So did I.

            Clover though is having comprehension problems. Maybe an elementary school “See Dick Run” edition with illustrations would help?

          • Since we’re on the subject of clovers and their clover control freak mentality, I just finished watching the libertarian oriented film “Still Mine.”

            The characterization of the asshole building department official was dead on.

            The clash over whether the house “met with the building codes” made it abundantly clear that the real agenda of the building department was never “public safety.” It was power and control. All that really concerned the clover control freaks was whether mere mundanes snapped to when they insisted that “The law is the law!”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8xzoo71zDw

          • Bevin the problem with a person with a mental problem is that they believe any story presented to them. Do you ever think for yourself without your brain washing videos and books?

            Clover
            Do you actually think it is a good thing not to have building codes? Would you like it if your entire city burned down because the local builder followed no codes? Stupid people can be spoon fed anything to brain wash them.

          • Dear Gary,

            Right. Interestingly enough, as far gone as “our” goonvermin is, there are actually some pockets of truth.

            For example, if I remember correctly, FBI crime statistics, including gun crimes, have yet to be totally twisted in order to support gun confiscation.

            Quite a few scholars have used FBI crime statistics to prove that “more guns equals less crime.” This was a while back. Don’t know if that has changed since. I would have to double check.

          • Dear Clover,

            You wrote, “Do you actually think it is a good thing not to have building codes? Would you like it if your entire city burned down because the local builder followed no codes? Stupid people can be spoon fed anything to brain wash them.”

            Well, you’re right about the last part. Stupid people can indeed be spoon fed anything to brainwash them. You are living proof of that.

            How many times must libertarians endure your “anything goes” straw man argument? You are a broken record.

            An anarchist society would have no government. That is what the term anarchism means. The “an” means no. The “chism” means government.

            We anarchists do not advocate chaos. We advocate no government. We advocate no government, because government is the source of chaos. We advocate no government, because anarchy leaves people free to establish social order.

            Oh yeah, and by the way, the specifications for building fire prevention used by the goonvermin were drafted by the private sector. The fire protection specifications used by building departments in the US and many countries the world over were drawn up by UL, Underwriters Laboratories, a private industry organization at private sector initiative. No government involved. The standards were so good goonvermin adopted them.

            You didn’t know that did you?

            Like I said clover, you were right about the last part. Stupid people can indeed be spoon fed anything to brainwash them into thinking that without goonvermin there would be chaos instead of peaceful social order. You are living proof of that.

    • felthought that way, first part, comported accordingly, when younger. value is subjective. idealism, however construed, has whatever value it has when an actor feelthinks it does. naivete otoh can be an invisible (to the actor) term in the equation, if it’s not just visible provacateuring.

      that said tho, “the revolution will not be televised” was once fairly popular. if it ever comes to that, “critical mass” will only be “known” in retrospect. which is a valid point some revoadvo(cate)s, whether legit or agent, sometimes toss at other revoadvo’s. the dude abides, walter sobchak brings guns, the stranger narrates…only one spark in that trio.

    • @Prime
      This is good writing, but a good preacher doesn’t shoot the very parishioners he’s trying to convert while standing at the pulpit.

      He also doesn’t take shots at the guy who built the church or the ones responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the church. That’s a sure fire way to make us all street-corner philosophers aka a screaming homeless men nobody will listen to, because our blog hosters decided to get better paying jobs at Jiffy Lube.

      Here’s a rewrite:

      “This is good reference guide for those looking to make the best of bad situation. But it’s not for me. I find the current situation intolerable and I’m guessing some of you do too.

      In that vein, let me offer an alternative: The impractical guide for dealing with cops.

      Oh, one of you estrogen-filled costumed cream puff’s are gonna give me a ticket? Boo-frickin-hoo. I consider it the price of admission for the golden opportunity to heap scorn and derision on one of you overstuffed sacks of glazed doughnuts and mocha-latte girlie coffees…

      I’ve had it up to here with your barnyard squealings about you and your fellow brave boars in blue. I’m looking forward to a graybar vacation. You think I got a purty mouth, well I think you pigs mouths are even purtyer.

      Let’s see just how far that nightstick and flashlight can go, when you twisted soccer Mom anal-cavity searchers have to deal with someone your own size with anger management issues several levels beyond your weightclass…”

  11. Watching this discussion unfold I think I should say something. I’ve learned I can argue with cops and win.

    But it requires certain circumstances and knowing the law better than they do. I’ve done this every time I’ve been pulled over while bicycling and each time I’ve been fine. No it won’t work with typical tickets when driving because the law is set up to make violations out of reasonable behavior, but with bicycling that hasn’t happened yet.

    The cop will get angry. He will try to intimidate, but ultimately if you’ve expressed yourself well it will be clear to him that you are not an easy target, you are willing to argue in court if he tickets you, and he knows he doesn’t know this area of the vehicle code at all.

    So yes, one can argue with a cop. It’s knowing when to argue and knowing how to make it in his best interest to just let it go.

    • Eric_G – That’s too broad a statement. Where I’m from in Virginia, the county is 61% black (it was over 80% black when I was teenager, but “white flight” from the Tri-Cities has diluted the populace). In no small part that’s why I’m “from” there. I received three traffic tickets merely because I was white. All three of them were dismissed because they were bullshit and the judge knew it (and so did the cop). I also had enough friends “of colour” to know that they frequently got a free pass on infractions I wouldn’t have gotten out of.

      One guy in particular was using a couple of minors as “crack mules” and the cops wouldn’t touch him (this was a county of only 6000 people) even though everyone including the sheriff’s dept. knew what was going on. Why? Well he was the sheriff’s wife’s cousin and in the words of one of my friends “if he [the sheriff] bust him, den he won’ be able to go to church, no family reunions or nuthin’.” So even though this cat was using two minors to deal drugs for him, driving around in an Impala with “twennies” on it, “packin” and wore his pants down around his butt “gansta” style, a veritable “profile” poster boy, he was free to do as he pleased. If he’d been white, it would have never flown.

      When the county attorney’s “tenant” got caught with a whole bunch of reefer growing on the rental property, oodles of cash and a small arsenal, do you think they confiscated the “Esquire’s” property? Heck no; they ended up cutting a plea deal, the “state” took the reefer, gave the dude his guns and money back and it all got swept under the rug. Now you don’t suppose the county attorney was involved in that lucrative little enterprise do you? But when various white acquaintances of mine got “popped” over the years for a lot less, it cost them a bunch of money and jail time. Racial prejudice and “profiling” run both ways. It just depends on where you are and who’s in charge at the time.

  12. “Be extra polite to the fucking thief stealing your stuff at gunpoint.”

    Bullshit! This article makes me sick. I go on vacation for a week and come back to this?

    • Don’t know where you’re from, but sounds like it’s Irrational Entitlement City. I’ve been pulled over plenty and whenever I got nailed it was because I took a risk and lost the bet. Never felt abused by local law or the CHP, and acting like a sane, responsible citizen got me off the hook more times than when I got a ticket I deserved. Haven’t had to deal with the law much in 20 years or so, but it seems the same around here still. Where are you? Detroit? or Florida?

      Garysco and JoePA have excellent advice here. Always worked for me and the people I’ve known.
      I should say my friends; knew this one guy who quit school in 8th grade, a customer, who whined about how a judge didn’t give him a break when he whined at her and cussed her out. Idiot. I had to tel him, “When you’re in front of a judge, she has her foot on your neck, and she’s watching to see if you notice. If you don’t notice, you’re dangerous, and she’ll come down on you as hard as she can.” He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese that by some miracle he could understand. You might not like it, but that’s the way it’s always been, and you can play the game to win. Easily.

      I’ve another couple stories to illustrate my point but I guess I’ll save them for now.

      • Ha. True. Next time you meet officer friendly at the the doughnut shop casually ask him how many people he thinks have “talked” themselves into jail. After laughing he will give you a big number.

    • Inconsistencies – I understand how you feel. But If you are rude to people you can’t expect them to do what you want, In a traffic stop you can almost guarantee that the cop will determine that you “need” a ticket if you act like an asshole. At that point you’re going to get pissed and the situation may escalate, the fact that “Officer Friendly” is in the wrong is irrelevant. He not only has a gun, but unlike a common criminal, he has a whole lot of “brothers in arms” that will back him up even if he is wrong; you injure or kill one of them and they will send enough men to hunt you down, collateral damage along the way be damned (witness the bad shit that went down during the Chris Dorner manhunt).

      The point is if you are rude and nasty to a common mugger, armed robber or carjacker, unless you’ve got the drop on him you can expect to get shot, stabbed or beaten. If you do have the upper hand and take him out, you’ll still have to deal with the cops (unless there were no witnesses and now, nearly impossibly, no cameras) and at that point you’d better have put the gun down and do what you’re told. But you probably won’t have to worry about the garden variety thug’s friends and coworkers showing up in your yard in BDUs, helmets, balaclavas and carrying machine guns. But if you go up against a state sanctioned highwayman, even if you prevail at the time, ye shall surely die, because his coworkers will show up in droves and either shoot you down or more likely, burn you to death. Worse yet, they will not only do it with sadistic glee, they will have the approval of their own consciences 9those that have one anyway). I suspect whether you like it or not, you already know all this to be true.

      I don’t care for most cops and diligently avoid any contact with them. But when I have had to deal with them , I have enjoyed great success in avoiding tickets in the past by starting out with “Hello officer, how can I help you?” Then volunteering my full name and address (he’s going to get that information anyway, and now with a laptop in every cruiser if the vehicle is registered to you, he already has it). It gives them the feeling that you are an open book; you have nothing to hide. Remember Sun Tzu’s admonition that “All warfare is based on deception.” Sometimes deception involves appearing to put everything out in plain sight to begin with and then they don’t see any need to look any farther.

      I am just as polite to cop as I am to the janitor and as I am to the CEO. I try my level best to treat everyone the way I want to be treated. I’ve even been polite to a foul mouthed statist Virginia senator who cussed in front of my wife. Before it was over he was so pissed he couldn’t see straight, because he knew my pro-gun arguments were sound. But he couldn’t say I was rude or pushy, merely politely assertive and logical. He had no grounds to have me removed from his office until I had said my peace. The same holds true with a road side stop; I you are nice, it’s very unlikely the situation will escalate.

      If you still receive a citation, get your shit together and take it to court. If you are nice and polite in court, with sound arguments and a little case law, there’s a good possibility the judge will throw the ticket out (I beat three bullshit tickets, two of them for reckless driving in Virginia by having my act together and the necessary evidence with me). I knew the cop was a racist and was merely writing me up both times because I appear to be “European-American.” But arguing with him and calling him a bigot that was out to get honky for perceived injustices of the past would have won me a wood shampoo or extra ventilation. By knowing a little bit of case law I had a judge tell me “I have no choice to but to dismiss this…” and watched that same cop fume both times I did it. He wasn’t going to whip up on the judge for his decision, white or not, I assure you.

      In one case I avoided a ticket when I was towing a mil. surplus trailer with no lights or license on it home through Chesterfield County (a notorious revenue collection zone). When the cop asked me if I knew it was illegal to tow a trailer over the roads of Virginia with no lights or license, I just said “yessir.” He then asked if I actually thought I could tow it all the way home (about another 35 miles) without getting caught, and once again I responded “yessir.” He had to choke back a laugh at this “redneck” in a rusty old Ford dragging a used NBC trailer down Rt. 10 in the middle of the night being so country-fried candid with him.

      He asked me about the trailer, I told him all about it and I gave him the surplus outfit’s business card. After a brief and friendly chat, he not only let me go (with the obligatory stern warning not to do it again) but called ahead and gave me safe passage all the way to the Appomattox river. If I’d been a dick, I’d have gotten a ticket, my trailer would have been towed and impounded (undoubtedly costing me more than I paid for it) and it would have been an all around shitty evening. As it turned out, I not only made it all the way home without incident, but two other Chesterfield cops in a K9 unit leaving a c-store waved to me as I rode by! Deception is the key my friend. I appeared to be an ignorant and harmless redneck in bib overalls who thought he could “get away with it.” I was right. I did get away with it. Why? Because I was nice.

      • The problem I have is this; In your story, he didn’t steal your property, but he DID come away with something; your dignity. He made you put on an act, lower yourself… lie to yourself to appease him. You played his little game the way he wanted you to. You treated this POS criminal lowlife with respect you KNEW he didn’t deserve. You traded your dignity for a trailer.

        In the encounter you described, you gave up something, and he walked away satisfied. How is this a win?

        • Dear IC,

          To quote Bill Clinton, “I feel your pain.” Only I actually mean it.

          When one is a free market anarchist who has seen through the Myth of Authority, one knows that these strangers one doesn’t know from Adam have no right to accost one in the first place. The presumption itself is infuriating.

          They appointed themselves “authoritay.” I never consented to be their tax slave. Where the f**k do they get off telling me what I can or cannot do, unless of course I violated their natural rights first? Which I did not.

          The right and wrong of it is not even in dispute.

          What is at issue is not to enable the enemy to kill you, so that you will be around for the day of reckoning.

          I see the situation as no different from a military occupation of one’s homeland by enemy troops. The fact that they are domestic enemies makes no difference. They are just as despicable. Maybe worse. Definitely worse.

          Say you are a Russian civilian in a Nazi occupied region of Russia? How to you deal with the Nazi checkpoints along Russian roads?

          Do you pick a fight with them when stopped? Or do you bite your tongue and bide your time? Do you wait until the “thousand year reich” collapses after a mere 12 years, and get your payback then?

          Do you know what the Russians did to the Germans once the tide turned and they rolled into German territory as occupiers?

          You don’t want to get mad. You want to get even. To do that, you have to be able to control your emotions.

          • Bevin – You are quite correct in your assessment that the police are essentially an occupying force. They even use insignia of grade such as sergeant, lieutenant, captain and you will even see big city police chiefs wearing stars like a general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Beck). I read that before California became a state, there weren’t enough troops to secure the territory and the “constabulary” was the de facto occupying force. Nothing has changed.

          • Dear Boothe,

            I can hardly claim credit for it of course.

            Every libertarian pundit of any repute has been commenting on the militarization of domestic police forces, and how they see us the same way “the troops” saw the “ragheads” and “camel jockeys” in the Middle East. Kill ’em all. Let God sort them out. Officer safety. That is their attitude.

            They have driven us to the point where we have no choice but to see them as an occupying force with no regard for our lives.

            When I was an elementary school child in the 50s, there was still such a thing as a peace officer. One time I got lost, and two cops gave me a ride home in their cruiser. I had nothing to fear. I was safe. The slogan “To protect and serve” would not become a cruel joke for some time.

            Today, six decades later, all that has changed. Today, all we can do is cope with the oppression as best we can until the SHTF.

          • Bevin – Back in 2008 my wife and I went to Virginia to visit our folks. On the way back, the water pump shelled out in my wife’s Explorer right at Exit 100 on I-64 in Illinois. The little town there, believe it or not, is Mayberry. I was on the phone with AAA when Trooper Roy pulled up and asked if we were alright. I explained the situation to him and he said he’d hang around to make sure we were safe until the wrecker arrived. It was really hot out, and at one point he saw my wife drinking bottled water from the back seat and asked me if we had any ice. I told him no, it had all melted. He drove over to the convenience store and got her a cup of ice. He didn’t have to do that.

            I engaged him about tickets, quotas and his take on highway enforcement. He said the same thing that Trooper Bob in Virginia told me; there was no quota, but they were “encouraged” to write as many tickets as they wanted to. He said he only issued tickets to people who actually “needed” them and went on to explain that was why he was still a patrol officer and had never moved up. No big surprise there. We treated each other as neighbors, compared notes about our career choices and got along famously.

            The wrecker showed up and Trooper Roy bid us farewell. The wrecker guy took us to a small shop just up Hwy 242 in Wayne City. We commented on how nice and friendly everyone was and the folks at the shop said something to the effect of “well you are in Mayberry.” It turned out the local Napa didn’t have the right water pump so one of guys at the shop called a buddy who worked over in Fairfield and asked him to pick one up on his way home from work. In the meantime, we decided to go look for “the” restaurant in town. Up at the corner c-store we saw a town cop and asked him for directions. He said he wasn’t from there, he was from the next town over (Sims I believe), but he knew where the restaurant was and rather than give us directions, he said hop in and he’d take us over there. When my wife got in she commented “I’ve never been in the back seat of a cop car before.” I couldn’t resist and came back with “At least not in the daytime.” This got a good laugh out of the cop and made me glad that screen was between her and me in the front seat!

            He did indeed carry us over to the restaurant and wished us the best. The mechanic’s buddy brought the water pump and they not only installed it, but kept the shop open late to get us back on the road. And they did this for the princely sum, parts, labor and antifreeze included, of $120. I had to insist that the two mechanics take a tip; they were adamant that it wasn’t necessary. But we were even more emphatic that going above and beyond like that deserved some additional compensation, so they finally conceded.

            This is the power of being nice. I was raised to be a gentleman. Now I’m known to fall short from time to time, especially when dealing with people that aren’t nice or honest or compassionate. But overall I try to sow a garden in this life that I’ll be pleased to eat from at harvest time. It is because of that attitude, that when I needed them, two nice cops showed up. Two nice mechanics took good care of me and the shop owner, also a nice guy, made sure we were back on our way that day and didn’t try to rip us off. We were at all of their mercy and the back of that rig was packed with firearms I’d gotten from my dad and we were Missourians stranded in Illinois. How do you imagine it all would have worked out if I’d acted like a jerk and told Trooper Roy to get lost / we didn’t need a damned tax-feeder babysitting us? Or fussed at the mechanic about not having the right part, right there, right then? What comes around goes around (Karma if you prefer) is absolutely true. There still are some nice cops around, that actually will help you when you need them, just as you described from 6 decades ago.

            But folks who think they’re going to save their dignity at the expense of some worthless paper, by initiating the conversation with a cop “Hey motherf@*%er, what the f@%k are you hassling me for?” will not like the produce from that planting. They will lose both their money and their dignity most of the time. I learned a long time ago that if you try to fight your way through life, you will always find yourself in a fight. And that’s no way to live. As Aesop asserted in the fable of the wind and the sun, persuasion is always better than force. And that, my friends, is the very essence of the NAP.

          • Dear Boothe,

            “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
            ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

            I read this quote over 20 years ago, and never forgot it.

            I usually try to practice it. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I try it and it simply doesn’t work. Clover for instance. Eventually I give up on them.

            But usually it’s a good starting point. That’s why even though the odds are against a “Mayberry, RFD” experience such as yours these days, it’s best to be civil — not obsequious, but merely civil — as a starting point, hope for the best, and see where it goes from there.

            It’s a shame that following Goethe’s sage advice has become as difficult as it has.

        • Inconsistencies – He didn’t get my dignity. Quite the contrary, I didn’t put on an act, I told him the truth. I really did believe I could tow that trailer all the way home and get away with it. I did just that and made at least three cops my accomplices. Oh, it’s true that I appeared “poor” and seemed to be a dumb ol’ redneck, but that’s no different than a Ghillie suit; it’s just camo. And the scum of this country might steel your brand new pickup, but nobody would even look twice at that rusted out 77 F-250. But under the hood and down the drive train, that truck was all business. Good camo in that case equaled less taxes, less insurance and more security.

          The same with me; good ol’ country boy, ain’t doin’ nobody no harm camo. Oh I could have let him have a full dose of sovereign man on the land, Title 42 you’re violating my civil rights hot air. But that cop probably wouldn’t have been too receptive to a lesson in Creator Endowed Rights and Constitutional Law now would he? I just did what I do: I was nice, I was honest, I was sincere and I won. Explain to me how that took away my dignity? I really want to know, because I figure getting thrown in the pokey all night with a “celly” called Tyrone the Bone might be seriously detrimental to one’s “dignity” as well as their “health,” if you get my drift.

          • @Boothe – +1000
            WTF is “dignity” between 2 people with no witnesses, when, just maybe, someone is being stupid enough to harm others?

            IC, and even Bevin, who usually has good points, are starting to sound like the Hogan Bros in “Desert Heat” – a guilty pleasure of mine, directed by the guy who did Rocky. Whole thing’s on YT btw.

            I said above I talk to LEOs like neighbors. Which is true. What that implies is that I don’t necessarily agree, I don’t know them that well, things will go better if we give each other respect. IC isn’t sounding like a good neighbor here.

            Boothe gets it.

          • Boothe, Horse, I couldn’t have said it better. I am a country boy and don’t have to fake it. I don’t ever(well, almost) get in anybody’s face since it will only have a negative effect and that’s magnified when dealing with the law. I’ve bullshitted my way out of countless overweight tickets in my life and a few speeding ones too. I climb out and act like I practically know the guy who stopped me and have often found out I did know some of his family or friends(it’s a very small world). Once he’s at ease, we both are for the most part.

            Unfortunately, a Texan(license plates)in the east is fair game since every state there seems to have a hard-on for Texas for reasons I never quite understood. The first time I was ever robbed at gunpoint was by a S. Carolina trooper….and so it goes. I was headed down I-20 with a truck the DOT could have written tickets on for an hour last Friday and noticed all the different state plates and wondered how it would play out if Tx. troopers treated every other state’s vehicles like ours get in the east. I won’t say it doesn’t happen but it’s mainly confined to cops and not DPS.

            Anyway, confrontation is always the least productive way to get anything done until all other means are exhausted.

            Horse, BTW, Smudge says hello. She’s all grown up and long and slender and a real little bitch to the other cats she deems as inferior. Guess I spoiled her. I’d send a photo if I could since she’s no longer a smudge but the most colorful, strangely marked animal you’d want to see.

          • @8South – Thanks for the Smudge update! That made me smile and laugh out loud =). I’ve been scarce around here since the first of the year, good to here that she’s thriving, (with attitude.)

            We’ve been adopted here by a stray who was hanging out down by the golf course. I’d guess he was about a year old when he showed up. Beautiful cat, greyish tiger stripe long hair. We named him Squeak, since he still talks like a kitten. His hobby is dashing full speed through the house when the mood takes him, sounds like an elephant. He spends a lot of time outdoors, patrolling his territory, and when he comes in it’s usually more for company than food & water – he likes a little lap time and a tummy rub.
            If you’re signed up for the forum here, you can post pics there.
            Best wishes & hope this fall’s predicted El Nino brings some drought relief to us both.

          • Horse, we just had an inch of rain and some nice, cools days although it’s over for at least a few days. I have looked at the NOAA Pacific site till I’m sick of it trying to figure out if we’ll get El Nino. We need it badly. I’ll look into posting a pic of Smudge(r), that’s what I call her, in a voice she knows is her call. She squeaks and tells me all about it some times. I’m not often home these days but enjoy a cool, rainy day like the past two immensely. It ain’t often in west Tx. you get days like this and I just suck them up.

            I recently had a T 800 KW nearly kill me with CO2 poisoning so I’m really glad to be here. I took a high speed (unknown for the most part to me)trip to a large town with excellent medical facilities where they brought me back from my visit with my dead relatives. The hyperbaric specialist and poisonous gases specialist said I was the worst case they’d ever seen.

            If anyone ever volunteers to speed you someplace in a GM pickup with a Duramax drivetrain, take them up on it. I never realized at 30mph if they stomped on it the rear tires would break loose but that’s the way they run. I’ve had hot cars that wouldn’t suck their exhaust.

        • Morning, Inconsistencies!

          Bevin posted a reply that I think responds effectively to your criticism of Boothe (and me). I agree it’s galling to feign respect, to be polite to these costumed creeps. But there is a time – and a place – for everything. And I don’t agree with you that one’s dignity is sacrificed by playing cat and mouse with an opponent who holds all the cards at that moment. Groveling, saying “yes, sir” – and all that – yeah, that’s degrading. But maintaining an even tone/being plausibly civil – that’s not quite the same thing.

          Is it?

          • Eric – Being raised in rural Virginia by civilized folks, I was taught to see “Yes sir” and “No sir”, “Yes ma’am” and “No ma’am” to everyone as common courtesy. I will even use “sir” and “ma’am” when dealing with my neighbors’ children to set the example for them. I correct them when they call me Boothe and make them call me Mr. Boothe. We say “please” and “thank you” too. I try to treat everyone as ladies and gentleman until they prove otherwise; I don’t care if they are in a pressed uniform with spit shined shoes or a tie dyed tee shirt with dreads, I initiate contact with courtesy and respect. If they decide to deviate from that course then it’s their fault not mine.

            If we were reasonably well assured that more often than not when two folks met, they were both well armed, we would have a much more polite society than we do now. I think that is the crux of the problem with clover and gil; they both want to act like jerks and be able to push other people around with impunity. They fear the consequences they might receive when others around them possess equal or superior force to their own. Clover in particular keys in on “some people” (i.e. him) having anger management issues so they shouldn’t have a gun. So, as you so aptly put it, he “projects” this character defect on the rest of us. But boy it sure seems to get his goat when you point out that the 2nd Amendment is the law of the land, doesn’t it? If we were face to face he’d be shrieking and sputtering “We’re gonna change that!!! Just you wait and see!!! We’ll show you!!!” I’d pay fifty cents to see that sideshow I’m here to tell ya’. 😉

          • I too enjoyed Bevin’s response. Very good.

            “What is at issue is not to enable the enemy to kill you, so that you will be around for the day of reckoning. ”

            Some good advice and differing viewpoints that I can learn from in all of the responses to my initial outburst!

          • Dear Eric, IC,

            Eric wrote:

            “But maintaining an even tone/being plausibly civil – that’s not quite the same thing. ”

            I think he’s right. Plus, in the increasing rare event the guy turns out to be the one in a million peace officer instead of LEO, you don’t want to be the one who caused all hell to break loose.

            The peace officer/clover LEO ratio is much lower than it used to be when I was a youth. But given the odds stacked against you, you don’t want to be the one who provokes an incident with occupation forces at a checkpoint.

          • WRT the Cantwell links, I’m mostly with Larken Rose on this issue. Which is to say that it is legitimate under the NAP to use deadly force to protect yourself from a cop (though I would say it is not always right… you have the right to kill the cop to stop him from pulling you over and stealing a hundred bucks through a ticket, but that would not be morally right) but it is not legitimate to kill a cop just because he’s a cop.

            Libertarianism is an individual ideology, it deals with the actions of individuals. Simply being a cop is not a crime. Mind you, in practice its impossible that any cop can have his position without violating the NAP, so its not OK to be a cop. You still can’t target people based on their profession. You have to have some proof that they are either threatening you with violence, or that they have already committed violence to a level where the death penalty would be a proportionate response (I don’t know exactly where that line is, but I think proportionaity as a principle gives us a fairly broad degree of knowledge even before we start trying to draw lines. It qualifies as proportionate to execute someone for beating someone to death. Its not proportionate to execute someone for pulling people over and demanding they pay hundred dollar fines to the government, even though this action is still criminal.)

            With that being said, I think Bourque was justified, but that the Millers were not (and that’s not just because of the non-cop they killed.) Bourque defended himself from aggression. He was carrying a rifle, and some cops tried to use physical violence against him for that. So he defended himself. I’m not sure that it was right, but it was certainly his right. It wasn’t murder, it was self-defense. And frankly, I’m sympathetic. I hope mass disarmament doesn’t happen in this country without a fight, and if people who try to disarm other people are shot while they are making the attempt, well, that’s justice.

            By contrast, the cops at Cici’s Pizza were eating lunch. Theoretically, they could just have been hired, and not committed any crimes yet. More likely they committed some crimes, but we don’t know which ones, it may have been just thefts and we certainly don’t know that they murdered anyone. Now, if these were, say, the specific cops who beat Kelly Thomas to death, we could justify the Miller’s actions. But unless it could be proven that these cops had committed a capital crime, shooting them in the back of the head is completely unjustified. Its not justified just because they chose to work for the State, as wrong as that is.

            I see a big difference between the two incidents.

    • @Inconsistencies – I see you point. But think about this. In a war you have the “right” to kill the enemy. How would you plan to go about it, smartly or stupidly?

  13. I don’t want to leap to too many generalizations on a complex issue.

    But here are some thoughts that I consider relevant.

    Basically freedom lovers need to think of today’s Amerika as an occupied country. It has been occupied by “enemies not foreign, but rather domestic.”

    So how does one survive when one’s country is occupied by enemy troops? Does one confront them at checkpoints, such that ensuing escalation leaves one dead or in a coma? Does one add one’s name to the list of victims?

    Or does one find other ways to organize a resistance movement in order to eventually overthrow it?

    I say the answer is the latter. One must fight. But one must learn to fight smart.

    • If you want to win this stupid war dont waste your time fighting the front line people. Bring the fight to the political class who are pulling the strings, voting still has “some” resolve.

      • if you want your life to be consumed by war, keep your dichotomy up. “win/lose”.

        stay priapic, my friends. (seems like something the most interesting man in the world would say. & do. but not to make war.)

  14. After giving out thousands of tickets over the years here is my advice.
    1. dont argue the ticket….. you are wasting your time.
    2. never admit to anything because he is writing down everything you say.
    3. if it involves a traffic control device, file a complaint with the highway agency concerned about their “faulty” device and ask for an “official” copy of your complaint and bring that to the DMV hearing 🙂
    4. be polite……. as many times a car is pulled over for “reasons” and the officer is not looking to give a ticket. We called this “hunting”.
    5. know your rights! reminding an officer who is a person capable of human mistakes is not out of line….do it as you would like it done to you….polite.
    6. remember one last thing…..its just a stupid f*cking ticket and meaningless in your life. people who lose their license generally have been issued a dozen tickets and have earned their demise.

  15. Just hope you don’t run a cop(s) that forgot to read the constitution and the bill of rights and don’t even seem to know basic law. My dad had a run in with two of those back in the 1980’s (not a traffic stop though) . By the time the dust settled, three cops lost their badges (those two cops and their chief) and the taxpayers were out $2.3 million in legal fees. Cops doing illegal things are a huge liability to their department and the saps (taxpayers) who get stuck with the bill.

    • Hi Rich,

      While that’s still true, it appears to be less true than it used to be. Cops in general seem less hesitant to abuse the Constitution today than at any time I can recall. Probably because the Bill of Rights has been openly shredded and held in contempt by the government at all levels. Our right to be free from unreasonable searches absent probable cause, for instance, has been effectively nullified.

      But, the wheel turns – and what comes around, goes around….

    • Seems to me to depend on where you are, the local culture. Down in Orange County, CA in the 80’s, it was common knowledge that the cops were public funded private security for the wealthy. Don’t stick your head up, don’t drive a custom painted deadhead VW van with a bunch of tie-dyed “terrorists” in it, just go to work, shop, go home, conform. The Citroen was an outlier in this scenario, “Who’s that driving the spaceship? Careful, he might be some rich fool.” Being genial and cooperative, and taking showers now & then, dressing like I wasn’t homeless,… seemed to put them at ease. I understand that other parts of the country are different, where a rich fool might be seen as a prey item if the force and the judges are aligned, and stupid greedy. Then again, last place I lived was 20 min from Sacramento, 40% of the town was ESL or only spoke spanish. A cop there never knew if the next asshole was going to be a high speed chase in a stolen car with an armed drunk or meth’d perp who almost graduated from 3rd grade, who had no problem shooting cops. Yeah, we have towns like that.

  16. I’ve never understood people who give attitude to traffic cops, it makes no sense. In that situation, my aim is always to get back on my way with as little trouble as possible – I cooperate, and talk to the officer like he was a neighbor.
    Only time I ever messed with a cop was once going through an intersection on a yellow light, turned red when I was halfway though – in CA, I still had right of way, perfectly legal. I saw the cop on the cross street, turning the corner at the bottom of a small hill – no way he was in view of me when I entered the intersection, but sure enough he came barreling after me and turned on his lights.
    (This was in my Citroen DS: tellin’ ya, that thing was a cop magnet – never had a charge stick though.) I pulled over immediately, which happened to be in the bike lane on a bridge – no room to come to the passenger side window, he had to stand almost out in the 45mph traffic. Boy was he pissed about that. I had things on my mind and knew I hadn’t broken the law, so I didn’t care.
    In court, I came prepared with a map & diagrams to show the impossibility of his witnessing when I entered the intersection. The judge dropped the charge, but then I went into the next room to talk to a prosecutor, who informed me that I still had to pay an $80 “administration fee.” I was a starving student at the time, couldn’t afford this, asked him why I had to pay anything when I hadn’t broken the law?!? He burbled out some well-practiced excuse. I looked down and said, “Sheesh, this is like something out of Kafka.” He looked at me for a couple seconds, picked up his papers & tapped them on the table, then said, “In the interest of justice, (blah blah blah, etc., etc., ) … I find reason to waive this fee in your case. Have a nice day.” Whew.

    My favorite time was getting pulled over for what might have been a rolling stop at a stop sign. (Citroen magnet strikes again.) The officer came up,informed me of his suspicions – then he looks at my license and frowns, he squints at it like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
    “Is this your current address?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Hmph… Jesus, you live right next door to me!”
    Hands the license back, “So OK, just don”t do it again. You’re free to go.”
    =)

    • Your experience with the “administration fee” reminds me of this scene from Brazil:

      Helpmann goes. A GUARD helps him out and then returns with
      ANOTHER to help put the restraining bag over Sam.

      GUARD
      Don’t fight it, son… confess
      quickly… Before they get into
      the expensive procedures. If you
      hold out too long you could
      jeopardise your credit rating.

      The bag blacks everything out.

      This is near the end of the film, after Sam turns rouge, and prior to Sam’s meeting with “information retrieval” which is basic torture on a bureaucratic scale. In the logic of the state, you are charged a fee for this “service” and so not only can you be psychologically and/or physically scarred, you could be bankrupted as well.

      If you haven’t seen it, highly recommended viewing and holds up surprisingly well for film from 1985.

      • Thx for the tip, great scene – and boy, did he ever get the worst parts of the next 30 years right. Saw it in the theater the first week it was released, and many times since on VHS and dvd; definitely on my all time top 5 favorite films.

      • Thx for the tip, great scene – and boy, did he ever get the worst parts of the next 30 years right. Saw it in the theater the first week it was released, and many times since on VHS and dvd; definitely on my all time top 5 list of favorite films.

      • @Eric – It was prophetic.

        Officers in Luna county, NM x-ray and anally probed a traffic stop subject several times at a hospital looking for non-existent drugs. Then sent him the bill

        Victims of stray police bullets in Times Square were told by NYPD it was the suspect’s fault, not their incompetence.

  17. Read ‘You and The Police” by Boston T. Party
    http://javelinpress.com/you_and_the_police.html

    Lots of great advice from someone who drives a lot, and admits to having a “lead foot.”

    I just got home from a 300 mile round trip to the southern part of the state. Saw exactly one police car, and that was in Guernsey. He didn’t even look at me.

    Feel bad for all you folks stuck with hot and cold running cops… 🙁

  18. the police state is at war with the populace so some wise quotes are in order.

    “All warfare is based on deception.”
    “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
    “Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
    “When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.”
    “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
    “So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”
    ~The Art of War: bySun Tzu

  19. Really good article here, Eric. There is so much on the internet about this subject, almost all of it about standing up for your “4th amendment rights,” note the quotes since they do not exist anymore.

    I’ve gotten out of at least half a dozen tickets by doing just as you advise. There’s zero shame in playing it smart. As some wag says, “Smile and be polite. And have a plan to kill everyone in the room.” Strategy is more important than tactics right up to the point that tactics take over and implement an effective strategy.

    • Thanks, DR!

      Like you, I’ve “been there/done that” – and found it’s wise to not fight battles you can’t win.

      • Like you said, the cop has already decided to write you up or not by the time he’s walking towards your car. Everything after that is just him collecting evidence and doing paperwork. When he gets done with you, he’s going to make notes on the back of the ticket form so that he can repeat them back in front of the judge.

        The place to dispute your ticket is in court. If it’s minor, look for the DA or magistrate out in the hall and cut a deal. “I haven’t had a moving violation in x years. Can we drop this to a warning and lighten your caseload today?” (be truthful!)

        If it’s major (you sped past the School for the Blind bus with it’s lights blinking and the students were getting off, while drinking a margarita), time to pay a lawyer. And think on the nature of personal responsibility.

        • Actually the approach I take is to make maximum use of their own rules against them. I’ve even kept parking tickets going in the courts for months at a time over several court appearances, demanding continunces, discovery items, etc. I don’t get tickets very often, but when it happens I deliberately make myself as much of a pain in the ass as possible using their own rule book. (Though if facing something really serious such as DUI or a drug war charge you’ll obviously want to secure an attorney rather than having fun in the courtroom.)

    • Our current education system and younger parents have let the children down. No more formal education, just IPad training.

      The Spider and The Fly: A Fable
      by Mary Howitt

      “Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;
      “‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.
      The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
      And I have many pretty things to show when you are there.”
      “O no, no,” said the little fly, “To ask me is in vain,
      For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”

      “I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
      Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the spider to the fly.
      “There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin,
      And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in.”
      “O no, no,” said the little fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,
      They NEVER, NEVER WAKE again, who sleep upon YOUR bed.”

      Said the cunning spider to the fly, “Dear friend, what shall I do,
      To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
      I have within my pantry good store of all that’s nice;
      I’m sure you’re very welcome; will you please to take a slice?
      “O no, no,” said the little fly, “kind sir, that cannot be;
      I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.”

      “Sweet creature!” said the spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise,
      How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
      I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf,
      If you’ll step in one moment dear, you shall behold yourself.”
      I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,
      And bidding you good-morning NOW, I’ll call ANOTHER day.”

      The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
      For well he knew the silly fly would soon be back again:
      So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
      And set his table ready to dine upon the fly.
      Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
      “Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing:
      Your robes are green and purple; there’s a crest upon your head;
      Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead.”

      Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,
      Hearing his wily flattering words, came slowly flitting by.
      With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
      Thinking only of her crested head – POOR FOOLISH THING! At last,
      Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.
      He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
      Within his little parlor; but she ne’er came out again!

      And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
      To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed;
      Unto an evil counselor close heart, and ear, and eye,
      And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.

  20. Also, Today was a Very sad day. I had to turn on the front porch light to shoo off some teenagers who were hanging out in front of my neighbors very darkly lit house while talking loudly, laughing loudly, and banging on things at 11 P.M.

    They drove away.

    Now they might encounter the uber-cop?

    I half-feel bad about it.

    …But it’s Not like I could go out and join them.

    Getting old’s such a Drag!

    And, 5 A.M. comes quick.

    The hoot-owls and the train horns hoot and honk as always.

    Er’, I mean: And The Beat goes on.

    HA! Suddenly I’m reminded of eric’s tale of turning on the tractor and aiming the headlights at his neighbors.

    It’s a frickin’ rite of passage?

    …,CeRap, they’re back.

    What to do, wHAt to do?

    And I’m fresh out of dead carp to toss their way.

    One thing’s For Sure, No Way am I calling da cops.

    • So I slid the rack (not knowing what to expect or who they were) and went out and talked to them.
      Talk about Old meets young.
      When did twenty year olds start to look like 12 yr olds?
      They actually turned down the music when I explained things to them (that it was keeping me up) I even got them to say they would ‘check out’ my LewRockwell.com bumper sticker… after they said they liked my truck.

      When I told them I wanted them to turn down the radio, I told them it made me feel soo Old to ask that. They laughed and said, “You’re Never too old to have fun” Ha! I told them, there comes a point when you are, so live it up now.

      …It’s quiet now.

      No need for ‘Range Wars’, Clover.

      Just another day in flyover country.

      I feel Much better about them now.
      It’s Not like I was Never just like them.

      Which makes me wonder, are most ClovEr’s of the world so bitter and so clinging to gooberment because they are Fun-Sucking “Forty Year Old Virgins’?

      The film

      • @Helot – It really is mostly about attitude, and our reactions to to it. Yesterday I stopped by Bass Pro Shops on my way home on my bike. Not busy at all by the look of it, so I backed the bike into the curb at the end of their 300 foot long loading lane in front of the store. As I was taking my helmet off a 90 year old dead ringer for one of the ZZ Top players sporting a pony tail to go with the 3 foot beard walks by me on his way in and tells me I can’t park there. Friggin’ clover runs through my brain, but “I am loading” came out of my mouth.
        P.S. – Bass Pro either didn’t care or forgot to post the “loading lane” with any signage to prohibit anyone from parking there, just some white stripes on the blacktop.

  21. *True Story*

    Me and a friend passing through DUI checkpoint.

    Cop: How you guys doing tonight?
    Us: Not too bad.
    Cop: You guys just get out of the movie?
    Us: Yes.
    Cop: What’d you see?
    Us: (I forget what we saw)
    Cop: How was it?
    Us: Pretty good.
    Cop: You guys have anything to drink while you were in there?
    Us: No.
    Cop: Why not?
    Us: …………………………………..(Because it’s illegal?!?)

    Was interesting, and kinda funny looking back.

  22. I’ve never had a problem simply telling the cop that I will not give him or her any information beyond the required paperwork. (This is done with a passive, not an aggressive, demeanor.) If there are any objections, the question “can anything that I say be used against me in a court of law?” quickly dispels them. If a ticket is the result then the place to fight it is in court, not at the curbside.

    http://www.donttalktocops.com/

  23. Good topic Eric. Never roll down the window just a bit and loudly say “what the fu#k did you pull me over for?” Yes people do that. And never argue your case with him on the side of the road.

    His mind is mostly made up when the red light comes on if he is going to write you up or give a warning. Your goal is to gather evidence for your case in court and to make him forget he ever met you. Just fighting the ticket is a 50% chance he will not show up and you win. The rest of the legal tactics for ticket defense are already posted online.

    • Garysco wrote, “Never roll down the window just a bit and…”

      Stopping right there for a second, the whole article seems to be quite the opposite from an earlier one about just that, rolling the window down just a bit, and that’s it.

      I guess the key phrase in this article is, “What if you don’t want the ticket?”?

      I also guess this means we’re not throwing our license plates in the trash this Summer?

      Would that really achieve anything anyway?
      ‘Cept maybe, to get a ticket?

      Myself, just today I was thinking, as I saw the twentieth cop of the day, the one right after the speed laser van, that when they Do manage to catch me going faster than some arbitrary number they drew out of a hat to determine the speed limit, when I roll down the window just a bit, I might calmly reply to the question, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” with an answer I saw here somewhere: “Is this about money?”

      • @Helot – LOL. I would let you off with a warning for that one.

        Remember, there is always paper plates from Chuy’s used car lot. Or, what! someone stole my plates?”

      • It’s about being all smiles when you serve massa his dinner … after you added the “special sauce” in the kitchen.

        • Unfortunately, it’s hard to make it EXTRA-special (poison) sauce. It would be awesome to be able to gas the SOBs, though. 🙂
          Maybe slip arsenic onto their powdered donuts….
          Give them Ethylene glycol as “sweetener”…

          That sort of thing.

          By the road, only option is lead poisoning.
          That will end badly for us, unless we have an “alibi” and they have poor video…

        • CloverYes Eric and then there is Dom. He recorded a video of himself at a safety check stop and he acted like a true jerk. If you want to know why some cops have a problem with some people then go back and look at Dom’s video. If there are any larger jerks than he is then the world is in a bad place. If you want to let people like Dom out to enforce his own rules our world is in trouble. At least a bad policeman you can get him fired for acting poorly. If there are no controls for people like Dom then your system would never work. I already knew that but it is something you might want to think about with your anything goes society.

          • The ignorant says, “At least a bad policeman you can get him fired for acting poorly.”

            Ha! That’s fucking funny.

            It’s too bad that far too many people think that is a true statement. …It’s Not.

            It’s even worse, ” If there are no controls for people like Dom”

            Idiots and ignoramuses, er’ imbeciles think the key to peace is controls on everyone else but them and the cops who rule them.

            I mean, if you’ve ever known anyone who has relatives or friends who are cops, they’re all about how to get you out of this, that, or the other ticket, or to get you off the hook. It’s a freaking caste system… which is contrary to my notion of how America is supposed to run. … I don’t know about you, is that how things are supposed to work?

            Ya. One Half of America thinks people should be free.
            The other half thinks people should be controlled.

            No wonder I see articles saying … Ahh what’s the point?
            Yeesh. We should just have an overlord appointed to every person from birth like they do in the UK, and everything that is not permitted is forbidden.

            It’s the feaking Clover Way! Embrace it!
            Love your overlord!

          • “Safety” check.

            How many times, Clover?

            The bottom line is you’re simply contemptuous of the idea that people who’ve done nothing and given no reason to suspect they might have done something ought to be able to go about their business without being forced at gunpoint to submit to an arrest/interrogation. For “safety.”

            And yes, Clover – those words are precisely accurate. Your are forced to stop and detained by the threat of violence. This is an arrest. The duration of the arrest is immaterial. The fact is, you’re compelled to stop and – for however long – under the total control of an armed goon who will use his arms (his gun) if you “resist.” Fact. You are then subjected to a search and interrogation. However cursory, it remains a fact that you are searched and interrogated.

            Your (loathsome, vile) opinion is that this is acceptable – to stop/detain/search/interrogate people arbitrarily and randomly – because you believe it “keeps you safe.”

            But you’re too dim to grasp that, having ceded to armed men the authority to keep you “safe,” you’ve surrendered to them unlimited in principle authority to forcibly interfere not just with the lives of others in certain areas (areas you deem “ok” or “justified”) but with everyone’s life in every area. Even now – with the state involving itself in the minutia of people’s lives – you still can’t (or won’t) see it.

            Or, you like it.

            It will come to blows, Clover.

            Not because we’re violent. But because you insist upon violence.

          • Eric again you say there is aggressive violence by our government and police. Eric if I have not seen it and 100s of millions of other people in our country have not seen it then where is it? Was it done to your friends in jail that were the first to act aggressive? When are you inviting them into your house?Clover

            Eric when is it going to happen to me and why? If Dom acted any worse by taking a swing at the cop then I think aggressive violence toward Dom would have been called for. If someone like Dom wants to in your words not act ethically then you get what you ask for right?

            • Clover, you don’t see the violence of the government (not “ours,” don’t presume to speak for me) because you obey. Gladly. You don’t object to paying property taxes, so you pay them. And because you pay them, armed men do not come to seize your property and cart you off to prison.

              Ergo, there is no violence.

              Your reasoning is of a piece with the reasoning of the person who avoids a beating (or worse) at the hands of a street thug by handing over the money. Only you approve of handing over the money and therefore don’t consider the armed thug to be a thug. He is – as you see it – merely doing his job, collecting your “fair share” of tributum. He, accordingly, need not overtly threaten you (though that threat is always there, nonetheless).

              Likewise, you do not see any violence in such things as being stopped at a checkpoint. You are happy to stop. It does not bother you. No violence is involved – from your point of view – because it is not necessary.

              Because you are happy to submit & obey.

              I, on the other hand, only submit & obey under duress. I am acutely aware of the certain violence that will result if I do not submit & obey.

              This violence is pervasive, omnipresent.

              You and your won’t leave me alone – even though I leave you alone. I force you to do . . . nothing. I extract no money from you at gunpoint, nor seek to do so.

              Why is it you won’t extend this same courtesy to me in return?

              Do you really believe you have the right to assault me? To take my property? To dictate to me (and other adults) how we are to live?

              You’re a piece of work, Clover.

          • Dear Eric,

            Clover insists that he hasn’t seen the violations of his person by the PTB.

            He might be telling the truth.

            Given his bent over posture it is entirely possible he did not actually see any of the violence being done to him.

          • Eric if you do not pay your taxes there is usually a tax sale. Someone pays your taxes for you and they take ownership of the property. If you do not leave when you are told to then you are trespassing on another person’s property. If they ask for police to help to get you off of their property then that is their option in our society. I know, you would prefer them to use their own gun to shoot you down and not to have any police involved.
            Clover
            Again if you want to move into an area that has property taxes and you refuse to pay property taxes then it is your fault for buying it. Some areas in our country do not have property taxes. Move there.

            At first you say that aggressive violence and gun pointing is done to you if you do not pay property taxes. Eric that is far different than a policeman with a gun not drawn coming to your house and telling you to leave. He would be a stupid idiot wouldn’t he if he came to your house and was not carrying when idiots like you would pull a gun on a policeman if he came to your house. If it is aggressive violence and gun pointing to have a gun on you then all of your friends that are now carrying in public are practicing aggressive violence in your statements.Clover

            • Pay “your” taxes, Clover? Perhaps they are yours. They’re certainly not mine.

              Just because some entity decrees that I “owe” them money does not mean I have incurred a debt I’m ethically obligated to pay. The mafia tells people it “owes” money, too. Your mental block is an inability to comprehend that government is a mafia – when it does other than act to protect people’s rights. And taking other people’s things is not right.

              If I agree – voluntarily, not under duress – to pay you a sum in exchange for your services or some product or thing you provide to me, accept those services (or take possession of the product, etc.) and then refuse to pay you, then (and only then) have I wronged you.

              But you and those who share your thieving ways wrong me when you decree I “owe” money for things I neither asked for nor use – and then threaten me with violence unless I pay up.

              To reiterate: You live by violence. Rationalize it, euphemize it, shuck and jive it all the live long day. At the end of the day, you support – you demand that – violence be done to people who’ve not harmed you, haven’t taken your things, who just want to be left in peace. People who believe strongly in taking care of themselves and their legitimate dependents. But who do not accept your sick (because violent) idea that they are somehow obligated to take care of random strangers, provide them material benefits at the expense of their own security and that of their own family – with cretins such as you taking their cut as middle men or via some other form of rent-seeking.

              Admit it, Clover. You “work” for (or once “worked” for) the government. I’ll publicly apologize if I am wrong about this. But I am certain I’m right.

              Your belligerence toward people who want nothing more than to be left alone is – I have found – the defining characteristic of a tax feeder.

          • Eric – As usual, Clover “hasn’t seen it” because he refuses to look at it. Since Clover obviously has Internet access, has at least briefly viewed some of the links we’ve provided and can type in the URL for YouTube this is willful ignorance combined with delusions. Here you go Clover: here’s a picture of some citizens of a modern, technologically advanced country that submitted to and obeyed the authorities, right up to the very end:

            http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qrdyOdsaV6I/Tx_69HrvxCI/AAAAAAAALNM/M9dE3Gr9suI/s1600/nazifiringsquad.jpg

            I’ll bet a lot of them thought it couldn’t happen there either. In fact some of them were most likely in denial right up until the bullet hit their brain. Like I’ve written before, I hope YOU get all the government you want and deserve; and then some.

          • Boothe, to Clover and those like it, the people the government points guns at deserve it. They can see all the police brutality stories, the government brutality, and they will just come up with how the victim was not submissive enough or not a good enough person or whatever and thus deserved it.

            Since they are obedient and submissive this can never happen to them. The people who rule the USA aren’t like those people who rule other countries…lol.

          • @Eric – Looks like at least one other person shares your view. 🙂

            “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
            ― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

            • Yup!

              Heinlein is one of my favorite authors. A superb prose stylist who also made his sci-fi scenarios seem technically plausible. His plots were never as layered and subtle as Philip K. Dick’s (whose characters are also more memorable, developed and “human”) but the guy was still one hell of a story teller. The fact that he was also profoundly anti-authoritarian also resonates with me.

          • Eric says : Clover, you don’t see the violence of the government (not “ours,” don’t presume to speak for me) because you obey. Gladly. You don’t object to paying property taxes, so you pay them. And because you pay them, armed men do not come to seize your property and cart you off to prison.

            Ergo, there is no violence.

            Yes Eric I do not have any violence towards me because I knew up front what the tax rates were charged when I bought each piece of property that I have owned. Tell me Eric are you too stupid when you buy things? How about the vehicle that you buy or others buy? If there is a tax when you purchase it do you just take it off the lot and refuse to pay anything? Do you walk out of a grocery store with a loaf of bread without paying? Are all libertarians so stupid and selfish brats. I say again Eric, go start your own community in the wide open areas of Alaska and you will not have to pay any or very little taxes. When you think Eric has the right to steal from others and not be touched I would call you an idiot. Again you bring up volunteering and donating. Is that even in a libertarians vocabulary? Libertarians are selfish brats and everything for themselves and they refuse to pay for things that they use.Clover
            You can complain all you want but you are not going to change property taxes in your area. I know you want to have a revolt with guns and a fight out with the government. That sounds like you are worse than any government official I have ever met. That sounds like you are the person looking to start aggressive violence.
            Like you said, I will never have it happen to me because I am not stupid. Eric I like the roads that we have that are paid for partially out of property taxes, I like the fire department that I have because of the property taxes. I like the schools that we have so that I am not living in a third world society. I like to have the library available to me and others. Eric I like the world that I live in. I do not know what country you live in because it surely is not mine.

            • First of all, Clover, you do not know “up front” what the taxes are. The rates (assessments) are subject to change at any time, arbitrarily, at the discretion of your fellow thugs who control the local thugocracy. The rates almost always increase; people are told they “owe” more and more and more. Often, to the point that they are forced out of their homes due to inability to keep up with these extortions.

              Second, your pathetic attempt to conflate the price of an item such as bread – which I’ll happily pay without coercion because I value bread – with the tax levied on it (which I am unhappily forced to pay, even though I never asked for and do not desire the “services” allegedly purchased thereby) is just that… pathetic.

              You characterize my desire to keep my money as “stealing”!

              And: It’s you who are violent, Clover. Not I.

              All I want from you is for you and yours to leave me the fuck alone. That you “like” schools and so on does not give you the right to send armed men my way to force me to pay for such things.

              The fact that you know you’d never try to extract my money yourself ought to tell you all you need to know about the fundamental evil of your position.

          • Clover insists he cannot see how the goonvermin brutalizes people.

            A couple of relevant quotes.

            “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”
            — John Heywood, 1546

            “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
            ― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

          • Analogy Video:

            Every Clover Conversations boils down to:

            Eric, Eric, Eric, lookit, listen to me, like I do this all the time.
            Listen, Eric. Listen, listen, listen.
            Eric, honey, look at this.

            Right now we can’t do anything unless you get me a cupcake. The government gives me your cupcake, because, listen, listen.

            If you don’t give it to them to give it to me, then you get a pow in the butt.

            Lookit, lookit, Eric, Eric, Eric, listen to me.

            3-year-old makes the case for more cupcakes
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8RB7UZHKI

          • CloverYes Eric taxes usually go up with inflation. That is because your property value usually goes up with inflation and the cost of things like fire protection and schools and everything else also goes up. My pay has also gone up at equal or higher rates. So what? Yes I do not totally agree with property tax being one of the primary instruments for paying our social needs because I believe that income tax should be a higher portion than what it is but I also understand why it is as hi of a percentage that it is. It is because property taxes goes to the local community and income taxes are usually at the state level. That being said if you start your own community you will pay very little because you do not believe in kids going to school and you do not believe in fire or police protection and you do not believe in libraries . The other fact is that you bought where you did so you have to pay what you owe or get removed from the property because the vast majority believe those things are needed and just because you are a freeloader and want others to pay for everything is not the answer.

            • More lies, Clover.

              It’s not inflation. It’s a rate change. For someone who pretends to financial knowledge, you’re amazingly ignorant.

              “Our social needs.”

              You mean: The things you need. Paid for by others who are forced to pay for them, even if they themselves neither need nor use them. Government schools, for instance.

              “you do not believe in kids going to school and you do not believe in fire or police protection and you do not believe in libraries .”

              So easy, Clover.

              I think kids being educated is a fine idea. Also fire services. But I do not support forcing other people who may not need or want such things to pay for them.

              You want kids? Great! Have them. But, having chosen to have kids, they’re you’re obligation to educate. Not mine, not anyone else’s. You want a fire department? Great! Pay for it yourself – along with those others who desire it.

              Who are you to impose your Christmas list on other people at gunpoint?

              Again, Clover: You know you’d never attempt to “fund” these things yourself using the threat of violence against your neighbors. Why not, Clover? If it’s wrong for you to stand on your neighbor’s front stoop fingering a pistol while “asking” that they “help” fund (insert “social need” here) then why is it ok for proxies to do it on your behalf?

              Don’t give me jibber-jabber about all the “good things” (as you see it) that result from it. Tell me why you won’t go threaten your neighbor with violence to achieve your plans.

              If they’re so good, so worthy – why must force be used to get people to participate?

              It ought to tell you something. But that would require a thinking mind. And you’ve only got an animal’s instincts.

            • Clover,

              You’re literally unintelligent. Of course, you don’t realize this . . . because you’re unintelligent.

              I’ll call this Clover’s Paradox.

              Of course, it’s a problem for us. People who aren’t unintelligent.

              Because there are so many of you. And – relatively – so few of us.

              I wish, for just 15 minutes, I could up your IQ to 120 or so. Then, have you read your own posts and those of others on this forum. You’d be appalled by yourself.

              But then, the 15 minutes would be up and your IQ would revert to “normal” (for a Clover) and you’d continue in your Down Syndromian state of grace (so to speak), convinced instinctively of the correctness of your eructations, as thoughtlessly as a donkey braying at something it doesn’t like.

          • Dear Eric,

            You wrote,

            “If it’s wrong for you to stand on your neighbor’s front stoop fingering a pistol while “asking” that they “help” fund (insert “social need” here) then why is it ok for proxies to do it on your behalf? ”

            Well said!

            More and more people are becoming aware of the ugly reality behind appeals to altruism. Clover collectivists can no longer get away with guilt-tripping freedom lovers with accusations of “You’re selfish!”

            Unearned guilt (Rand’s term) is a major bulwark of the Myth of Authority. Demolish the “You have a moral obligation to submit to robbery for the greater good” schtick and the Myth of Authority is dealt a serious blow.

            People must deprogram themselves, such that they can no longer be shamed into feeling defensive and apologetic for refusing to be robbed for the benefit of strangers.

            People are getting wise. The jig is up. The end game is near.

          • Eric in our society we vote. It has been done since our country has started. We vote to have schools and fire protection and police protection and better roads, clean air, libraries, and yes, schools. Eric you do not have kids but even if people do not have kids they are willing to pay for schools because it leads to a better society. Eric we do not want to live in your third world type of society. We do not want to live in your world where a road will exist if people donate and with your kind never donating for what you use. Eric you say that everything should be by donation because you do not want to pay for what you might not use. At the same time if there was just donations you would not pay for what you use either.Clover

            Yes Eric those are things that I want and that is what the vast majority of the people want. In our society and if you disagree with the vast majority of the people you either live with it or leave. It is not the option of many of your kind to get the assault rifles out and start shooting.

            Eric I have a great life with what we have now. I and hundreds of millions of people do not want your life where half of the kids go to school, there is poverty everywhere, if you want something your gun rules. Eric we as a society do not want your life. When are you going to get it?

            • Numbers don’t equate with right, Clover. The fact that you and those like you vote to steal other people’s things in no way makes the theft legitimate. If you have a group of ten people and seven vote to kill the other three and eat them, is it right? I’m trying to get a concept across. And you’d see it applies to more than just one specific example. If you weren’t so paralyzingly unintelligent, you’d be able to comprehend this. But you are unintelligent and therefore, cannot comprehend this.

              You have “nice things”? So did Stalin.

              You are a cretin, Clover. A smarmy little nothing of low-average intelligence, almost certainly a tax-feeder, who takes other people’s things because he waaaaaaaaaants them. Only he’s too much of a moral and physical coward to do the actual taking on his own.

          • Clover, inflation is caused by an increase in the monetary supply. It is a stealth tax via devaluing savings and wages. So you’re telling me taxes have to go up because of a tax. Typical cloverian thought pattern.

            • The guy’s an imbecile, Brent. I know you know that. I know it, too. He’s not smart enough to realize it, though – which is why he continues to post. From his (low IQ) point of view, his illiterate, unintelligible, disorganized, illogical, contradictory ramblings are devastating critiques of our “stupid idiot” ideas.

          • Dear Brent,

            “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
            – – Mark Twain

            Clover knows so much for sure that just ain’t so.

            Clover probably thinks inflation is the result of “greedy businessmen ripping people off.”

          • Eric you say that I am stealing from you. I am sure I am donating a lot more taxes than you are and I am fine with that. We have a great community and I do not want your kind screwing it up.
            Clover

          • 1) Eric when you buy a piece of property you know up front that there are taxes to be paid for if you buy it. Refusal to pay means you should leave or sell the property. That is known up front.
            2) Yes taxes do change. Usually with inflation or close to it. That you should know up front before you buy it. Refusal to pay means you should leave or sell the property. That is known up front.
            3) There are states and areas with little of no property taxes. You always have the option to move there.
            4) Guns are never pointed at you when you do not pay. That only happens if you act like a true and dangerous jerk.
            Clover

            Those are the facts Eric. Live with it or shoot yourself and not others. When are you going to start your community where there are little or no taxes and let us know how it works?

            Then there is your kind that are ready to get a gun out and start shooting if police do something like having a safety check. That is truly ironic to be shooting at a group of people that are trying to save lives and the facts show it works.

            • All right, Clover – let’s play a little game.

              You buy a pizza parlor in the Bronx, knowing that Don Corleone will expect a “cut” of the profits. Does the fact that you knew Don Corleone would be expecting his payment make his claims legitimate?

              You’ll backpedal and squeal that government is not the mafia. But it is, Clover. Both are gangs that claim you “owe” them things – and threaten you with violence if you don’t pay up.

              By what right, Clover, do you claim I “owe” money for the education of other people’s children? Or for any other thing that isn’t a legitimate debt incurred by me for services rendered, which I asked for or used?

              You want various things. Great. Pay for them yourself. I don’t expect you to pay for the things I want. All I want is for you and yours to leave me alone.

              Which you won’t do.

              Because you’re a thief and a thug and poltroon.

          • Clover persists in telling us that if one owns property one is somehow obligated to “pay taxes.”

            You have to wonder whether clover has ever thought his assumptions through. Why must one “pay taxes” if one owns property? Is there any reason? To whom must one “pay taxes?”

            If Tom manufactures shirts, and Dick buys one from him, the shirt now belongs to Dick. Dick paid for it. The shirt is now his property. Must he “pay taxes” on the shirt every April 15 in order to keep wearing it?

            This illustrates the absurdity of “paying taxes” on what is already supposed to be one’s own private property.

            Also, to whom does clover insist Dick must “pay taxes” to? Not to Tom, the manufacturer of the shirst, but to Harry, a third party, who had nothing to do with the shirt. Harry did not manufacture the shirt. The shirt did not belong to Harry. What excuse does Harry have to demand that Dick “pay taxes” on his shirt or land?

            Clover never bothers to think about any of these issues. He has never really asked himself “Why?” about anything.

            As clover himself noted, it is easy to brainwash people who don’t think.

          • CloverNo the proper analogy is that you open a pizza place in a shopping centre and act surprised when you have to pay rent for the shop space. Not it’s not “your” country by any means.

            • Clover, you make my job so easy!

              When one rents a space at the mall, one is not the owner – in theory or in practice. One is a renter – and obliged (ethically as well as legally) to pay the rent.

              But I am legally the owner of my house and land. I paid for it – in full. Ethically speaking, I owe the former owner (the seller) nothing.

              Yet, I am told I “owe” another entity – this gang called “government” – annual tributum in perpetuity. How is this possible if I am the owner of “my” land/house?

              In fact, I am not the “owner” – in practice. And despite the legal honorific.

              Because parasites such as yourself claim that I and others “owe” them money – forever, in whatever amount you decree.

              How is this not extortion, Clover?

      • Yes Eric that sounds like you. Win by whatever means. That is like you fellow prepper who threatened to start killing and begged his other believers to follow him if they started removing assault type weapons. You say your kind believes in letting others be but at the drop of a hat your kind starts killing.Clover

        • Clover, I’m encouraged by the fact that you’re reduced to outright lies in lieu of any sort of logical argument.

          Again: We want not nothing from you except for you and those like you to respect our right not to be assaulted to further ends you consider worthy.

          Just leave us be.

          Why is that such a challenge for you?

          Wait. Don’t answer. I will.

          It’s because you need us. To serve as your slaves, to be compelled to work for your benefit.

          We, on the other hand, manifestly do not need you.

          You – and yours – are dead weight, an albatross around our necks.

          And you know this, at some level.

          Hence your furious indignation.

          You cannot exist without us.

          You’re a zero. A nullity.

          • Eric you have two options to be happy. Leave and start your own community with people that think like you do or take a gun to your head and end your misery. Eric the rest of us live a great life. If it is impossible for you to do that here then leave because I and 100s of millions of other people do not want your new life.Clover

            I have asked what your new life would be like and all you said was it will just happen and a party everyday. I would guess drugs for everyone so they would not have to feel the pain you put them through. Go and start your own community where there are little taxes that you will have to pay and have a good life. Go and set up your supreme community and show us what your way of life really is.

            • More evasions, Clover.

              The fact that you and “100s of millions of other people” like theft and violence doesn’t make theft and violence right. Appx. 70 million Germans loved Der Fuhrer, too.

              Again, you are simply unintelligent.

              You prove it, repeatedly, with imbecilities such as:

              “I have asked what your new life would be like and all you said was it will just happen and a party everyday.”

              Poor ol’ Clover.

            • Clover, you have it all wrong (as usual).

              I have no desire to impose “my new life” on you. I simply demand that you not impose your ideas about life on me. What skin is it off your nose if I live on my land, bothering no one, incurring no costs to others?

              Oh. I forgot.

              You need my money. And you get off on controlling me (and others). It satisfies your sick desires.

          • Clover Eric you say I like to live with violence. You said yourself that I do not have that to look forward to with the society we have today. Again it is your fellow libertarians that are looking for violence. Your fellow libertarian extremist are ready to kill for their beliefs that they can carry machine guns in public. Eric again I and 99.9 percent of the people in our country to not want to live in that society. Eric it is not my group that is arming itself to to hilt now is it? It is people like you that are ready for war. You yourself said I have nothing to worry about. It is not the government that I have to worry about but your extremist friends. You say that you want to be left alone and are a peaceful group of people but why then would a peaceful group need thousands of rounds of ammunition for each person and get on the internet and threaten the killing of thousands if things are not the way you want it? Eric the truth is there. We all have seen it.

            • I do say so, Clover – because it’s true.

              Note that I don’t want anything from you – other than for you to leave me alone. Not your money, not your liberty.

              But you want my money – and my liberty. You will not leave me alone.

              My violence – if it comes to that – will be provoked by yours. It will be defensive. Just like a kid who has finally had enough at the hands of a schoolyard bully – and kicks the son of a bitch in the balls.

              Your vile argument is that violence would not take place, provided I always do as ordered, hand over my money, accept your claims to be the Boss of my life.

              Even if “99.9” percent of people agree with evil, it’s still evil.

              Why won’t you answer my question, by the way? The one I asked you earlier. About your reluctance to “ask” your neighbor – anyone – for “help” while fingering a gun. Why don’t you do it yourself, Clover? Are you a pussy? Or do you know it’s wrong – and would prefer not to have to think about it?

          • @clover – I am wondering why you post here. You have already written several times that you are a multimillionaire, make perfect market timing investments, have the perfect vehicle, live in the perfect crime free neighborhood, have a perfect job with all the spendable money you need, and have the perfect extended family.

            Other than Eric and others opinions and driving habits Is there something in your life that bothers you? Because you add nothing but vague silly ramblings and challenges to the discussion. But you never bring a demonstrable real-life fact that would change someones opinion. Frankly you are tedious, and I rarely ever finish reading one of your screeds. What is bothering you clover?

          • Eric why I don’t go and enforce something myself is because I would be stooping to your vigilantly type of justice. I do not want that and neither do 99.9% of other people. We have laws that were well thought out so we do not have gangs of your friends that get angry and start killing just like your libertarian friends that has been in the news for saying there will be a bloodbath if he does not get it his way. Clover

            Again Eric all I want from you is for you to leave if you refuse to abide by the laws of our country that you were born into. Is that too difficult? We do not want you here because people like you go into a rage if someone drives too slowly in front of you. With your actions we do not want people like you to enforce something you do not like someone else doing with the biggest gun mentality.

            • Your “well thought out laws” euphemize theft Clover, that’s all.

              It’s an ugly truth you either understandably wish to avoid dealing with or wish to evade admitting.

            • Waltzing over to your neighbor to stand on his porch, fingering a gun while “asking” that he “help” pay for “the schools” is not (oh my god) “vigilantly type of justice,” as you so clumsily (and incorrectly) put it.

              It is thievery.

              It is what you do.

              Only, you do not do it yourself.

              Because you’re a cringing, loathsome, physical coward. You are also a moral coward.

              Thus, you get proxies to steal on your behalf.

              So that you can have the things you waaaaaaaaant, like “schools” and “fire protection” . . . paid for by people who do not want these things.

              In “my world” – as you style it – people who want things would pay for them. And those who do not want them would not. And the former would have no legal authority to force the latter to pay for them.

              That, you cannot abide. The idea that people ought to be free to not pay for the education of other people’s children, or for fire services they do not consider necessary.

              You are afflicted by this demented idea that other people – people you’ve never even met, whose names you don’t even know – “owe” you sums of money . . . because they have it. And because you want it.

              My wife and I chose to adopt several cats, Clover. What would you say if I announced that you “owe” me a sum of money because our cats need food, medical care (and so on)? Why does our choice to have cats impose no burden on you, but your decision to have kids does impose a burden on us?

              An exercise in logic, Clover.

              Of course, I understand such is wasted effort. Not unlike attempting to explain the principle of the four stroke engine to my rooster.

              Cockadoodledooooo!

          • Clover writes,

            “Eric it is not my group that is arming itself to to hilt now is it? It is people like you that are ready for war. ”

            Oh really?

            It’s a warzone in the US’: Indiana sheriff explains why he deployed heavy armor in his county

            http://rt.com/usa/164816-american-police-militarization-war/

            Excerpt:

            From the streets of Fallujah to Franklin, Indiana, heavily armored military vehicles have been rolled out for one and the same reason: many police officers in the US believe there’s a war going on.

            All across the state, and the country, the trend is similar. From picking up military surplus to using to $35 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to acquire the most advanced weapons, police forces across America are armed to the teeth.

            And as Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer puts it, the effects are not only tactical, but psychological.

            To put it bluntly: “It’s a lot more intimidating than a Dodge.”

            Pulaski, mind you, is a county of roughly 13,000 people. The question of whether civilians need to be intimidated like that depends on your perspective, and as far as Gayer sees things, America is a battlefield and the police are akin to an occupying force.

            “The United States of America has become a war zone,” he said. “There’s violence in the workplace, there’s violence in schools and there’s violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

            • That woman is Elsworth Toohey. The Chimp, Obama… not even in the same league. She is consciously, deliberately out to establish an overt and total USSA. Thankfully she’s so personally repellent even people on the left dislike her.

          • Dear Gary,

            Like I said before, there is an expression in Chinese,

            睜眼說瞎話

            It means, “Uttering blind nonsense with eyes wide open.”

            It means that one is indulging in “glaringly obvious shuckin’ and jivin’.”

            Clover thinks that if he pretends the MRAPs aren’t rolling down Main Street USSA, and the DHS isn’t purchasing x many rounds of hollow point ammunition to be used on mere mundanes, then we won’t notice.

          • @Bevin- I am studying a little of Chinese history. It seems that they have experimented with almost every type of government over the years. As a group humans keep getting swindled by the bankers giving government an unlimited checkbook to spend on some welfare, war and terrorizing the populace into being good tax payers for the boys at the top.

            IMHO we think we are different because 240 years ago there was (for a short time until the mid 1800’s) an anomaly called the United States, and and its “rule of law” for the little guy and big guy alike, and not rule of kings.

            Clover is happy with his government because he “surrendered his mind” as Ayn Rand put it, thinks he is “part of the team” (as today’s children are being taught in school and movies like “The Lego Movie”) and exempt from state terrorism. Freedom worshipers and independent thinkers scare him to death, and “his” government needs to buy up all the weapons of mass destruction and use them on the the rebels who refuse to be locked away from his view. As Alan Watt put it so well: “the mind has no firewall.”

            The Europeans just want royalty to call the shots and be done with it. The Africans, until recently with the advent of communications, were satisfied with the hand plow and not being eaten by some beast.

          • Dear Gary,

            China as a cultural entity has been in continuous existence for at least 5000 years. It is an old society. It has “been there, done that.”

            During that time, it has contemplated (though not implemented) every conceivable political framework under the sun.

            As Murray Rothbard noted, the Daoists invented individualist anarchism.

            At the other extreme, the Legalists formulated a rationale for totalitarianism.

            Somewhere in between, the Confucianists formulated a political philosophy similar to conservative Republicanism, with “family values” and “respect for law and order.” Alas, this is the one that dominated Chinese society for most of its existence.

            Needless to say, I am a Daoist/individualist anarchist, with little use for the other two native Chinese political philosophies.

            The sad thing about “American Exceptionalism” is that it turned out to be a fraud. I know that I for one wanted desperately for it to be true. But given what has happened to America in the two centuries since the Revolutionary War, especially since 9/11, it obviously wasn’t.

            Just listen to clover’s shrill demands for top down state violence and it is obvious America is anything but exceptional. It is just like all the other authoritarian or totalitarian societies that mankind has had the misfortune to endure.

          • @Bevin – You nailed it. The 9-11 police state roll-out is the final suicidal slitting of the throat of personal freedom and independence. At least for now.

          • gary wonders why clover posts….

            doppelgang(st)erism….jekyll looks into the buddhist mirror, sees hyde, & vice versa, doc frankenstein sees the monster, & vice versa, sybil “sees”/cedes 8 vices & 8 versas, yadda-yadda-yadda…dichotomies (2 half lobotomies make a whole robotomie…), just wanna’ have fun, & die…in each others’ arms….how’d the boss sing it?

            baby this town rips the bones from your back, it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap…beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard, girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors, and the boys try to look so hard, the amusement park rises bold and stark, kids are huddled on the beach in a mist, I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight, in an everlasting kiss …..

          • i divorce thee, i divorce thee, i divorce thee…easier said than done, perhaps, but chipping oneself off the the old blocs – “group humans”, “anomalous lang synes” that never were, euroyalty, africannibals – all those stupid inferior/inglourious basterds who just will not “wake up” is…probably your only chance. if “they” are pathetic, then how to characterize the need, or requirement, that they be otherwise? codependence, maybe?

            allan w. watts wrote a lot of things:

            the white man fancies himself a practical person who wants to “get results”. ht is impatient with theory & with any discussion which does not immediately get down to concrete applications. this is why the behavior of western civilization might be described, in general, as “much ado about nothing.” the proper meaning of “theory” is not idle speculation but vision, & it was rightly said “where there is no vision the people perish.”

            but vision in this sense does not mean dreams & ideals for the future. it means understanding of life as it is, of what we are & of what we are doing. without such understanding it is simply ridiculous to talk of being practical & getting results. it is like walking busily in a fog: you just go round & round. you do not know where you are going nor what results you really want.

            to minds that think in this way, what we have discussed so far may seem too theoretical. these ideas are all very well, but do they work? yet I must ask, “ what do you mean by work?” the usual “working test” of a philosophy is whether it makes people better & happier, whether it results in peace, cooperation & prosperity. yet this is a meaningless criterion without much “theoretical” understanding. what do you mean by happiness? what are “better” people better for? about what will you cooperate? what will you do with peace & prosperity?

            the answers to this question depend entirely on what we are & on what we actually want now. if, for example, we want at the same time both peace & isolation, brotherhood & security for “I”, happiness & permanence, our wants are contradictory. their results, however practical we may be about getting them, will be further contradictions. it is the old story of wanting to have your cake & eat it – to which the only possible conclusion is that you put it in your stomach & keep it there until you have violent indigestion.

            if we must be nationalists & have a sovereign state, we cannot also expect to have world peace. if we want to get everything at the lowest possible cost, we cannot expect to get the best possible quality, the balance between the two being mediocrity. if we make it an ideal to be morally superior, we cannot at the same time avoid self-righteousness. if we cling to belief in god, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.

            when we have made up our minds as to what we do want, there remain indeed many practical & technical problems. but there is no point at all in discussing these until we have made up our minds. there is in turn no possibility of making up our minds so long as they are split in two, so long as “I” am one thing & “experience” another. if the mind is the directive force behind action, the mind & its vision of life must be healed before action can be anything but conflict.

            something must therefore be said about the healed vision of life which comes with full awareness, for it involves a deep transformation of our view of the world. as well as words can describe it, this transformation consists in knowing & feeling that the world is an organic unity.

            ~ the wisdom of insecurity – a message for an age of anxiety, ch.7, “the transformation of life”

          • Dear Gary,

            Now everything, and I mean everything, “the fate of the nation,” depends on whether We the Sheeple can awaken from the Spell of Authoritay.

            If they can, if libertarians can reach a critical mass of them, and rouse them from their clover trance, then this nation shall have a new birth of freedom and shall not perish from the earth.

          • @Eric – “That woman is Elsworth Toohey.”
            Right on. But the chimp has Valerie Jarrett, his teleprompter programmer. Sho’nuf as evil a contender for the anti-humanity award as any walking. But the field may be getting crowded. I see they are prancing Chelsea Clinton out of the stables with a full media propaganda campaign.

          • Dear Gary,

            Chelsea Clinton?

            And all this time American champions of democracy have been sneering at North Korea’s Kim dynasty.

            Funny how they conveniently blank out the sons and daughters of USSA elites.

            The Bushes, Bloombergs, Cuomos et al.

            Lexington
            The royalty trap
            Americans have a dangerous fondness for monarchy
            May 10th 2007

            http://www.economist.com/node/9149798

            Excerpt:

            But one of the most conspicuous things about America these days is that it does not take a visit from the British monarch to give the White House “an air of royalty”.

            In 2009 the betting is that America will see the son of a former president replaced by the wife of another former president. If Hillary Clinton is then re-elected in 2012, the world’s greatest democracy will have been ruled by either a Bush or a Clinton for 28 years straight.

            And why should things end there? Michael Barone, author and pundit, points out that George P. Bush, the current president’s nephew, will be eligible to run for the presidency in 2012, Chelsea Clinton will be eligible in 2016 and Jeb Bush will remain a viable candidate until 2024.

          • @Bevin – No joke , NBC is paying her $600,000 a year to talk. No experience necessary.

            Then there is our other star obsession
            From the Washington Post – JUne 19, 2014

            Now that the question of House leadership has been settled, at least for the time being, another equally pressing question rears its head: How do we get Eric Cantor on “Dancing With the Stars”?

            Fortunately, someone is on it already. Author and comedian Sara J. Benincasa has started a petition to put the soon-to-be-former House majority leader on the ABC reality dance competition, where, as a public figure at a crossroads (not the Karl Rove kind, the other kind), he rightfully belongs.

            Say what you will about me (“That girl will shamelessly cover ANY petition!”), I will shamelessly cover almost any petition, and this one is no exception.

            And Benincasa makes some good points: Tom DeLay has been on “Dancing With the Stars” already, and he acquitted himself well passably adverbially. So was Bristol Palin. Twice!

            Furthermore, it’s a fun alternative to many careers that Cantor could pursue. Revolving doors are never fun — you can get trapped in them for hours if you push the wrong way! — and the revolving door between the halls of Congress and the halls of Lobbying is one of the least fun of all. You can’t even get stuck in it. It is moving too quickly.
            By Alexandra Petri June 19

          • Dear Gary,

            Thank you for that update on the glitterati.

            I’m an inquiring mind, and as you know, inquiring minds want to know!

            LOL.

          • gary…i should have compared wattages. still & all, allan the conspiracy theorist & allan the east-west synthesizer/popularizer flow…most of the conspiracy is an inside job, albeit hard-writ & facsimile’d large. and the point of contention amongst some napancaps has to do with inside jobs being amenable to educative correction, “lights going on”.

            the translation is this: “suppose they gave a war & nobody came?”

            “nobody” is, of course, too expansive. plenty will come. “opposites” attract. irresistible confounding contradictions circulate round & round a kind of perpetual lost & found. psychological projectors reject, regularly come to blows trying to eject, each other. it’s a relationship. a dynamic. a system. this is the family of man. it is perennial – & that includes the long line of tribes mobilizing millenialists chanting “change is gonna’ come” (or singing it: great sam cooke tune)…would that it were that the true believers & their flocks of believe-ees only came around every 1000 years…instead, the missionaries & their tribal ligations ply & plough every single day…there’s actual gold in them thar shills, but also glittering psychological/emotional “color”. or colour. ☻

            This “systems” approach to the study of information warfare emphasizes the use of data, referred to as information, to penetrate an adversary’s physical defenses that protect data (information) in order to obtain operational or strategic advantage. It has tended to ignore the role of the human body as an information- or data-processor in this quest for dominance except in those cases where an individual’s logic or rational thought may be upset via disinformation or deception. As a consequence little attention is directed toward protecting the mind and body with a firewall as we have done with hardware systems. Nor have any techniques for doing so been prescribed. Yet the body is capable not only of being deceived, manipulated, or misinformed but also shut down or destroyed–just as any other data-processing system. The “data” the body receives from external sources–such as electromagnetic, vortex, or acoustic energy waves–or creates through its own electrical or chemical stimuli can be manipulated or changed just as the data (information) in any hardware system can be altered.

            http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/articles/98spring/thomas.htm

            http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2010/08/neurosecurity-mind-has-no-firewall.html

            more tools of tools stuff in service to “dominance” – my tool is bigger than your tool….

            no mental firewall? maybe not. what about mental fire roads? wire together – fire together synaptic groove-ons? for sure. that’s hardware, infrastructure. what about concepts, compartmentalizing maplines purporting to territorialize reality? software-ish, but not often off(fire)road capable…or, more likely by far, simply that the other guy’s fire roads just don’t lead to your neck of the forest.

            my point, ongoing, is that nationalized, drought stricken, beetle-killed tinder forests, no matter how many fire roads crisscross it, is not a good place to “invest”, at least not as an all-in proposition. making that point is just exercise, as may be more contextualized, now, since fire roads go where they go, & wanting them to go elsewhere is _______(fill in the blank). making that point over & over again while minimizing doing it the same way twice in a row is creative, un-boring (to me) exercise/expression…which I’m always ready to clarify, on request.

            this just came by me: “in individual animals parasites are often signs of disease. but for ecosystems, a rich diversity of parasites is an indication of good health.” ~ quote snip from “does the ocean think?” episode of “through the wormhole w/morgan freeman”.

            ok. but not an argument, from my self-interested perspective, for volunteering, or acquiescing, to be among the parasitized individuals that extrapolate to “ecosystem” heath. beetle & fire cycles are apparently healthy for forests, in the long(er) run, but the only run that matters to me & mine is our relatively much shorter runs; we are unwilling to take, martyr, one for the eco team, if we can avoid it (even if that is what’s going on, which it very well might not be…).

          • Eric it is not up to me or anyone else here I would guess that would tell you what you owe for property taxes because that is a local community level tax. With that said what is your plan to eliminate it if you in fact refuse to pay and still want to live where you are?Clover

            Arguing with me will not make any change other than me saying that you owe it or you need to move. Is your plan to enrage enough others so that you can have a similar war like Iraq has? Is that what you really want?

            Eric arguing with someone that has no control either way is not a plan just like your saying what would happen without government or taxes. It will just happen somehow you say? I would be interested in your next step. Are you going to be like a Larkin Rose and have a bloodbath to get what you want?

            • Clover:

              Whether you impose the tax or someone else (or a group of someone elses) impose a tax is not the issue. The issue is the legitimacy of imposing the tax. Of taking other people’s property – stuff that’s not by right yours – using violent threats (and actual violence).

              This is the core issue you – understandably – wish to avoid dealing with. Perhaps because you’re not as unintelligent as I believe you to be. Perhaps because at some level, you know perfectly well that obtaining the things you want by threatening other people with violence is disgusting beyond description.

              My “plan” is merely to call you out. To not let you get away with using euphemisms and evasions. To bring out into open the violence behind all you stand for. Your parasitism, predation, thievery and murder. And contrast that with the peaceful coexistence advocated by myself and others here.

              Then, let the chips fall where they may.

          • Grrrr. Eric, give us prols a “start a new thread” button. 🙂

            @Ozy – said RE: the mind has no firewall : “in this quest for dominance except in those cases where an individual’s logic or rational thought may be upset via disinformation or deception. As a consequence little attention is directed toward protecting the mind and body with a firewall as we have done with hardware systems. Nor have any techniques for doing so been prescribed.”

            Your honor, I give you mandatory K – 12 public indoctrination, and rest my case. That is why, when asked, Ayn Rand said there is only one teaching method she knew of to prepare a child to be a thinker and survive the political & educational world of today. The Montessori education system.

            Montessori education
            From Wikipedia,
            See Maria Montessori.

            Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori and characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development. Although a range of practices exists under the name “Montessori”, the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) cite these elements as essential:

            Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children ages 2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the most common
            Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options
            Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours
            A constructivist or “discovery” model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction
            Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators
            Freedom of movement within the classroom
            A trained Montessori teacher

            In addition, many Montessori schools design their programs with reference to Montessori’s model of human development from her published works, and use pedagogy, lessons, and materials introduced in teacher training derived from courses presented by Montessori during her lifetime.

          • re: clover June 22, 2014 at 7:59 pm

            Property tax where I live funds state,county,and municipality governments. The entire state is hardly local community. Then of course once the governments have this money they don’t have to spend it locally. It is not uncommon for them not to.

            Why is it Clover that you just accept things as they are now as their natural state? What if authority changes it? Will that be the new natural state? Not all governments impose property taxes in this world, so how could having them even be a natural thing?

            Property taxes are semantic trick on simple minded people like yourself to create effective ownership of all property by the government. Services could be paid for in so many ways so what makes this method so compelling? The effective condition it creates.

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