Curt Doolittle

Theme: Coercion

  • INTERNATIONAL STUDY: BANNING FIREARMS INCREASES VIOLENT CRIME AND MURDER Harvard

    http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdfAN INTERNATIONAL STUDY: BANNING FIREARMS INCREASES VIOLENT CRIME AND MURDER

    Harvard Study.

    Sorry. That’s how it is. Guns are Good.

    (I always have this feeling that people who are against guns want not to be accountable for their actions, utterances, or emotions. And I just can’t grasp how it’s possible to ignore the data. Heterogeneous societies have more crime, homogeneous societies have less. Homogeneous societies are redisributive. Heterogeneous societies are not. The problem is diversity not guns. That’s just how it is.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 02:31:00 UTC

  • MADNESS American foreign policy is predicated on self determination. People can

    MADNESS

    American foreign policy is predicated on self determination. People can choose what government they want. But the Americans will hold the government accountable to a variety of standards – including consumer capitalism, and human rights. Assuming a country moves in both of those directions, or at least doesn’t regress against them, there isn’t a policy problem.

    If the government is ‘bad’ then even if the people select it and want it, obviously something is not right, so the government can be replaced.

    But this is confusing, and unnecessary. First, it’s a two step process. We tell people ‘you have freedom to choose what you want, but don’t choose badly.’ Except we don’t tell them what bad is. And we don’t tell them not to choose it, or we’ll blow up their entire country.

    Secondly, there isn’t a lot of evidence that people use democracy wisely. In fact, it looks pretty much the opposite. So our whole self determination and democracy fetish turns out to, scientifically anyway, be wrong.

    For example, African and Muslim tribes have used democracy to legitimize taking power to oppress other tribes. Sometimes to commit genocide.

    Even, and especially here at home. In america, democracy is just a means of conquering the Protestants.

    It’s no different in America. Not at all. It’s just legal violence rather than physical violence.

    What’s the difference?

    There isn’t any.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-25 16:37:00 UTC

  • TO THE POLICE STATE 🙂

    http://www.policestateusa.com/archives/144WELCOME TO THE POLICE STATE 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-17 02:32:00 UTC

  • Capitalism is necessary. That does not mean it is sufficient. And sufficient doe

    Capitalism is necessary. That does not mean it is sufficient. And sufficient does not mean preferable. And preferences are not universal.

    My political argument is that human beings are generous to kin. And that states must be small enough to function as kin even if kinship is merely cultural.

    Redistribution without dicatorship requires multiple competing societies. Because in-group diversity of normative preference is a bad thing for any group. Because it causes people to restrict their domain of kinship trust.

    I am against a redistributive society wherin we are forced into conflict oner norms rather than voluntarily join a society with the norms we prefer.

    And a society i agree with i will sacrifice for. And kinship is the society we evolved to sacrifice for.

    The only value of large states is cultural, economic and military conquest of those who differ both in and out if its boundaries.

    Its Not complicated.

    Small is good.

    Family is good.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-07 11:34:00 UTC

  • IF PROACTIVE VIOLENCE IS THE SOURCE, CAUSE, AND PERPETUATION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

    IF PROACTIVE VIOLENCE IS THE SOURCE, CAUSE, AND PERPETUATION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

    Then what does that say about violence?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-02 17:22:00 UTC

  • Call me an absolutist, but if you are a soldier you’re altogether different from

    Call me an absolutist, but if you are a soldier you’re altogether different from a contractor.

    We have ancient traditions for objecting to policy. You resign in protest. You bear the burden. And then you do or say whatever you want.

    But if you stay in your post you are a spy, an agent, and by consequence a threat to all others you serve with, by virtue of nothing more than spreading distrust.

    There is nothing unique about Manning. There have been thousands of him. What is rare is that he was not an officer and a gentleman, nor a man of honor to the men with him in service.

    I am sorry he was too stupid to do the right thing the right way. But it is hard to understand how one can be in the service and not understand its moral code.

    I’m as glad as everyone else to see the usa embarrassed. And anyone who reads my chatter knows that i want to reduce the scope of the military and state.

    But i cant support one immorality over another. Especially when what he exposed was trivially embarrassing and little more.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-30 13:21:00 UTC

  • ARE DEMANDS FOR EMPATHY ATTEMPTED THEFT? If one must empathize with something in

    ARE DEMANDS FOR EMPATHY ATTEMPTED THEFT?

    If one must empathize with something in order to be coerced into action, isn’t that just theft?

    I have been struggling with this idea on and off for years. But I can’t find anything that anyone else has written about it.

    However, from Freud onward, it’s pervasive.

    Trying to read a book by Woolfe. And it’s like Heidegger: bait you into an empathic reaction so that you can be deceived into involunary consent.

    What’s the difference between giving you a drug that increases your agreeablness (oxytocin), telling a story as an empathic and persuasive narrative, and making an argument about producing one outcome or another?

    Isn’t the only honest and transparent and voluntary choice, the latter?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-29 09:04:00 UTC

  • The purpose of democratic representative government is to provide legitimacy for

    The purpose of democratic representative government is to provide legitimacy for the form of corruption preferred by the majority.

    The irony is that there isnt, and never has been, any need for majority rule. Think about how absurd it is. The choice of going to war is possibly the exception. But that majority rule should or need determine either law or the use of tax money is logically ridiculous.

    There is no more reason to force us to all agree on where to place street lamps this year than there is for us to agree on which brand tuna fish to eat.

    Its ridiculous.

    The greeks put in place extended enfranchisement so that their ruler could stack the government. The british so that the middle class could take control of government. The americans so that the lower class and women could at least try to control government.

    But democratic representative government using majority rule is just a means of legitimizing one form of corruption or another.

    The absurdity is that with modern communication technology there isn’t any reason for representative government at all.

    So we have pervasive corruption without any reason.

    No reason whatsoever.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-28 11:47:00 UTC

  • CANADIAN LAW ON RECORDING POLICE 1) There is no law in Canada that prevents a me

    CANADIAN LAW ON RECORDING POLICE

    1) There is no law in Canada that prevents a member of the public from taking photographs or video in a public place (other than some limitations related to sensitive defense installations);

    2) There is no law in Canada that prevents a member of the public from taking photographs or video of a police officer executing his or her duties in public or in a location lawfully controlled by the photographer (in fact, police officers have no privacy rights in public when executing their duties);

    3) Preventing a person from taking photos or video is a prima facie infringement of a person’s Charter rights;

    4) You cannot interfere with a police officer’s lawful execution of his or her duties, but taking photos or videos does not, in and of itself, constitute interference;

    5) A police officer cannot take your phone or camera simply for recording him or her, as long as you were not obstructing;

    6) These privileges are not reserved to media — everyone has these rights;

    7) A police officer cannot make you unlock your phone to show him or her your images; and

    8) A police officer cannot make you delete any photos.

    Canadians might hate white males, but aside from that they get a few things right. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-28 05:06:00 UTC

  • How Do People Who Are Against Taxes Suggest Paying For Government Programs Many Believe Are Necessary?

    PEOPLE AREN’T AGAINST TAXES THEY’RE AGAINST WHAT THEY CONSIDER IMMORAL USES OF THEM.

    1. People do not object to Taxes. They object to what they’re used for. All of them object to some aspect or another.  Why? ….
    2. Because some people’s moral uses of taxes are immoral to others, and vice versa.
    3. The definition of necessary varies considerably for this reason.
    4. The way that things are done, via public or private sector, through saving or through intergenerational redistribution, have serious side effects.  Conservatives do not object to public health care for example. They object to the government running it instead of just giving people credit cards.
    5. Libertarians (the intellectual side of the conservative movement) believe that the problem isn’t government; it’s the behavior of people in a bureaucracy that has a monopoly – instead of using competing private firms to keep quality up and prices down.
    6. The USA redistributes money through government services which are inexpensive, poorly managed, and give terrible results, rather than just giving people the money directly. Most conservatives would prefer that we did not use programs but just gave people money, as long as they were ‘good citizens’.

    MAJORITY RULE IS THE PROBLEM

    This state of affairs is a natural consequence of majority rule where it is not possible to allocate your taxes only to those spending initiatives that you agree with.  Why isn’t it that we can all vote for money to be spent how we want to instead of whoever wins spending everybody’s money the way that they want to?

    WHAT TAXES ARE NECESSARY?

    Very few. 

    • a) The military, and depending upon which theorist you ask, the police. And we have some empirical evidence in both directions on the judiciary.  That’s all that’s technically necessary.
    • b) There are complex reasons why investments in certain commons require government and that is so that we can outlaw free riding and competition (privatizing public good) and therefore decrease the cost of commons, as well as the willingness of people to invest in them.  The problem is that this outlawing competition increases rent seeking and corruption.  so it is a two edged sword.
    • c) Taxes create a demand for fiat money and fiat money allows governments to control rates of inflation, to borrow cheaply, and to act as an insurer of last resort.  All of these things increase the economic capacity of the economy.

    This is the maximum set of necessary functions of government that I am able to justify taxation for. 

    REDISTRIBUTION IS NOT NECESSARY ITS A LUXURY
    Redistribution is a luxury that wealthy communities can afford for limited periods of time when they have a structural economic advantage over other nations.

    But redistribution that becomes a dependency is an increase in risk since no structural advantage persists for long – generally only a generation or two. Redistribution is not a necessary function of government, it is a luxury function of government.

    WHY IN THIS ERA OF TECHNOLOGY DO WE NEED REPRESENTATIVES AND MAJORITY RULE TO DETERMINE THE USE OF OUR TAX  MONEY?

    Why don’t you just vote your taxes (and some portion of the taxes that others generate if you don’t generate any)?  What’s the point of Washington?

    (Very little of our budget is discretionary.)

    https://www.quora.com/How-do-people-who-are-against-taxes-suggest-paying-for-government-programs-many-believe-are-necessary