Category Archives: Democracy

UPDATED: All Burglars Are Home Invaders (Property Über Alles)

Crime, Democracy, GUNS, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, The Courts

In “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM, I discuss the culprits Joshua Komisarjevsky and his accomplice Steven Hayes, who “On July 23, 2007, were apprehended at the scene of a crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. Their crimes:

• Raping Mrs. Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter Michaela.
• Strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit.
• Setting the family home on fire, thereby killing Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley.

“… the Media and law enforcement are in the habit of describing a deadly home invasion as “a robbery gone wrong.” Consequently, homeowners have been culturally conditioned to consider the uninvited house guest as one would a modern-day Jean Valjean. Like Victor Hugo’s protagonist in Les Misérables, the “thief” is likely looking only to take a loaf of bread and leave—that is unless he openly announces his intentions to harm his reluctant hosts.

One extremely conservative writer even bristled when a news reporter broke protocol and applied the ‘home invasion’ appellation to the offense of breaking and entering:

… burglary is when a person illegally enters private property and steals things. A home invasion is when people illegally enter a home in order to terrorize, harm, or kill the residents… If we start calling all burglaries ‘home invasions,’ we lose the distinction between them.

The sooner we lose this distinction the better! All burglars are home invaders in-the-making.

Confronted with a criminal breaking and entering, there’s precious little the occupant can do to divine the intentions of the invader. It should be assumed that anyone violating another man’s inner sanctum will willingly violate the occupant. …If you believe in the sanctity of life you should fight for the sanctity of private property. It is a man’s right—even obligation—to defend his life and the lives of the loved ones living under his roof. Arguably, a right that is not vigorously defended is as good as a right forfeited. …”

The complete column is “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

Shipping is free and prompt if you buy Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE (Sept. 23): PROPERTY ÜBER ALLES. I would probably disagree with Myron Pauli about the equal importance of the troika of liberties all libertarians should shout from the rooftops. Property trumps liberty, for liberty can be variously defined. Our government insists we are free so long as we can vote. We know this to be untrue. Property, moreover, is harder to redefine. Thus, if our rights to property were fully upheld—the same state that tells us to consider ourselves free (and be grateful) would be unable to control huge areas of our lives—bedroom, boardroom, you name them.

“Life, liberty property”: I don’t believe them to be equally weighted elements of liberty.

A Qwickster Response from Netflix

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Free Markets, Technology, The State

Netflix upset its fractious, spoiled-rotten patrons by raising prices (which were at a rock-bottom low), and separating its on-demand internet streaming service from the DVD-by-mail business (now called Qwikster). No sooner did Netflix customers begin whining, than the company sprung into action—within weeks.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been groveling to the only voters who count in the true democracy that is the free market: “I messed up. I owe you an explanation … we lacked respect and humility,” all ridiculous and untrue, but necessary if this shrewd businessman is to please his only lords and masters: the buyers.

Despite this Qwickster response, the same misguided patrons refuse to appreciate the wonders of free-market capitalism and will keep begging for more of Uncle Sam’s screw-you, coercive services.

UPDATED: Euro-Bondage & The Next Tier of Tyrants

Constitution, Debt, Democracy, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Nationhood, Political Economy

The following is excerpted from “Euro-Bondage & The Next Tier of Tyrants,” my new WND.COM column:

“On Wednesday, Sept 7, patriotic Germans received bad news. A group of jurists and economists had petitioned the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Their case was that Germany’s ‘participation in the euro rescue fund packages’ undermined the democratic and property rights of German citizens, as elected officials had little say in these deals.

The high court rejected these arguments, although it did crack a Teutonic joke: Presiding judge Andreas Vosskuhle recommended that, in the future, the people’s representatives get more involved in deciding how the money of constituents is distributed.

The contagion of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe has been exacerbated by the financial collectivism imposed by the Eurozone and the wider European Union (EU), whereby the more productive member-states foot the bill for their profligate neighbors. The latter “PIGS” states are Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain.

And now Italy; it is teetering because of the Italian government’s liabilities—compounded, as in Greece, by the insatiable demands of an ever-accreting oinks sector.

A world perfected by global central planners is one in which wealth consumers live at the expense of wealth creators; where the rich are coerced into paying for the poor, the North for the South.

In this increasingly centralized dispensation, financier-cum-philanthropist George Soros holds sway. Soros has generally acted against the sovereign coin, and as a proxy for centralized power and bankers.

Just last year, Soros attempted to muscle Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel into printing and inflating her country’s currency—perhaps not to Weimar-Republic levels, but to Obama banana-republic standards …”

Read the complete column, “Euro-Bondage & The Next Tier of Tyrants,” now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

UPDATE: Americans have just heard their insufferable president propose $400 billion more in deficit-spending, to be paid for not by cuts to government but by a future, slowdown in the rate of the growth of government, over ten years.

How bad are American federal policy makers? Put it this way: The European Central Bank is more prudent than the Federal Reserve Bank, by far: It has raised interest rates over the last few years. Moreover, as bad as the Eurozone’s bailout culture has become, debtor countries have been forced to commit to austerity measures as a condition of bailout. Any parallels in the US?

Another point in favor of the Europeans: the EU is more likely to dissolve than these United States.

A Storm in a Nanny State

Democracy, Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Journalism, Liberty, Media, Private Property, Propaganda, The State

Take this post to be part of the blog series, “What They Do In Dictatorships.” In a highly evolved Managerial State such as ours, where the population has been cowed into submission, storms—even—Category 1 storms—give rise to forced evacuations. Just about half the country has been terrorized, or threatened into fleeing. It’s called “leadership,” and subjects seem to apprecaite being coaxed from their homes by lazy bureaucrats and oink-sector workers who’d rather run themselves, than stick around and do the job taxpayers pay them to do: rescue taxpayers.

In “bad” dictatorships—Libya being the latest one the US and its allies have just voided of a dictator—people might have been left in their homes. OMG. The horror! But not in the US, because the American Managerial State is so much more efficient in encroaching on its citizens than are these tin-pot dictators, whom we have built-up into mega-monsters in our infantile, Disneyfied minds.

In any case, the crappy media in this country forms a cartel of cretins. Such is the nature of this monopoly that all news outlets can safely decide to hype one story—in this case, the storm that petered out—and none of these media see the need to hedge their bets, or moderate the level of hysteria on this most fickle of topics: weather.

Here’s the definition of a “Category 1 storm”:

They “usually cause no significant structural damage; however, they can topple unanchored mobile homes, as well as uproot or snap trees. Poorly attached roof shingles or tiles can blow off. Coastal flooding and pier damage are often associated with Category 1 storms. Power outages are typically widespread to extensive, sometimes lasting several days. Even though it is the least intense type of hurricane, the storm can still produce plenty of widespread damage and can be a life-threatening storm.”