Category Archives: Private Property

State Of Disunion, 2015 (Master of Cliches & Cupidity)

Barack Obama, Economy, Media, Private Property

That TIME calls this State Of Disunion “a new vision” says more about this rag than about the dreadful cur that is Barack Obama.

He began his extravaganza by fudging on the economy, neglecting to mention that the indices he touts as terrific are a function of trickery; of omitting that more people than ever have dropped out of the workforce for good, are not working; are receiving state assistance, and that the bumper crops of ignoramuses graduating from colleges are without the prospect of a job.

Regarding those millions who’ve gained healthcare coverage: how many have lost it? How many like this family are paying exorbitant copays and deductibles?

Onan No. 1 takes credit for economic growth such as it is. The economy grew despite government and because of private sector productivity and industry.

The media should be expressing its collective disgust, as I am, that the same hollow cliches are tumbling from this moron’s mouth this year like years past: everyone “gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

One’s so-called “share” of private property is a result of one’s effort to accrue it, or the efforts and abilities of one’s kin, if property is bequeathed.

The same media that won’t scold this insufferable scold for his cretinous cliches won’t roar some truths in response to the many free goods BHO is offering. Those truths are that there is no free lunch. Someone pays, except that someone is invisible (and is certainly not sitting in the First Lady’s Box).

The Cuba comment about “ending the embargo” is fine; a very good thing, at last.

The text of the 2015 State of the Union is here.

UPDATE II: 2014: The Year Of Living Racially (FREE People Don’t Fear ‘Racial Polarization’)

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Political Correctness, Private Property, Propaganda, Race, Racism

The current column, “2014: The Year Of Living Racially,” surveys some of the major racial milestones of the year, only to conclude … Well, read it yourself, on WND.

My man Richard Sherman said something that kicked off the 2014, year-round, banal, racial back-and-forth that parades as debate in the U.S.

Other than that the Seattle Seahawks are my team, on account that they’re from my neck of the woods; what I know about American football is dangerous. So naturally, I was rooting for, if not watching, the Hawks, when, following their victory over the San Francisco 49ers, Sherman said That Thing. And from their citadels of stupidity, U.S. mainstream media—conservatives, liberals and libertarians—went into full St. Vitus mode

“I’m the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like [Michael] Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me!”

Sherman sounded good to me. Still does. The man was pumped, as men ought to be in a testosterone-infused game. The Seahawks’ cornerback was correct to point out that his “outburst,” following the “defensive play that sealed his team’s trip to the Super Bowl,” was an extension of “his game-time competitiveness.”

“Let’s not make thug the new N-word,” pleaded John McWhorter, a scholar of color, whose intellectual and moral authority in the culture stems primarily from the concentration of melanin in his skin cells, not from the force of his argument.

Come again?

As in January of last year, I still don’t get the reason for the fuss over what Sherman said. His boisterous bit of theatre set in motion some racial, national free-association, which no man or woman with a brain cell to rub between them can follow.

Speaking of mindlessness, in February, the president of black America launched his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. Barack Obama claimed “this initiative” as his “lifelong goal,” “even after he leaves office.”

If to go by Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” “rising inequality and declining mobility,” as well as “widespread decay in moral fiber”—these are as serious and widespread among “white, lower-status, less well-educated Americans,” as they are among the black and Hispanic communities. It was against this backdrop that Obama signaled his intention to deploy his signature initiative to keep at least $200 million belonging to “leading foundations and businesses,” for “programs aimed at minority youth of color.” …

Read the rest. “2014: The Year Of Living Racially” is now on WND.

Happy New Year.
ILANA

UPDATE I: The title of the column is from a movie, but I doubt anyone under 40 (Kerry Crowel excepted), brought up on current Hollywood fare, will remember “The Year of Living Dangerously.”

UPDATE II (1/2): FREE People Don’t Fear “Racial Polarization.” I am not sure why people, in this so-called free society of ours, “worry” so much about what they term “racial polarization.” Leave people to fire, hire, rent, employ or live with whomever they wish. So long as there is no aggression against The Other, who cares about “racial polarization”? Isn’t the right to include and exclude a feature of freedom of association and the right of private property.

Hollywood Hack Hysteria

Film, Free Speech, Hollywood, Private Property, Technology, Terrorism

From their citadels of stupidity, the US mainstream media went into full St. Vitus mode over an attack by hackers on Sony Pictures. The Apoplectic Press tell those they gull on a daily basis that North Korea is behind the hack, “which,” by BBC News’ more measured report, “exposed embarrassing emails and personal details about some of the world’s biggest movie stars,” escalating “after the supposed hackers made threats against cinemas showing the film.”

The moron media have shared speculations but not much credible evidence as to the source of the hack. Still, the president and his press corp assure everyone, no evidence required, that the crazy communist regime is the culprit: “US media quoted anonymous officials as saying that the FBI had linked North Korea to the attacks.”

Well, that settles it, now doesn’t it?!

It’s quite possible, maybe likely, that North Korean hackers were set loose on Sony Pictures and employees for the impending release of the “satirical comedy The Interview, which involves a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.” But the onus is on the moron media to present the evidence.

The film’s New York premiere was cancelled and cinema chains cancelled screenings, leading Sony to announce that it had “decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release”.

No great cultural loss. The same can be said of the decision by the Sony cowards to cancel the screening of yet another five of their crap products, among these Black Annie, a concept almost as alien as a white Kunta Kinte (of Roots fame).

So can anyone tell me what the histrionics are all about? Aren’t there clever, calm ways by which smart Americans can ward off hack attacks?

UPDATE III: Eric Garner 100% Innocent Under Libertarian Law (Natural Law)

Justice, Law, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property, The State

“Eric Garner 100% Innocent Under Libertarian Law” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… Not to be conflated are the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, of Ferguson fame. While the evidence of police wrongdoing in Garner’s death is incontrovertible, the reverse is true in Brown versus Officer Darren Wilson.

As the evidence shows, Michael Brown initiated aggression. He had aggressed against the store keeper and the policeman, who protected himself from this rushing mountain of flesh. In libertarian law, the individual may defends himself against initiated aggression. He may not initiate aggression against a non-aggressor.

Eric Garner, on the other hand, had aggressed against nobody. Whereas Brown was stealing cigarillos; Garner was selling his own cigarettes. The “law” he violated was one that violated Garner’s individual, natural right to dispose of his own property—“loosies”—at will.

In libertarian law, Garner is thus 100 percent innocent. For the good libertarian abides by the axiom of non-aggression. When enforcers of the shakedown syndicate came around to bust him, Garner raised his voice, gestured and turned to walk away from his harassers. He did not aggress against or hurt anyone of the goons.

To plagiarize myself in “Tasers ‘R’ Us,” “Liberty is a simple thing. It’s the unassailable right to shout, flail your arms, even verbally provoke a politician [or policeman] unmolested. Tyranny is when those small things can get you assaulted, incarcerated, injured, even killed.”

Again: Garner had obeyed the libertarian, natural law absolutely. He was trading peacefully. In the same spirit, he turned to walk away from a confrontation. Befitting this pacific pattern, Garner had broken up a street fight prior to his murder.

The government has a monopoly over making and enforcing law— it decides what is legal and what isn’t. Thus it behooves thinking people to question the monopolist and his laws. After all, cautioned the great Southern constitutional scholar James McClellan, “What is legally just, may not be what is naturally just.” “Statutory man-made law” is not necessarily just law. …

Read the rest. “Eric Garner 100% Innocent Under Libertarian Law” is the current column, now on WND.

UPDATE I: “FOX NEWS POLL: Voters agree with Brown grand jury, disagree with Garner decision.”

UPDATE II (12/12): One despairs when, on a site that is faith and freedom-oriented—and to which this writer has been contributing for so many years with articles similar to “Eric Garner: 100% innocent under libertarian law”—most readers still have no feel for the supreme law of God, if you will, and show an overriding concern with validating state oppression and unjust state laws.
One wonders how a people can ever regain true freedom when they are so beholden to the sovereign’s perverted laws and cannot tell just- from unjust law. The feel for and understanding of freedom is exactly zero unless you know that the natural law—call it the law of G-d, if you like—is incontrovertibly supreme. Any state law that violates it is unjust. (An why are individuals arguing the merits of taxes and obedience to all manner of tax, when taxes are tantamount to theft? For that is what a government-imposed tax is: private property stolen at the point of a gun.) Moreover, the natural law is not some libertarian ideal. People who habitually talk about western civilization should know that the natural law is one of its greatest philosophical expressions, beginning with the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments), the ancient Greeks, Aristotelian philosophers, the Stoics and Cicero, Scholastics and St. Thomas Aquinas through to Thomas Jefferson and Declaration of Independence.
Natural law has always been a bulwark against tyranny; that of monarch and mob alike. When the people forget that; they are as good as slaves.

UPDATE III (12/13):

Hugh Mcgarity • 2 days ago:

I think that I read somewhere that the officers involved in the Garner case were called there by a shop owner who was concerned by the presence of Garner causing loss of business. This would seem a valid concern as most small businesses struggle in the highly taxed and regulated environment of NYC. As far as the level of force, it would appear to be excessive. Ask yourself this though, if you were being assaulted by a huge man and were wanting intervention by police: would you want the officer/s to apply a little too much force or not quite enough. If not quite enough and you were further injured, what would your reaction be? I know, it’s not a perfect analogy but it does have some parallel. If Mr Garner had complied with the legitimate first request of police then he would still be selling loosies somewhere else.

ILANA MERCER replies:

The column addresses this bit of statism in the last paragraph. Please read it:

Eric Garner was not violating anyone’s rights or harming anyone by standing on a street corner and peddling his wares – that is unless the malevolent competition that sicced the cops on him has a property right in their prior profits. They don’t.”
A shopkeeper has the right to pursue profits, he does not have the right to the profits he had before the competition arrived on the scene. Not in a free-market.