Category Archives: Private Property

UPDATED: Home-Free on Facebook? Think Again

English, Individual Rights, Internet, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Political Correctness, Private Property, Racism, Technology, The Zeitgeist

The following is an excerpt from “Home-Free on Facebook? Think Again,” now on WND.COM:

“… certain habitual social meddlers have tried to imply that the Facebook forum is racist.

In particular, a public-spirited ditz named Danah Boyd, who is ‘Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, and a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.’

A while back, Boyd was given a significant cameo on CNN to discuss a deeply silly ‘research’ paper she had slapped together.

Boyd’s narrative, cloaked in the raiment of ‘research,’ is titled ‘White Flight in Networked Publics: How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook.’ Sic and sic again: Yes, not even Microsoft’s woefully inadequate grammar and syntax checks have caught up with such linguistic infelicities.

Boyd’s infantile efforts were published by Routledge in the Digital Race Anthology.

The banal Ms. Boyd claims to have smashed our ‘techno—utopian belief’ that the internet has eradicated undesirable divisions. All this was accomplishes not with evidence of rank racism, but with a smashing postmodern word salad—-‘spatial referents,’ ‘taste markers,’ ‘reproduction of social categories,’ on and on.”

Yes, “I am now convinced that American society will collapse upon itself like a black hole under the weight of a young (mostly WASP), idiocracy rising”

The complete column, now on WND.COM, is “Home-Free on Facebook? Think Again.”

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. The “Temporarily out of stock” notice on Amazon is a function of a “temporary” publisher-printer glitch. This should be corrected shortly. Place your order, and the always-awesome Amazon will ship the book as soon as humanly possible.

Readily available is the lower-cost Kindle copy of “The Cannibal.” And you do not have to own a Kindle to download your copy of “The Cannibal”—all you need is a PC or a hand-held device (iPad or phone). This hyperlink describes the free Amazon software application for these devices. You don’t need a gadget to read “Into the Cannibal’s-Pot” on Kindle.

Help this work’s mission, and raise awareness of the issues covered in depth and detail in the book, by posting your reviews to Amazon. And you need not have have purchased the book from Amazon to review it on the site.

UPDATE (July 29): Kennon Gilson writes on WND’s Facebook thread:
“Thanks for the article. … Statistically, both women and minorities are over-represented in the Libertarian movement.
Like

Ilana Mercer replies: “You offer no proof for your assertion, KG. The lonely plight of libertarian men—at least hard-core libertarians who are strong on self-defense, guns, property rights, and against welfarism—has been a long-standing joke in the community. Of course, ‘Libertarians Lite,’ who conflate liberty with Gaga and Glee: they get plenty of dates.

‘Meet the Rapex’

Crime, Democracy, Gender, GUNS, Political Correctness, Private Property, Racism, Sex, South-Africa

The Rapex is a female condom, “The hollow inside of which is lined with rows of razor-sharp hooks. These are designed to latch on to a rapist’s penis during penetration. They can only be removed by a doctor.” The context? A last-ditch, desperate defense against endemic rape, the kind that occurs every 26 seconds in South Africa.

(Or “Jackrolling,” as young African men in South Africa jocularly refer to this group, recreational “activity.” See pages 15 to 16 of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, for story and citations.)

Army veteran and gun-rights activist Nicki Fellenzer reviews Into the Cannibal’s Pot. Nicki is our First Lady reviewer, and what a gal she is.

UPDATED: Thought Experiment in Statism (Economic Apocalypse?)

Debt, Economy, Government, Political Economy, Private Property, Taxation, The State

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told FoxNews anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly that to avoid the debt precipice, “tax reform that would generate revenue” [“now there’s a nice word for taxes”] must be considered. The “revenue we’re going to get through tax reform”: that’s how Geithner put it second time around, during the Sunday interview.

Let us assume, for a moment (as Secretary Geithner expects us to), that the solution to the debt is paying the people who incurred the debt more money; that the solution to the debt is seizing private property (through taxes) and placing it in communal ownership (state bureaucracies), where resources are never allocated efficiently and are always squandered.

Assuming all the above, do you have any guarantees that the money stuffed down the maw of the Federal Frankenstein will actually go to pay down the debt? Of course you don’t. Of course it won’t.

Money extracted from us by the Feds is fungible. Any additional revenues the Feds receive via taxes they will use to plunge private property owners deeper into debt.

UPDATE (July 25): The notion that not raising the debt-ceiling must necessarily result in the US defaulting on its debt is nonsensical. In so asserting, Tiny Tim is talking tripe. The US Treasury takes in enough loot to pay down the interest on the debt as well as a portion of the principal.

Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was upbeat about the US’s economic prospects. In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, Clinton framed “the political wrangling in Washington” over the debt as a function of America’s “open and democratic society.”

Clever. I noticed that CNN, in its reporting today, had taken the same tack: Markets across the world were worried over political wrangling in the US, rather than the debt. It was essential for the Demopublicans to arrive at an agreement for markets’ sake. The fact that there is no money in the coffers: that’s of no concern. Why, the awful Gloria Borges, a banal mind if ever there was one, ventured that legislation ought to be passed to automate the raising of the debt ceiling so that “We don’t have to go through this again.”

American Veteran-Hero Jailed

Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Law, Private Property, Racism, Regulation, South-Africa

The following is from “American Veteran-Hero Jailed,” now on WND.COM:

“As I document in my new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa,“ ‘South Africa’s ruling dominant party disregards the importance of private property and public order and the remedial value of punitive justice. Consequently, innocent victims of crime often defend themselves in their own homes and businesses on pain of imprisonment.’

But are the impediments to the defense of life and property enacted by South Africa’s dominant-party-in-perpetuity so different from the decisions issuing from American courts?

A world away from South Africa, Dr. Jerome Ersland was recently condemned to life in prison for defending his property and his employers from a gang of armed robbers.

As abcnews.com reports,

“Ersland, 59, had been hailed as a hero for protecting two co-workers during the May 19, 2009, robbery attempt at the Reliable Discount Pharmacy in south Oklahoma City. Dramatic surveillance video of the attempted burglary shows 16 year-old Antwun Parker and an accomplice running into the pharmacy in the crime-ridden neighborhood and pointing a gun directly at Ersland. The video then shows Ersland, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, firing a pistol at the two men, hitting Parker with one shot that knocked him to the ground. After chasing Parker’s accomplice out of the store, Ersland retrieved a second gun and returned to shoot Parker five more times, 46 seconds after firing the first shot.”

Ersland was accused of hastening the descent into hell of “Parker” with excess zeal.” …

The complete column is “American Veteran-Hero Jailed,” now on WND.COM

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

Please note that you can purchase the lower-cost Kindle copy of “The Cannibal” without having to own a Kindle – all you need is a PC or a hand-held device (iPad or phone). This hyperlink describes the free Amazon software application for these devices. So you do not require a new gadget to read the book on Kindle.

The print copy is available from the Publisher too. Hurry: Publisher is currently offering free shipping, including to our readers in South Africa. To purchase, click on the “Buy From StairwayPress” Button.

A good way to help this work’s mission is to post your reviews to Amazon. Us talking among ourselves will do nothing to raise awareness of the issues covered in depth and in detail in the book. And you don’t have to have purchased the book from Amazon to review it on the site.

Man up!

Make a note of upcoming Mercer media appearances here.