One of the dirtiest ways to win an argument is to change the subject of the argument – and thereby argue for or against what your opponent never argued.
Leftists do this as a matter of course – because it works.
I get hit with this a lot, for example as regards electric cars – which I have never argued anyone should be prevented from selling or buying, if they wish to offer one for sale – or buy one. I do, however, very much oppose anyone being forced or pressured to make or buy electric cars – a fundamentally different argument.
Leftists do not want to have that discussion.
Similarly with regard to these drugs being pushed on people by the government and the corporations that have become the adjuncts and enforcers of government.
I object to the pushing of drugs
Not the drugs, as such.
I do think (because the evidence abounds) that the drugs being pushed are at best of dubious value for most people and – at worst – potentially dangerous, based on what is already known about them and also what we don’t know about them.
But these things are peripheral; they are not fundamentally the issue anymore than electric cars – as such – are the issue, with regard to one’s support (or not) for their manufacture being mandated and people being forced to buy them.
That is an entirely different discussion.
As a libertarian, I argue that every adult human being has a natural, inalienable right of ownership over his or her own body – which strikes me as self-evident – and from this premise flows the argument that no one else has any right to force another human being to put anything into their body.
The latter constituting both rape and slavery, in terms of the fundamental principle at issue.
The opposing principle also compels me to respect the decision of other adult human beings choosing to put whatever they wish into their own bodies – whether I approve or not.
Because I have no rightful business interfering with any other human being’s decisions regarding what they choose to put into their own bodies.
I do not support pushing anything.
That is what’s at issue.
And that is why something else is being discussed.
It is a hard thing to argue in favor of slavery and rape. So rapists and slavers argue a different thing – to manipulate people into submitting to rape and slavery.
They argue that anyone who opposes forcing anyone else to submit to the violation of their body is “anti-vaccine.” 
The drug pushers aren’t even that “honest.”
They ridicule those who oppose the pushing as “anti-vaxx,” the ridicule meant to avoid an honest discussion of what’s actually at issue.
Which is the pushing.
That being a discussion they know they would have trouble with. Just as it is hard to defend taking people’s money – and so it is argued that it’s legitimate to tax people. People who oppose being forced to hand over their money to those who didn’t earn it are similarly ridiculed. They are “selfish.”
As criminal, if they resist the theft.
It was fundamentally the same with the “masking” – another example of the pushing. Those who opposed being forced to “mask” never insisted that anyone else be forced not to “mask.” Only that they be free to decide whether they would wear the “mask.”
But this is never conceded. 
Instead, those of us who oppose drugs being pushed are described as “anti” the drugs – not for people being free to decide whether to take the drugs.
Just as “taxes” are never discussed forthrightly as the taking of money from the person who earned it – which is the very definition of theft.
It is why it is necessary for people who support theft to change the subject by changing definitions – and crucially important for the victim to accept the victimizers definition.
The way to render this form of below-the belt attack harmless – or at least, to expose what the attacker means – is to be very crystal clear about what is being said, before anything more is said.
I am always very clear about my personal dislike of electric cars, for a number of reasons – about which I also go to great lengths to make clear. But I am also equally clear about my support for the right of anyone who wants to buy an electric car to be free to buy one, if that is what they want.
Because that decision is no more my business than my decision to not take drugs others want to take is any of their business.
. . .
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The approach I always take with them is to let them go on about their virtue right up until they contradict themselves. At that point I just start asking some pointed questions until they are in essence arguing with themselves. At which point I merely highlight the fact they are debating themselves and ask they get back to me when one of their personalities wins.
For me arguing with a ‘progressive’ is not about turning them to our side. It is about the people watching us argue. If I can get them to start asking some of the big questions, even in their own mind, I feel like that is a victory.
Sadly though once you do that to someone they tend to not want to argue with you again. After that most interactions will end with them calling you ‘crazy’, ‘nazi’, ‘trumpist’, or something else unflattering. I do keep track of how often I have been called all those things though and it is my own mental trophy wall.
Sad thing is, the regressives/libtards/leftists are usually just parroting the BS they hear in the media, so their arguments sound familiar to most onlookers, and the onlookers are likely thinking that they make perfect sense, because this is exactly what the ‘experts’ preach, and what the talking heads on the TV say, and what all those around them have been programmed to believe and say (There’s safety in numbers, ya know! 😉 )- so no matter how logical and factual our arguments, in their eyes we end up looking like the loser.
This is why those who control the media control the society- there is no winning when their rhetoric is the predominant narrative, because it creates a mass-brainwashed society.
Hey Jeremy!
Responding here instead of below the relevant post becasuse..well…we all know why.
**” It cannot simply be that whatever entity legally recognized as
“private” by the State has sacred and inviolable property rights. I
know you disagree, but that is the theory, in effect, you are
proposing.”**
Actually, I couldn’t agree more.
**”Just acquisition is essential to a valid property claim, you have
admitted this in the past, but then said it doesn’t matter. I find
this baffling. You have also introduced utilitarian arguments that
essentially enshrine any current property claim as valid “**
Nonsense. All I’m saying is that one can not go back into perpetuity, or in most circumstances even the recent past to right the wrongs done by those who run, perpetuate, and or are complicit with the tyrannical system under which we live, nor can the denial of property rights to a current owner rectify the wrong done to a previous owner who may have had his property taken unjustly when the actual issue of ownership is not even before us, but rather the question as to who has the right to determine under what conditions WE may use that property is the issue at-hand, and in which case, we have no more right to the use of that property than the entity whom we allege to have unjustly procured it.
**”You have created a libertarian defense of Fascism. All the State needs
to do to impose tyranny upon us is to delegate it to the “private”
sector. I suggest that when the “private” sector is acting as an agent
of the State, whether under duress or willingly, we may treat is as an
agent of the State.”**
This is, again, more rationalization to justify a desired outcome. In reality, people can align themselves with whatever groups and philosophies they choose to, and enforce whatever conditions they choose to on their property, whether of their own volition or because they are not capable/not willing to fight what is in-turn imposed on them, etc. To deny such a right, THAT is the supporting of fascism! In a Libertarian world, one could practice communism if they so chose to, in a system comprised of others who wished to do so [shudder] and thus use their property accordingly. Even though we would disagree with what they were doing, do we somehow have the right to tell them that they can’t do it? It is no different here and now regarding what a business owner does or doesn’t do.
**”I do not have to pretend that an entity which acquires property, at
least in part, through theft, that solicits and receives special legal
privileges, including direct subsidies and protection from liability,
exists in the same universe as a private home owner.”**
You don’t have to pretend because it is the reality. Is the home of welfare recipient, or subsidized apartment not subject to the privacy and dictates of the inhabitant, just because such subsidies/programs are theft and illicit and should not exist? Does that give YOU the right to occupy the tenant’s home or do as you please in it, or give the right to the fuzz to search it without a warrant? How about if the housing project were built on land which once belonged to numerous homeowners who were evicted through eminent domian, whose houses had been built upon land that was purchased by a politician after having condemned it or otherwise made it worthless so he could sell it to the developer; and which previously belonged to some Indians who were run-off…???
We can not right all of the wrongs the tyrannical system commits and has committed while we and the majority around us live within the confines of that system- yet that should not cause us to deny the validity of property rights of the apparent and reasonably legitimate owner.
We CAN however abstain from participating in scenarios where we might be a party to injustice, such as by not purchasing items from government auctions where we KNOW that the items were taken from victims- such as seized property auctions and tax auctions, etc. And even pertaining to that: If someone buys a car at such an auction, is it not technically his? And if no, does that then give YOU a say in the control and disposition of that car, or rather is your remedy simply to not buy such cars, and to not associate with those who or, nor accept rides from them?
Frasier ( 😉 )
Nunz
Do the subsidies that the businesses you refer to surpass the amount of taxes they pay?
Just posting this as some zeitgest on libertarianism over at 0hedge. It reflects perhaps the splintering of libertarianism and what it is meaning to different people these days. Also, what may be being done to it. The original post, some of which is on point and some of which is sorta defective, as well as no mention of property rights at all, amazingly, and the comments, of which there are surprisingly very few on this topic compared to years past at the hedge, some of which are also on point and some of which are also sorta defective. What a shambles…
The link I forgot:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-15/merging-state-and-corporate-power-not-libertarian
In regard to the discussion below among eric, ‘Zek, Nunzio, etc. on what “property rights” a corporation should properly be accorded (I didn’t want to hang a lengthy reply in a narrow margin):
I think the root of Zek’s sustained defense of corporatist tyranny can be traced to his assertion on the “primacy of property rights.” Such a (modernism-dependent) position is, I believe, facially fallacious. Although I agree that property rights are prerequisite to political liberty, such rights are not “primary” but are rather exceedingly woolly and messy. The “primary” right is to have one’s body free from violent interference from another. The “property rights” of any given actor should only be treated as sacrosanct to the extent they are consistent with and derivative of his right to bodily tranquility, and do not infringe on the corresponding right of any other actor.
What eric is rightfully complaining about is that corporations by their nature exploit an autistic conception of “primary” property rights, and mutate that concept into overreaching crabgrass of government-enabled entitlements and privileges. ‘Zek’s autistic fetish for “property rights” can easily be used to justify any tyranny, as long as the government “armor-plates” it with any kind of legalistic or nominal “private interest.” This goes for the Enclosures and the Highland Clearances as much as for modern-day eminent domain and “health guidelines.” To be consistent, ‘Zek would need to defend the dispossession of peasants, despite generations of peaceable and productive tenancy, because, well, the land belongs to the sovereign Queen, after all. Property rights uber alles!
Nunzio says, “I agree with you that the limited liability protection afforded to groups of collective owner’s known as ‘corporations’ should not exist…” Well, limited liability is the sina qua non of the corporate structure, so this would mean you don’t think corporations should exist at all. And if corporations shouldn’t exist, then eric should be entitled to put his feet up on the Hyatt conference room table!
I think what Nunzio means is that individual actors should not be shielded from liability in tort, notwithstanding their exception from liability in contact. That would be a fair point, but actually, it is based on a very common misconception about limited liability (that I shared even until well after law school). Actually, shareholders and officers are not shielded from tort liability. They remain liable for their own conduct, notwithstanding acting on behalf of a company. Only the non-actor shareholders are immune from liability (absent piercing the corporate veil). One need not “pierce the corporate veil” to make Gil Bates liable, if it can be proven that Gil Bates’s personal conduct caused harm. An injured person might alternatively recover from Gil Bates (directly) or MacroStuff, Inc. (derivatively).
The fact is, humanity has now slipped the bounds of modernism, so all the Hayekian and Misesian modeling of ethics around woolly “property rights” is irrelevant. In our post-modern context, there is no rational or meaningful distinction between the tyrannical state actors and the tyrannical corporate actors that control the habitat of the hapless Herd. It is techno-feudalism, so no Herdster may safely defend either “property rights” or “public interest” without becoming a co-signer to his own eviction notice, arrest warrant, and death sentence.
Hayekian/Misesian analysis simply cannot address the moral abyss over which humanity now dangles. It was only good for modernist contexts, where some reasonable divide separated government from private, and where some base level of protection of the individual’s bodily integrity could be assumed. Now, those basic premises have been taken out of the equation. Any moral analysis must address the moral considerations that are prior to woolly, modernism-dependent “property rights.”
Far more relevant to our current predicament is the concept of “moral disqualification,” explored by contemporary Argentine-Brazilian philosopher Julio Cabrera. Cabrera poses a “Fundamental Moral Articulation” (consistent with the Non-Aggression Principle) as morality requiring, at some point, to put the interests of some other ahead of one’s own interests, as necessary to prevent a disproportionate harm to that other. Cabrera goes on to observe that some situations may result in “moral disqualification” if there is no action available to the actor where the interests of others are put before one’s own interests. He uses the quintessential example of being under extreme physical pain and distress under torture. (Think Winston Smith’s interrogation by O’Brien.) Cabrera explains that one cannot morally fault the torture-victim for betraying some other, because the imposed conditions make putting that other’s interests above his own quite impossible—or at least beyond his powers. (Sort of like, if you’re on the South Pole, any direction you go will be North.)
As actors in the monstrous techno-tyranny that now surrounds us and penetrates our every encounter, we exist in a state of perpetual “moral disqualification”. We cannot go any direction without being at once a participant and victim of tyranny and evil. All the labyrinthine Hakekian/Misesian hand-wringing in the world attempting to trace back the “rightful owner” of some piece of real estate upon which we try to eke out another day of bare survival is bound for intractable circularity and antimony. Just like peasants being told the horse is leaving and we better get on it, or the Dust-Bowl Okie realizing “There just ain’t no one ta shoot,” we’re all learning that All Ways Are the Queen’s Ways, and all signs point North.
Despite your obscurantist digression here, and as I have noted before, your overall theory as posited previously tracks the mid-90s anti-technology theories of a certain infamous individual and is primarily a story of unstoppable technological advance gaining an almost self aware aspect in terms of enslaving us in so-called techno-feudalism. What I am discovering today that I missed when you entered the debate initially, is that Eric’s argument follows this thought pattern in some respects, such as the critique of “large organizations” and the primacy of agoristic, small industry as opposed to the bigness of interconnected modern corporations. Almost a kind of neo-primitivism that goes back to a “better managed time” maybe as far back as the medieval guild era or maybe only as far back as the era just before electricity. The overarching themes are that technology and modernism, especially in a sophisticated industrial organization, are inherently anti-freedom/liberty.
There is a kind of dissonance with this line of thought, though. Look around your house, abode, whatever. Which you say to anyone who will listen that you “own”, except when arguing certain points in internet comments. Probably 99/100 objects/items in it are made by corporations. Cars, motorcycles, same thing. But corporations bad. Enslaving you with dishwashers, drywall, indoor plumbing, you name it. Ok.
Ultimately, though, this is another instance where your reality just doesn’t match up with mine. For whatever reason, you like to promote defeatism and negativity. I happen to find it obnoxious and boring.
“99/100 objects/items in it are made by corporations. Cars, motorcycles, same thing. But corporations bad. Enslaving you with dishwashers, drywall, indoor plumbing, you name it. Ok.”
Yes, and undoubtedly that one brief taste of cheese is gloriously delicious to the rat who has taken the bait.
Interesting that you seek so aggressively to personalize and psychologize everything, rather than engage in a good-faith discussion of the ethical principles actually under discussion. Very touchy. (Sign of uneasy self-doubt.)
One brief taste of cheese? You mean your whole life? Says the guy who won’t leave his sanitized but now threatened existence because he’d be “unemployable.” I think it was you who tsk tsk-ed the whole psychoanalysis bit a while back when another commenter was told to “get help.” So spare me…
Well, since you bring it up, my boss out of the blue announced that he had come back from some lawyer confab where all the presenters decided that “best practices” were to implement injection mandates, notwithstanding the lack of any legal requirement. Which he did.
I responded in writing that I declined to follow his “unsolicited medical advice” and then he discharged me, effective immediately on a Sunday. Which is wildly unprofessional, given that it provided no time for an orderly handover of active cases, with looming deadlines, etc. But these vaxx-zombies are out for blood, and all such considerations are worth nil in their prionic rage.
So, the decision was not mine to “leave my sanitized existence.” And yes, I remain unemployable. So yes, I look around at my meager corporation-manufactured material possessions with grief and sorrow, knowing that as soon as the money runs out, I’m facing eviction, penury, and homelessness.
The trappings of modernism are crumbling ephemera. In the scale of the course of humanity, the material abundance enjoyed by the postwar West was a fleeting dream…that I have been awakened from.
You seem to be committed to cling to that dream, even as you are forced at gunpoint to dig your own grave in the “privatized” Health Processing Center. You’ll be extolling a full-throated defense of “property rights” as the gun is placed to your temple. “I defend your right to execute me! After all, I am on your property! Libertarianism trium–” BLAM!
I’m reminded of the guys who would say something like, “In my country, I was a doctor” as he worked the factory floor in his new country.
Anyway, que Bionic Mosquito:
https://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-way-out-and-way-to-part-three.html
helot:
Very apt trope. But even more unfortunately, even all the “factory floors” are closed, and you have to vaxx + mask even to work at McDonald’s…WORLDWIDE.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/10/no_author/guess-which-fortune-50-company-wont-make-employees-get-vaccinated/
Did you see the link I posted awhile back of the restaurant owner with 14
or so employees & fired the 40 who were vaxed & gave the unvaxed the diff?
If there are two, there are twenty thousand.
I can’t comment further I can’t fully see the comment box.
Pretty dark. Do something. Sue the MF’ers. Plan. Prepare. Get a gun of your own. Just don’t whine. I like to drink wine, don’t like to hear it.
Like I said, I’m not whining. Zek is the one who always insists on bringing up personal irrelevancies. (I am, incidentally however, wining at the moment!)
Sue them? There is no cause of action. At base, all employment is at-will, absent some crazy statutory “right” invented by government and its rent-seekers, like “you can’t fire gay people” or “you can’t fire black people”. There’s no statute saying “you can’t fire purebloods who don’t like forced injections. Quite the opposite, in fact! All these people spouting about litigation are deluded, and have been since the beginning of the Rain of Needles. That’s a dead-end, plain and simple. The Law is your master, not your servant. (I know how miserable litigation is. If I’m not being paid to do it, I am not going to waste my time.)
Hi FP,
It’s established precedent that companies can require drug tests as a condition of employment – but I wonder about this “vaccination” business… Peeing in a cup is certainly degrading and arguably a kind of prior restraint. But it does not even potentially harm the individual, physically speaking. Forcing someone to assume the risks – however slight – of being injected with a drug is another thing. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me a solid legal case could be made for liability; i.e., that any company that requires “vaccinations” must assume liability for any bad effects that result. Indeed, one might plausibly argue that companies are just as liable for any consequences of requiring “vaccinations”as they would be for requiring their employees to handle dangerous machinery.
Curious to know your thoughts re that.
I’m sure there will be such litigation. The courts will decide whether they hear it or not. Given the rapidly increasing tyranny we face, I suspect they will not. Legal standing not relevant.
Whether one may assign liability to an employer for an injury caused by a mandatory injection is a totally separate issue from whether one may assign liability for to an employer who terminates an employee based on a mandatory injection policy.
I addressed the former at length in a previous thread started by Nasir. The short answer is “probably not.” Perhaps an injured person could make a go at such a lawsuit, but I think at best he would get sent to the Workers Comp system, based on the doctrine of “exclusive remedies” (meaning under the applicable code, a worker’s exclusive remedy for injury is the Work-Comp program.) In Work-Comp court, the injured person would be subject to strictly-limited, statutory, barebones, low-ball remedies. (Oh, and he would be forced to get treatment from the Work-Comp ‘network’ of hack doctors that make an HMO look like medical utopia.) So the final outcome is: crippled for life by the clot-shot, but your substandard medical treatment is covered by Workers’ Comp.
The latter issue, of a terminated employee trying to sue, would be determined by whether the termination meets the criteria of statutory Wrongful Termination, because the common-law default is that all employment is “At-Will,” meaning either party is free to terminate it at any time for any or no reason. The simple version of Wrongful Termination is: if your employer fires you for refusing to do something “illegal,” you’ve got a case. This was addressed by the federal court for the Southern District of Texas this year in Bridges v. Houston Methodist, where a group of nurses asserted wrongful termination on account of the Clovid-19 mandate. In dismissing the case, the court conveyed a certain sense of sadistic gratification, holding, “Receiving a COVID-19 vaccination is not an illegal act, and it carries no penalties. She is refusing to accept an inoculation that, in the hospital’s judgment, will make it safer for the workers and the patients in Methodist’s care.” I don’t imagine any judge would ever find any differently on this issue.
A person crunchier than me would say, “you manifested that.” But you did enjoy all those pay pellets through the years and the status and station your position brought you. The surrogate activity. Without that, though, your humanity will be excited. You are not your job. You are not your “occupation.” Own your power and the power process. Godspeed, Free, neither I nor libertarianism is your enemy.
“humanity will be excited”
“Humanity” is just a body of failing flesh. Without food, its “excitement” only diminishes. Rapidly.
Mr. K was actually enormously wrong about the reliability of material abundance. He thought Man was alienated from his true rugged nature by not having to work for bare subsistence, and therefore needed to seek out “surrogate activities”.
In fact, to the contrary, Man has been critically and deliberately alienated from being permitted to achieve self-sufficiency. Therefore, Man has found himself performing not “surrogate activities” but scripted activities (like “being a lawyer”) that are offered by the superstructure as options to earn a “seat at the table” in the entirely-alienated economy.
Unlike Mr. K, I have been acutely aware of this essential precariousness for years (since 9ll Truth provided a glimpse through the illusion).
Mr. K. didn’t understand the trap he actually was in: that in fact any given individual’s material well-being is more precarious than ever in the industrial age, precisely because of his or her dependence on “organization-dependent technology.” It never occurred to Mr. K. that a controlled demolition of Industrial Society was the plan all along, and that he had no need to form some kind of terrorist cult to bring such a thing about!
Interesting debate between you and Mr. K. in your mind. I guess your journey will be finding out whether you are right or just blowing smoke. I’d bet on the latter. As far as continuing to take shots at me, like in your reply to Ugg, GFY.
Hey, F. P.
>I remain unemployable.
You *may* be “unemployable in the venues familiar to you, I do not know.
However, if you can render a service for which people will pay, you *do* have the ability to make money, presumably on the “right” side of the law.
Speaking from experience, I suggest you shitcan the idea of working for someone else, and set up in business for yourself. Doesn’t matter what.
Pick something with which you are comfortable, and know you will probably work harder than you ever have for someone else. You will have many bosses; they are called customers (or “clients,” if you prefer a more “high sounding” name).
You may not see great financial success, at least initially. but you *will* have the satisfaction of knowing you have built something from nothing, and all the honest proceeds belong to you, and you alone.
Knowing the business must be profitable quite soon greatly focuses the mind. I did this 25 years ago, and never looked back. You can too, if you really want to. And I don’t have a law degree…you do.
“set up in business for yourself. Doesn’t matter what.”
Haha. Well that’s the trick, isn’t it?!
Soothsaying don’t pay the bills when nobody wants to hear what the future has in store for them.
Don’t get me wrong, blues. I appreciate that your comment is in good faith and generous spirit. So I don’t mean to direct snark at you.
But I simply couldn’t for the life of me imagine how I could convince someone to pay me for performing some act that I can’t even imagine.
In addition, I made the mistake of working hard at, and making enormous investments in, the last thing I did (and kind of hated doing despite doing it pretty damned well, incidentally)… just to have it yanked away by forces outside my power. I would never do something so foolhardy as to work hard and invest time and effort into something else ever again, knowing it can be taken away out of the blue, forcing yet another start, all over again. (That’s actually part of the Biosecurity Revolution: the State has given an unmistakable signal to the market that all entrepreneurial activity must conform to the Tenets of Covidism, or is not welcome and will not be tolerated. But that’s actually the stuff of a separate conversation.)
>Soothsaying don’t pay the bills when nobody wants to hear what the future has in store for them.
Prophet without honor. I know that one very well, unfortunately. Many times I have seen things which no one else around me seemed to “get” at the time (they did, later), but being ahead of your time can be dangerous to your well being, figuratively if not literally.
>the last thing I did
Can you be more specific? I realize that may be asking a lot, but, realistically, I reckon you are a) among friends, if you will allow it, and b) may get some useful insights if you will be (even a little bit) more forthcoming.
From what you have posted previously, it appears you are a member of the bar in the most populous State of the U.S. If that is correct, there must be *something* you can do to earn an honest living, whether it actually requires a law degree or not.
Help us out here, F.P. You may get some insight which aids your situation, but only if you reveal (scary thought!) something about your situation. None of us here are mind readers, and I am pretty sure no one here is “out to get you.”
Hell, we don’t even know your name.
> yet another start, all over again
I read somewhere (don’t remember where) that the average person changes careers (not jobs) seven times in his/her working life. Rather astounding, if you think about it.
We live in a world of rapid change, in many ways. I know that to be true, in my own case. As Joni Mitchell sang, decades ago, “All that stays is dying, and all that lives is gettin’ out.”
Live long and prosper, F.P. I wish you success on your journey.
Hey blues, “>the last thing I did
Can you be more specific?
I just meant being a lawyer. Three years of school, and more than a dozen years of gaining a high degree of technical expertise and massive accomplishments in my area of practice. Building good will with many, many clients who put enormous amounts of faith and trust in my abilities. Building rapport with judges who all came to acknowledge me as a source of authoritative command of whatever the issue was. Now, all flushed down the drain because of some rando mass illusion beamed out of the TeeVee out of the blue. The courts all require masks even to set foot on the premises, which I am just physically incapable of. I have too much of the skittish horse in me, and I cannot sit still while bridled like a broken horse, knowing that the whole kabuki is a grotesque and abominable farce and mockery.
All those clients, also, now insist on face-masks to meet (which I refused to do, and skillfully finessed the situation time after time…but it got exhausting and was nearing the point of impossibility). Also, lawyers, judges and clients have adopted a custom–I shit you not–to greet each other with salutations of, “I am vaxxinated!””Me too! Moderna!””I’m Pfizer! Second shot in July!””Did you hear the booster is coming out soon?””Yes! My doctor put me on the priority list!””Mine too!””As soon as everyone gets it, we can finally put these masks away!” [FYI, in LA County, they have been holding JURY TRIALS where the SWORN WITNESSES TESTIFY IN MASKS! This is a gross, surreal abridgment and abandonment of ALL integrity in the fact-finding process. But I digress…]
Lawyers, being characterized by a very high degree of conscientiousness are therefore as a group among the very most neurotic. The whole industry has embraced Covidiocracy with relish. For 18 months, it was like being in the Borg Cube, watching the bots march around to the WiFi signals in their heads, bewildered but unnoticed. But now, the Inquisition phase has begun, and the Borgs are all starting to perk up at the presence of interlopers in their hive.
Jesus.
I feel for you, F.P.
(No, I don’t “feel yore pine,” as Slick Willie used to say, but I empathize with your predicament.)
>SWORN WITNESSES TESTIFY IN MASKS!
That is surreal. Whatever happened to the right to confront your accuser, i.e., face to face?
FWIW, if I am ever called to “jury duty” again, I am determined to show up in an orange jump suit. What can they do, besides reject me via peremptory challenge? I’ve already been kicked off one jury for heresy; might as well let them know up front I am “not of the body.”
You, on the other hand, have earned your living as *part* *of* The Beast.
I would suggest it is time to trade on some of that good will with former clients, if at all possible. You don’t have to be specific as to your reasons; just tell them you are “burnt out” (the truth) and looking for a change. People *do* understand job burnout. It happens to the best (maybe more frequently to the best), and these days there is no stigma attached to it.
Long ago, I met a fellow who had been a practicing attorney for some prestigious law firm in San Francisco. One day, he just said, “Eff it,” and quit. He was fortunate enough to have relatives who put him to work rehabbing rental properties in Orange County. He said he was happy with that.
You may not be fortunate enough to have an alternative job waiting, but I guarantee there is *some* acceptable alternative out there. It may take you awhile to find it. Meanwhile, “do something, even if it is wrong.”
Keep your powder dry, your mind and ears open, and your expenses to a minimum, as Eric has suggested.
I expect EP Autos “feels right” to you, otherwise you would not be here.
Plenty of us are renegades, one way or another, who have made some kind of “peace” (perhaps only temporary) with Leviathan. Welcome to the club.
Stay well, and do whatever you can to keep your spirits up.
TTYL,
Morning, FP –
I’m glad you’re posting again, first of all. Second of all, I’d like to try to get you to consider doing what I and a number of others have done to “Escape from New York,” so to speak. In my case, it was the DC area – but it’s the same idea. In general terms:
Reduce your cost of living – as by moving to a less expensive area where you can rent or buy a place for probably half or less what you are spending on something comparable where you are.
Get out of debt,if you are. If you are making payments on a car, get rid of that car – and get a car you can buy, in full. Ideally, something older you can buy for very little money.
Stop wasting money on health insurance, if you are currently wasting it on that. Get healthy, instead.
Do the above and you will find you can get by quite well on much less than you think you need, now.
In Northern Virginia, a person generally needs to make a six figure income to maintain a marginally middle class existence. In SW Virginia, a better existence can be maintained for a third that income.
There are still plenty of jobs that pay a reasonable wage, such as being a UPS driver for instance – which you could do while you figure out what else you might do. You’re an educated and intelligent guy. That puts you ahead of two-thirds of everyone else.
I think – in kindness – that you are depressed and under-estimate what you can do.
Having been there, done that a number of times in my 67 years, it is remarkable what one can do if they have no choice. Put yourself in the position where you must change your lifestyle, and you will do so. Far more easily than you suspect. Priorities change. Allocations change. Definitions change. Fear is the mind killer.
It’s also a great opportunity to get out of the system and break free and operate in the free market and stop funding our enemies and narc-ing on yourself by doing business with IRS (When one keeps most of what one earns- only sales and RE taxes and excise taxes being unavoidable- money goes a LOT further), and deal with others directly and for cash or goods, one becomes much more free.
Good luck, FP
The same is coming to my place of work, maybe this December or January. I, like you, will NOT/NEVER Vax. So it means only one thing, for now, no job!
Hi FP,
I just got to this one – about your work situation – and am appalled and saddened. But, the upside is you’ll be free of these sphincters. Right now, that’s small beans compensation but in time, you will appreciate the value of it. Meanwhile, have you considered litigation? I understand at-will employment but as a lawyer, I assume you had some kind of contract? Does it require you to submit to medical procedures? Does it waive employer liability? I regret that I did not know this was coming in time to suggest the latter, by the way; i.e., that when your employer presented you with the “mandate” you respond with: I will comply provided you – the firm – sign a legally binding document assuming liability for any harms resulting. I think there’s a good chance they’d have backed off – and you would have kept your job – for awhile, at least.
I’d also like to offer some general advice.
Your skill set – including competence with words – opens up possibilities in a number of areas. Why not teach English to home-school’d kids, for instance? You are qualified to do that. Why not look for freelance work as a copy editor or ghostwriter? There are numerous PR jobs open to a man who is competent with language.
It will be ok. Hang tough.
Wow eric appreciate all the responses! Too many to address in full, but here are a couple points.
“I understand at-will employment but as a lawyer, I assume you had some kind of contract?”
Lawyers scrupulously avoid employment contracts among each other specifically in order to preserve at-will status. Also, enforcing a contract would be tortuously complicated if a separation involved the specifics of a lawsuit, because all of the facts in such a case would need to be shielded by client confidentiality and work-product protection. Lawyers avoid the sticky wicket that would arise in a squabble about “he tried to make me do X” or “he refused to do Y.” (Believe me, I would never take a job with a contract! I’ve always valued my right to vamoose the moment an employer insists I do something I don’t want to do.)
“I [would have] suggest[ed] that when your employer presented you with the “mandate” you respond with: I will comply provided you – the firm – sign a legally binding document assuming liability for any harms resulting.”
I would never make that bluff, because I would never take the shot. What if my boss had called such a bluff and said ‘okay’? I am not willing to risk the monstrous, irreversible injury that a mutagenic injection is capable of, under any circumstances. I maintain that it is abject lunacy that this lawyer (who is a morbidly-obese smoker, btw) would presume to give me health advice–let alone medical instructions. Can he “mandate” that I take cigarette breaks with him? Can he “mandate” that I eat a hamburger and fries for lunch every day in his office with him?
I consider it intolerable in the extreme, and frankly, as soon as he pulled that bullshit, I knew that I would never be able to have any kind of working relationship with him no matter what. He’s not a doctor, let alone MY doctor, and if he were my doctor I would fire him. What if the Biden-on-the-TeeVee tells him next week that he is Napoleon, and then he “mandates” that I take a musket to the battlefield of Waterloo? What would I do then?
“Why not teach English to home-school’d kids, for instance? You are qualified to do that. Why not look for freelance work as a copy editor or ghostwriter? There are numerous PR jobs open to a man who is competent with language.”
Putting aside the issue of so-called “over-qualification” that faces anyone with a credential (a real thing, make no mistake) I agree I would be good at that! Can’t make any commitments at the moment, since escaping LA is definitely priority No. 1, but since you’re a native of Writers’ World, e-mail me any leads!!! [Re escaping LA, you may have heard that vcxx-passports became a municipal mandate as of Oct. 7. It’s getting HOT out here for purebloods!]
Yeah, I’d love to send the demented Joe Biden out to Waterloo with a Land Pattern Musket and laugh my ass off at him flailing away.
You mean to tell me that a lawyer actually EXEMPTS himself from what he tries to foist upon others? Why, I’m SHOCKED, I tell you, SHOCKED!
I’ll pocket those winnings you generously “gifted” me with…
> One need not “pierce the corporate veil” to make Gil Bates liable, if it can be proven that Gil Bates’s personal conduct caused harm.
Yes, that is my understanding, on advice of legal counsel who specializes in asset protection in State of California. Counsel advises this is particularly true if individual is deemed to possess some type of expertise, which may or may not require state licensure. Thus, Gil Bates’ *professional* conduct is always under scrutiny, and vulnerable to attack, regardless what type of legal entity pays his salary.
Good post, FP- even if I don’t agrre with all you’ve said.
**” The “primary” right is to have one’s body free from
violent interference from another. “**
That is a conundrum, because the only absolute means of guaranteeing that one can be free from the violent interference of another, while in turn not having to inflict such on another, is for each to have his own property on which he can procure his own space and resources as he pleases, and to in turn recognize and respect the same bounds of others.
**”Nunzio says, “I agree with you that the limited liability protection
afforded to groups of collective owner’s known as ‘corporations’
should not exist…” Well, limited liability is the sina qua non
of the corporate structure, so this would mean you don’t think
corporations should exist at all. And if corporations
shouldn’t exist, then eric should be entitled to put his feet
up on the Hyatt conference room table!”**
You are correct in that I posit that corporations shouldn’t exist. Cops and the IRS and the FDA should not exist either- but since we do not live in a Libertarian world, such things do exist, and we must deal with them or more wisely avoid dealing with them- but it would be folly for me to use the facilities and services of a corporation which does exist, and then cite the fact that such should not exist as an excuse to grant myself the right to determine how that corporation conducts business or disposes of it’s property.
THAT is really the crux of this argument.
To assume that I have some right to interact with that corp and use it’s facilities while expecting them to be subordinate to my rights while doing so, is in no way a remedy of the tyranny which allows the formation of corporations and all of the other unjust practices we all suffer under the rule of the extant system.
Many of the issues being posited here by Eric and Jeremy et al are actually not very relevant to the issue at-hand, because other than perhaps the large box stores, mosty of the corporations we interact with on a frequent basis IRL do not even practice the unjust practices being cited- and many busy-nesses are owned by individuals or partnerships and close corps which do not practice nor receive the benefit of any of those things.
The evil, corrupt, and unjust will practice their deeds, regardless of the technicalities of organization or classification, or the peculiarities of the political system in which they exist, and THAT is the key factor. The fact that we do not live in a Libertarian world. We live under tyranny. Those around us advocate and often are complicit in that tyranny. Maybe the injustices (Theft/subsidies/emminent domain/etc.) are even rather fitting for such a populace, as so many cheer for, vote for, fight for, and perpetuate that very system of tyranny which perpetrates said injustices. But let us deal justly, and uphold the sanctity of property (Even if there were/are injustices somewhere in the chain of real property) at least to those who have paid for and maintain it, because even if one questions their ultimate right to said property, they are still ahead of us as far as having a say over that property, because we are not even in the equation- and using the existence of some shady practices to somehow advance our own rights, is just a non-sequitur.
Holy Cats!
You guys are way above my pay grade in smarts!
I’m just trying to “Bug Out “ to an “undisclosed location “ and keep the “G” off my back.
Presently scrambling around a “Developing Nation “ to find a place to hunker down at.
Heck if I ever figure out what some guy told me about something called “Asian Jungle Fowl”and their protein potential I could be In Like Flint.
Anyone ever heard of those things??
Chicken. Asian Jungle fowl.
In a similar vein, if the CDC et al are in any way suspicious that particular stats won’t produce their desired result, they simply don’t collect the data, or ignore it if someone else does. Ergo we have the totally inadequate VAERS, and no recognition of any of the extensive Ivermectin testing.
Dr Peter McCullough — author of some 700 peer-reviewed medical papers — made a 1 hr 5 min speech to AAPS on Oct 2, 2021:
https://rumble.com/vnbv86-winning-the-war-against-therapeutic-nihilism-and-trusted-treatments-vs-unte.html
It is an AWESOME takedown of the Cult of the Vaccine … indeed, one the best speeches I’ve heard on any subject, ever.
If you don’t have an hour, just watch the first 20 minutes … then fast-forward to the 46:00 mark, where Dr McCullough fights back tears as he describes the medical atrocity of sending away sick seniors to wait at home alone without treatment.
Five stars ain’t enough.
Hi Jim. I’ve watched that video and it is powerful — highly recommended for all to watch.
That was a brilliant and honest speech.. I’ve spread that far and wide.
Please do likewise!
Another tactic is the exception that negates your argument. We see this everywhere online. Someone makes a factual statement such as “most people will get through COVID-19 without any life threatening problems.” And immediately someone will feel it necessary to troll them with “So and so died from COVID, you insensitive clod!” It has become such a problem that Facebook and Twitter actually pay people and developed algorithms to automatically troll factual posts.
It is curious how anecdotal evidence is only valid when it favors the tyrant. Most of us who are more rational don’t even bother putting up such evidence, because we are aware that it’s not relevant. I read a local news channel daily for local news and weather. They use CNN for their national news source, which is quite entertaining. They put up such anecdotal evidence daily. Today two (2) parents filed suit against a school board because their kid tested positive for COVID. Claiming it was because the school didn’t require masking. This is not news. In the unlikely event they win their case it might become news.
RK
You are frightening accurate. Geebus Sparky you are starting to scare the beejesus out of me! I reckon it’s time to search out an alternative Area of Operations.
If so inclined I may have a suggestion.
👍
All rights boil down to property rights. You own yourself and you own your stuff.
Recently our church leaders had a discussion about what might happen if somebody took us to court for refusing to allow a gay wedding in our church. I told them that a First Amendment religious freedom argument is a loser, because anybody wanting to force the issue can say, “But my religion says gay marriage is okay!”
People who cheer as government tramples property rights to fight what they consider bigotry should not be surprised when government eventually tramples our property rights to fight what somebody else considers bigotry.
Of course. But to turn this around a bit, one of the anti-property (hahaha!) arguments you’ll see made, even by some libertarians, is that businesses of any size and their owners (every business is owned by an individual or group of individuals) don’t have private property rights by dint of complying with gov’t rules or even by requiring diapers or jabs when there is no gov’t law, mandate or “requirement”. Such impairment of pure unfettered ownership means these businesses and the associated property are not “private” and private property rights don’t apply and need not be respected. This seems to be the very essence of the changing definitions tactic described by Eric.
In America, there is no pure ownership of property.
All property is subject to regulation by zoning & health laws of various sorts – even your home.
All property can be confiscated and your ownership stake deleted in its entirety for non payment of taxes.
Ownership is the absolute right to deny others the use of property. That does not exist in business.
When the govt forces or propagandizes non- govt business to enforce govt laws or decrees, that business is indeed no longer acting in their capacity as a non govt entity. It has been transformed into an enforcement arm of the govt.
Currently, even if there is no govt mandate to face diaper or jab, can anyone believe businesses would have come up with these restrictions on their own?
Taken to its conclusion, your argument would have to support denial of service based on any manner or qualifiers: race, color, religion.
If you are arguing business should be able to discriminate based on any criteria in all cases, then you are consistent.
But the environment you frame that argument in doesn’t exist.
Thanks for making my point. And I have exhorted others on here to take property rights to their logical conclusion as you describe many times in the past.
Exactly, Hatt. If I understand their premise correctly, they make the argument that since we live under an authoritarian system which does not respect and uphold the sanctity of private property, but instead taxes and dictates the terms of use of said property, that that disregarding of property rights by the state gives us the supposed right to also disregard the owner’s property rights, since the property owner, not being allowed to exercise his full right by the state, and maybe being required under threat of punishment to abide by decrees of the tyrant is not truly free to exercise his true rights to his property.
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
I’ve used the allegory that by such logic, we are therefore not entitled to dictate the acceptable behavior of guests in our homes, since do “not truly own those homes, since we must pay property taxes to the government, who, as evidenced by such taxes is actually the real ultimate owner of the property….
If we as Libertarians accept their argument, just because to do so helps achieve the advancement of the rights of those who feel entitled to use another’s property while retaining a superior right to the actuial owner- that of determining how that property may be used- then we can do that with any issue, and there is then no point to Libertarianism, because it could then be twisted at will to suit the whims of those who act more like collectivists,.
I always say that a good test of whether a given scenario is in accordance with the principles of Libertarianism/Anarchism, is to merely ask oneself “Who would enforce this in a truly Libertarian world?”. If we need someone to enforce a particular behavior, then it is not suited to a truly free society, because in such a society there would be no one to enforce silly rules- and in a case such as this, we would either have to abide by whatever the property owner requires, or refrain from using their property. If we need someone to enforce our wishes, then we are demanding government, and thus the subjugation of others by force and or coercion- which is the very thing we say we are seeking relief from.
If we believe in what we preach, then we need to be willing to accept that sometimes what might appear to not be in our immedient interest, is ultimately what we need to uphold simply because it is right, and is what our own philosophy would have us do- even if it causes us inconvenience or gives us a result which we don’t like, because of the actionms of others with whom we don’t agree.
Hi Nunz and Hatt,
Can one acquire legitimate property title through theft?
Correctly observing that many corporations acquire property through theft is not an “anti property” argument. Nor does this observation confer upon me a right to that property.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Amen, Jeremy –
Also: The modern corporation is a government-protected racket. It is inarguable. Corporations receive special legal privileges – and it is precisely these special privileges which are used to leverage corporations to do the government’s business. They are “private property” in a meaningless sense, since no individual human being owns them and no individual human beings are responsible for their actions.
Hey Jeremy,
Awww, we’ve been through this before. Your argument would apply to the majority of our homes and properties too; So do we trace the ownership chain of our property in perpetuity and right any wrongs that were done by others in the past, and or relinquish control to guests because….theft?
And if….theft, then why are we doing business with thieves? Is it O-K to buy from thieves as doing so gives us the ability to maintain a supposed right while doing so?
If I go to someone’s house, and they proceed to tell me that they killed the people who used to live in that house and buried their bodies next to Jimmy Hoffa and now “own” the house…do I then have the right to put my canal boats up on the coffee table and re-arrange the furniture, since that house isn’t legitimately theirs? -Or do I leave?
I leave! If I stay and assert that I have a right to do as I please and to maintain my rights while there, because the house isn’t legitimately theirs, then I become complicit with them, and the only thing I may achieve is the asserting of my own right over theirs because their claim to any right in that situation is illegitimate- but even in this example where that illegitimacy is 100% true, such does not in any way legitimize my asserting of rights over that property, because while that property may not legitimately be theirs, neither is it mine….
Hey Nunz,
I have never claimed that recognizing the illegitimacy of a property claim confers upon me a right to that property. In fact, I specifically reject that.
“Correctly observing that many corporations acquire property through theft is not an “anti property” argument. Nor does this observation confer upon me a right to that property”.
Perhaps you missed that.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Perhaps I misunderstand…so, what exactly is your point then?
Hey Nunz,
Libertarians, of all people, should have a coherent theory of property rights. It cannot simply be that whatever entity legally recognized as “private” by the State has sacred and inviolable property rights. I know you disagree, but that is the theory, in effect, you are proposing.
Just acquisition is essential to a valid property claim, you have admitted this in the past, but then said it doesn’t matter. I find this baffling. You have also introduced utilitarian arguments that essentially enshrine any current property claim as valid (Milton Friedman and Ronald Coase have made similar arguments).
You have created a libertarian defense of Fascism. All the State needs to do to impose tyranny upon us is to delegate it to the “private” sector. I suggest that when the “private” sector is acting as an agent of the State, whether under duress or willingly, we may treat is as an agent of the State.
I do not have to pretend that an entity which acquires property, at least in part, through theft, that solicits and receives special legal privileges, including direct subsidies and protection from liability, exists in the same universe as a private home owner.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Nunz,
No one – not me, at any rate – advocates or justifies any abuse of property rights; I merely submit that corporations don’t have rights – morally speaking. There is no specific human owner. Responsibility/accountability is legally diffused, thereby protecting and encouraging irresponsibility/lack of accountability. There is no one there. Corporations are inhuman legal constructs, that’s all.
I have no respect for that. Which in no way undermines respect for private property.
Corporations are a means of voluntary contractual cooperation. There is one or many owners as well as directors, managers, and employees. All humans. An employee’s paycheck is signed by one of them, not by “corporation x.” Liability flows through to these humans. If corporations are such lawless, unaccountable entities, why do they bother employing giant armies of lawyers?
Also, this notion that since a corporation does not have one single, specific owner obviates the private property rights of a diffuse set of owners is truly bizarre. Using that logic, Charles Koch, who owns a business that is giant corporation and operates it similarly, does have property rights in that corporation that you would respect but a shareholder of a publicly traded company and his managerial delegates do not?
Hi Zek,
Corporations are also creatures of government, given special exemptions and privileges unavailable to the individual. These are used to leverage the individual to the will of the corporation. They are also used to leverage the corporation to do the business of government, as previously mentioned. I think this is an inarguable observation.
As corporations become ubiquitous – the primary employer in a country – it becomes very difficult to not be leveraged by the corporation, which controls the economic life of the nation. This is what we are dealing with, right now, as regards both Diapering and Jabbing.
In a free market, a “means of voluntary contractual cooperation” would be unobjectionable as such. But we do not have a free market. We have a corporatist (i.e, fascist) market, in which corporations are a weird construct – superficially “private” but also de facto agents of the government. I submit that this is also inarguably true.
Even in our hypothetical free market – which does not exist – I would be very ambivalent about corporations, for all the reasons previously adduced. I think it is dangerous to liberty to diffuse ownership – and responsibility. Corporations literally remove the human element – conscience, empathy – from the equation. Corporations exist to create profit, period. “Shareholder value.” This fosters short-term and even sociopathic “thinking” – by the collective that comprises the corporation. It also fosters centralization and homogenization. Get Big – or Get Out.
This is bad news.
The longer I live, the more I incline toward the view that decentralization – of everything – is the key to keeping collectivism and coercion at bay.
Hi Eric,
We are witnessing, in real time, the destruction of Western civilization. This is being done, not by “commies”, but by Fascist technocrats. The elite, both “private” and governmental, are colluding to build the world that they want. One that does not honor or protect our property, our liberty or our autonomy; but demands that we submit to their illegitimate authority as a condition of living in society. A worldwide “company town” is being built by “private” and State actors. But, as long as the tyranny is perpetrated by the “private” sector, there’s nothing we can do.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Well-said, Jeremy!
Sadly, many still believe in the fiction that they are defending the principle of private property by defending corporations, idealizing them as opposed to understanding what they actually are, in practice.
Preach it, brother Hatt. I agree with you 100%.
Hi RG,
See my reply to Zek below; curious to get your thoughts… .
Hi Eric,
I believe you are misconstruing corporations and power. If you were to remove Jeff Bezos from Amazon would he not be just as powerful on an individual level? How about Bill Gates? Of course they would and they are.
Corporations are owned and managed by individuals. You mention the corporation’s goal is to make a profit. I would argue that all of our goals are to make a profit, because that is how one survives. An individual, very much like a corporation must bring in more revenue than they spend to succeed.
I also disagree that corporations are established to do government’s work. As a stockholder in a little itty bitty corporation I have made it a point to disavow and be a thorn in government’s side. Are large businesses (because they are all not corporations) in bed with government? Yes, I don’t dispute that. Do you think my organization holds the same power as Raytheon or Anthem? Absolutely not. Individuals set up corporations to protect themselves from government overreach and to lessen their tax burdens.
Businesses, including corporations, are a means to protect the individual. You and I do not see eye to eye on this. Any individual can start a corporation, a limited liability company, or a trust. It is not only available to the few and privileged.
Hi RG,
Corporations have power – de facto political power, granted by government; leveraged by government. I am speaking here of what they are – in fact – as opposed to the theoretical free market construct, which doesn’t exist.
That is my point- well, one of them!
Corporations are owned by shareholders. It is a qualitatively different thing. Responsibility is diffused/dissipated – among “officers,” who are held to lesser personal liability standard than an individual.
Corporations also encourage bigness, which though it can have some temporary benefits such as economies of scale lowering costs – inevitably leads to big political power, which is always dangerous. It was corporations (railroads, especially) who gave us the “civil” war. It was corporations who gave us WWI – and then profited from WWII and gave us the military-industrial complex and the national security state. These greasy pharmaceutical companies are corporations… and they’ve limited their liability for the mayhem they cause while simultaneously leveraging the government’s power to not only force us to subsidize their awful products but force us to take them, too.
Using corporations (and corporate employment) as the cudgel.
Corporations, more than any other single thing, have homogenized and regimented this country into a same-same everywhere sea of shopping mall facades for the same McChains, everywhere. This is objectionable on grounds of vulgarity alone but there is a more serious objection- that regarding the centralization of economic and thereby political power.
It would be much harder for things to be as they are right now if it weren’t for corporations.
Should corporations be outlawed? That is not the proper question. Corporations would not exist- absent government.
Hi Ya Eric!
While I agree with you that the limited liability protection afforded to groups of collective owner’s known as ‘corporations’ should not exist, it is a non-sequitur to believe that the owners of said corporations must delegate property ownership rights- regardless of any actual harm they may or may not have caused- just because they have taken advantage of the various options available to them under the present system of tyranny, which in many cases are often pursued purely for financial and tax advantages.
I don’t have any respect for the abrogation of liabilities either- but to say that merely because such a prospect exists that it generally negates ownership rights even absent any actual participation in that aspect of the scheme- which in reality does NOT protect the property of the corporation from liability, but only the personal property of the collective owners of the corporation, which is something entirely removed from and irrelevant to the subject of this discussion.
To simply it, you are in essence saying that since Joe Stockholder’s house won’t be liened if Sue Le Suer slips and breaks her sacroiliac at Wal-Depot, that the corp owned by Joe shouldn’t have the right to decide who may access their facilities and under what conditions.
Hey, corps wouldn’t exist in a free society, and I don’t like what most of them do in our world now where they do exist….but we of all people should still uphold the primacy of property rights, even when others use their property in a way which is inconvenient or detrimental to OUR interests, because ultimately, everything we stand for comes down to the sanctity of property rights.
The environment exists Dan, its just been taken over by the warlords we are always warned will result if we resort to anarchy.
Argumentation ethics aside, property is no guarantee against evil, but is a prerequisite to liberty.
Wow, that’s a huge leap, Hatteraszek. I’m kinda shocked to see you make it.
I think you left some things out of your comment.
Things such as: Regulatory capture, certain special privileges not afforded to individuals or other lowly companies, kick-backs & brown envelopes full of cash, no-bid contracts, and what’s that deal the insurance companies have where ‘customers’ are forced to buy their services/product if they wish to drive on the roads their taxes paid for? …Stuff like that which sets certain companies apart from other companies ala Animal Farm.
These things exist. So rather than isolate and attack them, you attack, or redefine away in argumentation ethics terms, property rights? Is this like how defeatism was a source of inspiration for POWs in Vietnam from the other thread?
Again, property rights are no guarantee against evil but are a prerequisite to liberty.
Hi Roland,
I haven’t read all the comments to your post, but I am wondering if your church has a constitution or other governing document? A couple of years ago our church saw what was coming and included a definition of marriage as between one man and one woman (I believe even the definitions of “man” and “woman” included references to biology, birth, and Creation). This way, the church has some standing to turn away those who would try to make church leaders run afoul of stated policies.
(Now, if only they would include something about the “masking” and “jabbing”…at this time the decision is left up to individuals, although a blanket statement protecting individual members’ rights would be appreciated.)
Hi Anon,
Thanks for the reply. I haven’t read it all either as I just got back from a camping trip off the grid. Looks like the discussion veered off again into corporation-land, and I suppose that’s fine.
Yes, we do have a written constitution. In fact, the discussion I alluded to took place at a meeting of the committee tasked with revising and updating it. The existing document, under the heading Confessions of Faith, cites the books of the Old and New Testaments along with certain confessional writings of the Lutheran Church and Martin Luther as the basis for our beliefs.
My position has been that we should leave it at that. If anyone wants to know what we believe about marriage, he/she/whatever can read those documents to find the answer. I think that having a written policy about what kinds of marriage ceremonies we will and will not allow in our church would be inviting trouble. I suggested adding a sentence that says the pastor and Board of Elders will make all decisions regarding the use of our facilities by nonmembers. That’s all. If they decide to say “no,” they do not have to give a reason – because it’s our property.
Yes, that is a good point. It is, in fact, how I live my life 🙂 . No need to explain my decisions – as they say, your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe/accept it anyway.
Our pastor’s son is an attorney and it was his suggestion. I agree that too many twists and turns can backfire and create loopholes, unintended consequences and all that. But it seems to make sense to spell some major things out in case someone tries to impeach our leadership or their judgment.
Lesley Gore tells it like it is in the song ‘You Don’t Own Me’.
Isn’t taxation of income voluntary? You file for a refund if you have been working a job where income is withheld and you pay some of what you earned to the Internal Revenue Service. You do it voluntarily to receive some money back that was originally yours. If you don’t make enough money, you don’t have to file.
If you make enough money and don’t file, sometimes, a ‘special agent’ might pay a visit to your business or home. An IRS special agent is armed.
We say you owe taxes, you are going to pay us and you will says the IRS. Dot gov confiscates a little at a time every two weeks or each month or they can take it all at once. We’re from the government and we’re here to help… ourselves to what you’ve got.
End of argument.
A farmer in my state was driving four new combines down the highway, been 55 years ago now, a local TV news station televised the combines moving down the road.
The IRS got wind of the farmer’s new combines, did an audit, discovered he had not paid taxes to the fed gov. The IRS confiscated his land and sold the farm to satisfy the tax burden.
The new farm owner was being harassed by the farmer who lost the farm because he hadn’t paid his fair share to Uncle Sam. The farmer who owned the farm would drive by and fire his shotgun at the farmhouse he lost.
The IRS doesn’t care one wit what happens to you if you don’t pay your taxes, what they say you owe and didn’t pay. The farmer who lost his farm carried around a briefcase full of papers until the day he died in his fight against the IRS. They will extract their pound of flesh.
Sorry to say, but you are going to lose the case, you can’t fight city hall. The old guy argued until he was blue in the face, didn’t do any good.
I knew the farmer who bought the farm, I do know the shots fired from a shotgun was correct information.
The IRS pushes hard.
It all reminds me of another good song.
The Pusher by Hoyt Axton
You know I’ve smoked a lot of grass
O’ Lord, I’ve popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin’
That my spirit could kill.
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ’round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don’t care
Ah, if you live or if you die.
God damn, the pusher
God damn, I say the pusher
I said God damn
God damn the pusher man.
You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With a lump grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he’s not a natural man.
Yes – the straw man army is out in force on this subject.
Straw men is all the leftists have – so they create a gigantic straw man argument and then slay it front of all their adoring fans.
Don’t want an experimental injection from a company that is held harmless from any liability: You’re “anti-vax”
On the subject of the mandates, I have a unique legal angle:
There seems to only a couple legal justifications for refusing an employer vax mandate: Religious exemptions or medical exemptions.
I’d recommend a different approach:
Provide the data supporting that unvaccinated individuals are any more likely to transmit COVID than vaccinated individuals. Here’s a hint: The data doesn’t exist.
The only scientifically literate (yet morally reprehensible) justification for mandatory vaccination would be if unvaccinated people were spreading the virus more readily than their vaccinated counterparts.
The jury is in. Not guilty on all counts.
NBC news: ‘The internal CDC presentation concluded that, “breakthrough infections may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases.”‘
Replace “may be” with “are” to be precise. That’s what the study concludes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/delta-variant-viral-load-scientists-are-watching-covid-pandemic-rcna1604
NPR: ‘It also found no significant difference in the viral load present in the breakthrough infections occurring in fully vaccinated people and the other cases, suggesting the viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with the coronavirus is similar.’
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/30/1022867219/cdc-study-provincetown-delta-vaccinated-breakthrough-mask-guidance
See Figure 2: the CDC’s box and whisker chart for yourselves (hope I’m not banned for sharing CDC “misinformation”)
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w
So the only scientifically rational argument for mandatory vaccinations has been shredded by none other than the CDC.
I guess since NBC news, NPR, and the CDC are all right wing extremist sites, we may need to take this conclusion with a grain of salt…
Finally, let’s go over the clinical trials again: Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J only looked at safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and efficacy. Transmissibility was never even considered. Everyone arguing for mandatory vaccinations has the sum total of exactly zero data to support the assertion that unvaccinated people are any more of a threat to them than vaccinated people.
During the time of the clinical trials, the vaccines were given a 95% efficacy rating. During that time, the only people in the entire country who were vaccinated were the participants in the trial who did not get the placebo.
So we’ve gone from “95% efficacy against an entirely unvaccinated population” to “Actually, we need the entire population to be vaccinated for this thing to work at all” in less than 8 months.
And people ask me why I’ve lost all respect for “public health officials” as well as the overwhelming majority of doctors who damn well know better but are afraid to say anything.
I think this may be the cleanest legal approach compared to religious and medical exemptions for a 3 reasons:
1) There is no real objective barometer of the degree of someone’s religious beliefs.
2) Doctors who will go on record providing medical exemptions are few and far between.
3) Both religious and medical exemptions place the employer in an awkward position:
They basically say, “Yes – I’m dangerous, but you need to let me work here anyway.”
The option I recommend says: “I’m not dangerous.”
THAT is the argument.
A corollary is that requiring covid tests of the unvaxxed, but allowing the vaxxed to skip tests (as in ‘Senator’ Feinstein’s passenger air travel bill) is both discriminatory and dangerous, as vaxxed covid carriers will go undetected by design.
This is equally true of health care systems, where mandatory vaxxing goes into effect on Nov. 1 in my state, replacing periodic testing.
Watch hospitals crumble, as vaxxed spreaders turn them into charnel houses of disease and death.
FJB.
Hi Jim,
They can’t have the vaxxed be tested, because all that does proves is the shot is BS. The vaxxed and the unvaxxed have the same possibility of catching and spreading the virus. The sole difference is the majority of the unvaxxers immune system will fight off the disease.
Hi RG,
I fully agree with what you’re saying about “can’t have the vaxxed tesed”… it would prove the shot is BS. But I have a little different take on some of this due to the way certain well-vaxxed places are ending up.
But first, along those lines, they can’t have the unvaxxed use an antibody test to avoid the poison because they know they’d see major portions of the population have already got ’em. Will never be allowed because of that one thing.
Now, the thing that I disagree with what you say (and just my opinion) is about “the vaxxed and unvaxxed have the same possibility…”. I would have agreed without hesitation before but I think it’s now becoming apparent that something like ADE/VED has already started. How could it be that a well-vaxxed (80%+) locality would have a *higher* number of cases/hospitalizations now than before? That’s what they’re saying… in Israel and I think the UK as well now.
“This shouldn’t be happening!” is the supposedly incredulous “shout at the sky” narrative. Even in the NYT (according to Alex Berenson today) — I don’t read it myself.
And then, the other thing is, I think they’re lying about the viral load as well. Mainly because they lie about everything and often times the lie is to level set something that is actually worse, i.e., they’ll concede “vax spread *equal* to unvaxxed” only because it’s probably more like “vax spread *more* than unvaxxed” because of the jab.
According to their own stories, the vaxxed can be infected and have reduced symptoms which would seem to imply they wouldn’t even know it more often than not because, it wasn’t that long ago that, they conceded that many (most?) people can have the dreaded killing bug and not even know it… without the jab. And the jab makes it even easier to “not know it”.
And I don’t believe them about viral load either. Probably same thing would be my guess. The vaxxed probably have higher viral load… just because fuck humanity at the hands of these evil bastards! Or… maybe their body isn’t mounting as effective of a response as a healthy unjabbed (in otherwise equivalent circumstances) because the unjabbed will respond with broad spectrum antibodies where the vaxxed will not.
Again, this is mostly what they’ve said… just added up and dots connected in ways that they don’t want to hear. People.. especially the jabbed… don’t want to hear.
Hi Anonymous,
If immune enhancement is occurring (and I don’t doubt that in some areas it sure looks like it) then the vaxxed are in for a load of trouble. That means the animal studies that were conducted in 2008 and 2012 are right on. We are living in scary times.
The only way that cases can go up more after heavy vaccination, as in areas such as Israel, is if the vaxxed do indeed carry a significantly higher viral load. In addendum, Israel’s hospitalizations and deaths are rising to match their rise in cases as well. Israel is the largest and most well documented real world test of the vaccine, and it’s failing miserably.
Your post reminded me of yet another part of the story that I don’t believe (I posted the response to RG below as well).
I do not believe the part that they did not “look at” or consider or measure transmissibility. I get that they did not claim that to be part of their studies nor their applications to the FDA.
As usual, I just don’t believe them period.
I think they looked at it, measured it, knew it before and reaffirmed what they knew later. What freaking people, that make vaccines for a living, just threw up their hands and “oops”… no time for that… we’ll think about that later?!?!
Baloney!
They just couldn’t come out and say “look, we already KNOW this shit won’t stop the transmission of anything, we just gotta pump this shit into you bastards.”
They were applying for the EUA for a… wait for it… VACCINE… and that was prior to the redefinition of that word where it still meant what it should still mean today. OBTW because otherwise, the EUA shouldn’t have been granted.
“You want us to grant you an EUA for a vaccine that doesn’t vaccinate?!”
No, no. Well, yes, they do… but they can’t have it be said that way. Rather, we just “haven’t looked at transmission”.
This way, they can kill the most people with it as humanly possible and still have the option to kill more once all the tests are finally complete.
Apparently, like auto manufacturers anymore, they’re trying to *refine* the transmission process. I think they’ve done that rather well. Apart from ongoing boosters, it’s hard to imagine a better way to do so.
**”As a libertarian, I argue that every adult human being has a natural, inalienable right of ownership over his or her own body”**
It wasn’t so long ago that the majority of people believed that. But it’s been chipped away at so insidiously, through various and sundry vehicles such as taxation (You don’t have an inalienable right to the product of your own labor or endeavors) and licenses (You have to get our permission or it’s a crime to do that which is no crime) etc.
And even while that insidious chipping was going on, most people at least still recognized and respected the sanctity (Huhuh…I said titty…) of the bounds of one’s actual body- be it their own or their neighbor’s; be they of the conservative or liberal (R or D) variety of collectivist. But this has been going on for so long now…and the concept of ‘democracy’ has been so ingrained, that no bounds of any kind any longer exist; only the collectivism remains- to be applied to a broken sidewalk, or teaching a brand of censored history, or what you may or may not or MUST ingest.
That so many are not only not opposed to this tyranny, but actually SUPPORT it, is even scarier than the tyranny itself. At least if it were universally seen as being odious, then it would soon cease to exist because enough people would “get it” and be moved to action….but instead, being tolerated and even supported by a majority, indicates that it will be long-entrenched because so many are complicit- at least until sufficient numbers of the complicit cease to exist because of their own foolishness of accepting the tyranny. (Don’t get excited though…the “better stock” who remain- who had the foresight and ‘nads to resist, will be easier to control once the others are gone, as they can then concentrate their resources on us…)
In the last few years I’ve heard “democracy” more than all my previous life. Never mind that democracy is the 51% forcing the 49% to go along, at gunpoint. Never mind that gang rape is democracy in action. If 51% say this is the way we want it, then that is the way it shall be. Never mind that half the people you meet are below the mean IQ (Carlin said “average”, which isn’t exactly true). It becomes apparent that the desire to be a tyrant is now far more common than we might prefer.
Yup amen. People are nuts the way they will go out of their way to “vote” for or otherwise support forcing people to do things.
If you go to any big city and see the common degeneracy there, then think “these people, if enough of them, get the govt. to force me to do things”.
We had a republic. At least the guise of one. But the RepulicANS gave it up. It was easier to let the mob destroy it. I mean, after all, a whole bunch of ’em said so.
What more could we ask for?
What I will never understand is how people can consider this anything less than technical slavery. Sure, milder than chains and whips, etc. But where there is essentially no rights and no redress. No meaningful way to change the course of govt. actions.
Whether it is asset forfeiture, income taxes, or the upcoming “unrealized gains” taxation they’ve been talking about. It’s just them taking whatever they want with zero accountability and nothing can stop them.
What is my/our “fair share” of tyranny?
But even further, what is my “fair share” of things that do benefit others? But, before you answer, consider it in the context of organized crime. When Tony Soprano murdered whomever to get favorable business deals, their not-made family and friends did benefit.
When this much tyranny happens, there is no amount of benefit for anyone in any case to which I want to be a party. The murderers of life and liberty are gonna feed the hungry?! My “fair share” is still zero.
This is prison. We are slaves.
‘I do, however, very much oppose anyone being forced or pressured to make or buy electric cars.’ — eric
Eric and others have pointed out that the electric grid is not up to the task of serving an electrified fleet. Now we have proof:
‘The United Kingdom plans to pass legislation that will see EV home and workplace chargers being switched off at peak times to avoid blackouts.
‘As of May 30, 2022, new home and workplace chargers being installed must be “smart” chargers connected to the internet and able to employ pre-sets limiting their ability to function from 8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 10 pm.
‘In addition to the nine hours a day of downtime, authorities will be able to impose a “randomized delay” of 30 minutes on individual chargers in certain areas to prevent grid spikes at other times.’
https://insideevs.com/news/537120/ev-chargers-switched-off-uk/amp/
Your smart EV and your smart charger can immobilized by the authorities at will.
Too bad if granny’s in the hospital dying. No mobility for you, SERF.
Here in the once “great” state of Californicate, our moronic “guv” just signed a bill phasing out gas-powered lawn equipment. Never mind what this will do to thousands of landscape companies, many of them “minority” owned, but “Gabbin’ Nonsense” doesn’t really give two shits about THEM.
Well, that restoration project on the ’66 Plymouth has yielded a spare engine, since the boy and I decided to put off the rebuild of the original 318 “Poly” engine, at least for purposes of the car itself, which will roll with the 360 LA engine from an ’85 Dodge Ramcharger, and we’ll build up instead a 361 “B” block engine which at least is period-appropriate that he found, free for the taking. I say we should go ahead and rebuild that “Poly” engine, but for awhile, mount it on…(drumroll)…a “California Trimmer” reel mower! You’d have to see one of these beasts to know of what I speak. Fire THAT “bad boy” up and cut the grass (and haul ass) with THAT! A convoluted way to tell this corrupt, hypocritical, moronic governor to go fuck himself.
Hey Doug,
Can the Newsome administration explain to the many Californians how their generators are going to work on battery or electric? Just curious. I guess they can get one of the little portable ones and hook that up to your solar panels (hope it is sunny out and the battery is fully charged on the generator…..otherwise, no go).
Why do people stay in CA, again? The earthquakes? The wildfires? The lack of water? The rolling blackouts? Ooh, is it the celebrities? .
Hi RG,
I stay in California because it’s been my home almost my entire life, ever since my family moved here when I was five years old. My family and friends are here, my house is here, my job and my wife’s job is here, and my daughter goes to school here and is in her senior year in college. And we have the best weather. It never gets too hot or too cold or too humid. Coastal California has the closest thing to perfect weather anywhere on earth. And California is really a beautiful state.
Do I hate Newsome and the entire California government and rampant dictatorial bureaucracy and extortionate taxes and ridiculous gasoline and energy prices? Absolutely. I hate what California has become over the last fifty years, due to the insane government that we have here.
Unfortunately, life sometimes involves some difficult tradeoffs. It’s not so easy to just pick up and move and start life over again. California is my home, and I’m very attached to home.
Thanks Martin for your explanation. I sympathize with your plight. I have lived in Virginia for 98% of my life. I went to school here and the majority of my family is here, but I no longer recognize the place. I feel like a caged animal and I don’t see the state improving.
Next week I head to Florida to scout out property. I may keep my house in Virginia, but I need another form of escape. Is Florida the end all and be all? Nah. She has her problems, too, but it is paradise to where I am currently residing.
Hi RG,
Same here. Except for being born in NYC and a few years I hardly remember in Connecticut, I have lived almost all of my life in VA. I love the Blue Ridge mountains, the countryside – but as you say, the political situation is becoming unbearable due to the canker sore that is Northern Virginia (and Richmond). I like the current political climate of Florida, but I worry about it changing – soon. The state is very populous, with an unfavorable proportion of urban areas to country areas (similar to VA in this respect but also worse because it is narrower and so there is less distance between the urban areas, Interstates and so on. I suspect we’ll have to fight – no matter where we go. Even Wyoming is a nest of authoritarian leftism (viz, the recent Hut! Hut! Hutting!of a 16-year-old girl for refusing to Diaper at school).
I don’t like it. In fact, I loathe it. I wish with all my heart these Freaks would simply let us alone. Is it that much to ask? Apparently. But the good news – I strongly suspect – is that these Freaks are basically cowards, who will crumple and fold when it comes to nut-cutting time. They have aroused anger like nothing I have seen in my lifetime. The righteous, clean anger – of people who’ve been patient, tolerant and have just about had enough.
The Germans had a saying for this, after Versailles:
Der tag kommt.
I think so. And soon.
I’ve been to Florida one time, Fort Lauderdale, several years ago. This was during the winter. Even so, the combination of heat and humidity was pretty stifling. I don’t even want to imagine how horrible Florida must be during the long summer months.
Florida is probably one of the freest states in the US, so I can certainly see the attraction of moving there. But how can you stand the climate, especially during the endless summer? I guess I’m just really spoiled by California weather.
Hi Martin,
I am looking in Northern Florida, where there are three seasons. 😉
There is no doubt Florida gets hot, the summers can be pretty intense, then there are the bugs, high insurance and RE taxes, the alligators, and finally, old people that drive really slow.
Over the last two years I have traveled there pretty consistently to get a feel for the area I want to in. Some people are able to pack up and move without ever previously setting foot in the place. I am not one of these people. I research….a lot. She has her problems, but her issues are bearable to where I am now.
Hi RG,
Good luck in your search for a good place to live in Florida. If you find the summers even in Northern Florida to be too intolerable, you might want to consider having a second residence in a cooler area during the summer to escape the horrible summer heat!
Hi Martin,
It is likely that I will keep my VA residence for a short period of time. My husband does not want to sell it “just in case”. We don’t need to sell it to buy down there. If it does get unbearable then we head back to the Mid Atlantic.
No place east of the Rockies and south of the Ohio river is “tolerable” during the hot, HUMID summers. It’s part of the reason for the casual attitude and slow, deliberate speech of Southerners, ya’ll.
As for dealing with it…it’s called AIR CONDITIONING. Or just learning to carry a towel and wipe away the sweat, and otherwise living with it.
You’d be surprised what you can get used to. That’s one reason I appreciate “Sheriff Joe” and his “tent city”, which, of course, the inmates bitched about. As he reminded them: “Men and Woman proudly serving our country have to endure this sort of heat and WORSE, so SHUT the HELL up!”
Hey Martin,
Florida is far from one of the freest states…..one can not even legally live ‘off the grid’ there….. And with half the population there being exNYers, it’s only gonna get worse!
And I certainly agree with you- the humidity is oppressive. The one time I was there was erarly spring- lo 70s…but felt like 100 with the humidity (And I was still living in NY at the time, so humidity was not foreign to me!)- and then it would be in the 40’s at night, and it felt much colder….. A friend moved there a couple of years ago…if it weren’t for the screened-in pool connected right to the house, he’d never be able to go ‘outside’ (If ya consider that outside).
I just can’t wait to see how in hell taxis are gonna do it. Ever talk to a cabby about the business? It’s really difficult for me to imagine but of course there’s probably some liberal fairy tale that I haven’t read.
Nail on the head.
This is why the argument is “you want Grandma to do”, “you won’t protect others”, “you don’t want roads”, “you hate freedom”, and on and on and on…………..
I could go forever. But there’s no need. Any of us that have ever thought independently have been dealing with this forever.
You know what? I don’t care any more. Appeals to emotion are what got us into this mess, and don’t appear likely to do anything but dig us in deeper. Fuck everyone’s feelings, we have real problems right now and everyone is going to make some hard choices.
Exactly, Ancap. It’s so ingrained, that even 50 years ago in a much saner and freer world, in elementary school I’d quip to other kids “If they can make us go to school and draft us into the army, how can they say we’re free?”- and the response would always be something like “What are you, a communist?!” or “Duhhh…ya gotta go to school, dummy!”. (Understandable from fellow 9 year-olds, in retrospect- but the sad thing is, I still get the same response today…from adults!!!!)
That WAS the point of the “pube-lick” (public) schools, to imbue COMPLIANCE.
“We don’t need no ed-u-ca-shun” (guitar riff)…”we don’t need no, though control…”
Well, they don’t teach reading, math, PE, shop, home ec, or even recess any more, so they must be teaching something with all that time on their hands.
How they expect any kid to go out into the world and function after filling their heads with dreck is beyond me. The teachers’ unions should be sued for malpractice. Or tarred and feathered, then ridden out of town on a rail.
Nullification:
‘Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, responding to what he called “bullying” by the Biden Administration, on Monday barred all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state by any entity, including private employers.
‘Abbott’s order states that “no entity in Texas” could compel proof of vaccination by any individual, including employees or customers. He called on state lawmakers to take up the issue in an upcoming special session.
‘Fort Worth-based American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, imposed a vaccine mandate on its 60,000 employees, around 9,000 of whom are based in Texas.
‘The company is defending a lawsuit filed in Fort Worth. A federal judge on Wednesday will hear a request by United employees for an injunction to prevent the carrier from firing those who requested exemptions.’ — Reuters
We are getting down to constitutional fundamentals here. Is this a federal republic? Do its sovereign states have the right to nullify federal laws with which they disagree? Most states already have nullified the federal cannabis ban, in defiance of US law.
Texas was only state admitted to the US by treaty, having been a sovereign country on its own for nine years before. Now the magnitude of its error in 1845 is clear, as the US fedgov goes full totalitarian under the horror of unified DemonRat rule.
Just say ‘NO’ to Comrade Joe.
“Do its sovereign states have the right to nullify federal laws with which they disagree?”
interesting in that Bite-me has not, as of yet, issued any executive order for the mandate. About 15 AG in various states have been waiting for the paperwork so they can file an appeal but he has issued nothing but a presser claiming he is siccing OHSA on all whom do not comply.
I hope the SW Airline pilots keep it up. Maybe this is the start of a national strike? I’ll bet of the 75MM whom voted toward Trump are people who actually do things like fly planes and build roads and bake bread. The left are do nothing children working for law firms or think tanks that expect their service people to serve them and shut up. What a terrible situation with no Amazon deliveries for these poor soulless wits.
Twenty-four state attorney generals signed a Sep 16 letter to Biden, laying out the legal theory they will use to sue OSHA, if and when large-company vax mandates are issued. West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey coordinated the letter.
People in the missing 26 states should be POUNDING on their governors and attorneys general, demanding that they join the effort.
Hans, I think that the mandate, much like the door-to-door vax pushers is just another tool in the box of propaganda to trick the gutless and uncaring into submission- “They’re going to make it law” [Or, I’m sure the TV nutworks are already making it sound like it is law, through careful wording] “So we may as well just get the shot now anyway…so we can be ‘freeee’ .”.
In reality, I doubt an EO declaring authority over the conduct of ‘private’ businesses [Remember- corps are deemed to have the same rights as natural people] would even be attempted; and would likely quickly be dispensed with even by the corrupt courts because it would be a blatant abuse of authority. In reality , any mandate (and I believe a mandate was issued, in the form of an EO) only has legal authority over federal employees and government contractors.
But most don’t realize such…and the TV certainly ain’t gonna tell them- but quite the opposite- I’m sure they refer constantly to “the mandate” as if it were a law, and as if it applied to corporations and private businesses who employ “100 or more people”- and such makes people willing to obey- or in the case of employers, gives them the opportunity to push the needling, or may even cause those who oppose doing so to in-fact do so under the mistaken fear that they will be fined and prosecuted for not doing so, even though the mandate doesn’t apply to them.
These pricks are tricky bastards! And at this point, the public is complicit, because how many times does one have to be fooled by a pathological liar, before one stops believing what they say? -And if one continues to believe after having been fooled 50 times, then they are complicit with that liar…or just stupid. Either way, the truth loses, because so many are complicit with the liar.
Tom DiLorenzo wrote something years ago that has stuck with me. I can’t find the originial article but to paraphrase, the end of the ‘civil war’ meant that the federal government, through it’s courts, was the arbiter of its own power.
In other words, it’s foolish to think federal courts would protect liberty. After all the evil John Roberts caved on obamacare.
The Confederate Constitution included a provision whereby states could impeach federal judges. Oh how I wish…
I think you’re blowing hot air, as usual. The Governor’s EO while it is very commendable, unfortunately does not have teeth. Violators lose access to state contracts and some other benefits. So what? Southwest Airlines whose CEO will ignore the Guv’s order worry about that?
Without jail and stiff fines, this is meaningless, sorry!
Texas attempted, unsuccessfully, to RECITFY that “error” in 1861, and, FWIW, was NEVER conquered, militarily, but as of June, 1865, when the US Army landed at Galveston, TX, and declared the Emancipation Proclamation in effect (hence the “Juneteenth” holiday, as it happened on June 19, 1865), and the Texas state government, knowing the “Jig was up”, didn’t resist.
Given that Southwest got started as a INTRASTATE airline in Texas some 50 years ago, this entire thing is ironic, as that one-time upstart is the biggest airline in the country ATM. Obviously its traffic within Texas is now but a small fraction of its business. It was hilarious to see them try to dance around the recent “sick out” by unionized pilots, pissed off at the Jab mandates.
This surely exposes the hypocrisy of the “war on drugs” since the PTB insist you aren’t allowed to take some drugs but they can force you to take the drugs of their choosing. If someone decides to ingest poison I think that’s a terrible decision but it’s none of my or anyone else’s business, so go ahead and knock yourself out.
Mornin’ Mike!
My thoughts exactly, re the drugs. And once they established the precedent of decreeing what we may or may not ingest or even possess (etc.), they need not limit it to drugs- after all, how does one differentiate between a drug and just a plant or food or a vitamin, etc.? Once they made it a crime to possess or grow certain plants even- or to even possess the leaves of said plant(s), their total control was established. The labeling of certain things as “drugs” just made it easy to gain the support of most people, and to vilify those of us who advocate personal freedom and oppose slavery/tyranny as “pro-drug” even if we’re not! But once that precedent and paradigm was established, now look at how easily they’ve extrapolated it other things, like even food! -With some locales banning certain ingredients or certain size serving containers in restaurants, or even regulating what kids can bring to school for lunch, or even the outright banning of home-made lunches being brought to school entirely!
You would think, given all of this, that the hordes would easily see that it is all about CONTROL; minute control of every detail of everyone’s life; A ‘democracy’ not just of matters of state, but over the lives of every person and living creature. “But if we get to vote [for some lying prick], we’re freeeeeee!!!”.
I may yet pass on before we start seeing mandated implants that monitor your every move and are the monitoring point for state-mandated chemicals to be periodically introduced into your body.
This sort of thing is nothing new: In WWI, the German Army put “uppers” into the gruel of the “Landser”, hence why they marched as fast and far as they did in August of 1914. There was one problem: by the time they got to Paris, those German boys were exhausted and more were falling due to overdosing and related exhaustion than French bullets and artillery shells. The same thing went on in 1940, only THAT time the German kids were driving TANKS, and so dashed from Sedan to the English Channel in but five days, cutting off the Allied armies and pulling off once of the greatest upsets in military history. And, as before, more of these “Deutsches Soldaten” were in the field hospitals due to exhaustion and overdosing of methamphetamines (it was even in the chocolate bars issued to these young men) than enemy fire.
If you recall your Star Trek lore, such is predicted in about 50 or so years, when the WWIII actually is supposed to break out, with drugged up soldiers waiting for their next buzz.
Does A have the right, consistent with the NAP, to use force against B who is pushing for needle-rape where B is the CEO of a hospital group that has unambiguously promulgated and implemented a policy of refusing to treat those who have not been needle raped?
Hi Mike,
I do not believe – as a matter of libertarian ethics (and morality) than anyone has a right to treatment; that is to say, a right to force someone else to provide treatment. The real issue here is whether the system can force people to withhold treatment, contrary to their wishes.
Or make it impossible for a competitive solution.
https://ballotpedia.org/Certificate_of_need_laws
Even worse, the Federal Government under Xiden is actively interfering with the efforts of the ‘rebellious’ red states like FL and TX to work out their own solutions to deal with the ‘Rona. Never mind that nowhere in the Constitution does the Federal Government have ANY authority to administer “public health”, which under the Tenth Amendment is clearly the purview of the several states.
Thought it worth adding that I also oppose government subsidizing both electric cars and these so-called vaccines/drugs. We, as taxpayers, get to fund the very things being pushed on us. Maybe if virtue signaling liberals had to pay full freight for their Tesla or for the electricity to power it? Or maybe if these same assholios had to fork over a couple hundred bucks for the jab, they’d say, “nah, I’ll pass.” But getting these huge discounts (deadbeats like free shit) courtesy of others, gives it all a different feel, doesn’t it. Wish people would understand that when you bargain with the devil, he always takes your soul.
Practicing individual liberty & the non-aggression principle is difficult. Tyranny is easy, which is why so many turn to it (unwittingly or not).