statism

Dennis Rodman heads back to North Korea to see ‘friend’ Kim Jong-Un

"Korean-American Kenneth Bae, 44, has been held prisoner in the North since November, and Rodman had said last week that he might seek the man’s release. But speaking to reporters at Beijing airport en route to the North Korean capital, Rodman said 'I haven’t been promised anything' on Bae. 'I’m just going to meet my friend Kim the marshal to start a new basketball league going,' Rodman said. 'I’m just trying to keep the communication job going.' North Korea, which bans religious proselytising, said Bae was a Christian evangelist who brought in 'inflammatory' material." Continue reading →

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A New Yorker’s view of gun control

"'In New York,' he said, 'the gun laws are so strict, the majority of people who have them are the criminals. Maybe if you're a small-business owner or have some other valid reason for protecting yourself, you might get a permit to carry. But if you're a regular guy like me, forget about it. But I live on the Brooklyn-Queens border, and in that part of town there's only one way to protect yourself — you got to let the punks know you're packing heat. So I bought myself a street gun that I carry with me everywhere. Lots of the decent people in my neighborhood are carrying illegal guns. It's the only thing we can do.'" Continue reading →

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‘What is Government?’ Elementary Students Taught It’s Your ‘Family’

"Fourth-grade students in Illinois are learning that “government is like a nation’s family” because it sets rules and takes care of needs such as health care and education. So says a worksheet for social studies homework that was distributed to students at East Prairie School in Skokie, Ill, complete with a drawing of Uncle Same cradling a baby that represents the citizens. Students are then prompted to answer 10 questions comparing government and families, including how their family provides for their health care needs and how the government does the same, and what rules families set and what rules government sets." Continue reading →

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‘Sovereign citizen’ movement, 30,000 strong, worrying Canadian officials

"There have been a number of 'hard take-downs' by police in B.C. involving Freemen who refuse to have a driver’s licence and, sometimes, automobile insurance. Dozens of sovereign citizens have found themselves in front of a judge facing tax evasion, contempt or criminal charges. Last month, Warren Fischer, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine in Nelson, B.C., broke down in tears in court after being convicted of tax evasion. An adherent to Freeman philosophies and a member of the Sovereign Squamish Nation, Fischer refused for several years to pay income tax, saying he did not want his taxes to support the war overseas. He will be sentenced in October." Continue reading →

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Substitutionary Justice In A Free Society

"Imagine if you will that the following scenario takes place in a free society: Someone has information about a group who was committing horrible acts of violence across the globe. The leaders of the group claim their rights were violated by the individual, and they convince a court to find this person guilty. The group convinces the court that the individual’s actions are so heinous that he must spend the next 136 years of his life in jail. Now, on the other hand, many of the people who were informed of the horrible misdeeds of the group are not convinced. Some of the people are so adamant in their support, that they offer to serve a portion of his sentence in order for him to go free." Continue reading →

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With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?

"The U.S. government pursued its vindictive course against Manning to send a message to other potential whistleblowers. The problem is, those whistleblowers — among them Snowden — got the message loud and clear. What Snowden learned is, you don’t work within the system through normal channels, and you don’t play the 'civil disobedience' game and take your punishment, unless you want to spend years naked in solitary awaiting trial and then be sentenced to most of your life in prison. You get the information distributed in secure places, get yourself safely out of the country, and then make your move. The next whistleblower will do it even bigger and better, and learn from Snowden’s example." Continue reading →

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The State, Not Manning, is the Criminal

"Manning is being punished for exposing government crimes, most famously U.S. troops shooting innocent civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in the Collateral Murder video. Manning’s disclosures also shed light on what McClatchy Newspapers called 'evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence.' The outrage caused by exposure of this brutal war crime helped end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The perpetrators should have been held accountable. They were not. Instead, the state engaged in a series of crimes against Private Manning." Continue reading →

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U.S. Officials Are Above the Law of Nations and Ordinary Laws

"With regard to Nuremberg ideas of law and sanctions against aggressive war, the U.S. government considers itself above all that. It’s a case of 'now you see it, now you don’t'. If the U.S. decides to bomb somebody and wants to mention Nuremberg as a justification (or its equivalent like a charge of killing one’s own people), now you see it. If it decides its own officials can get away with aggression against Iraq, now you don’t. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. government regards itself as a law unto itself. It is the supreme and only superpower, by virtue of which what it says, goes. And what it says is law, it also claims." Continue reading →

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The State: Judge in its Own Cause

"Is this really a nation of laws, though? There’s an old legal principle, 'nemo iudex in causa sua,' which translated into English means 'no one should be the judge of their own cause.' But in fact all the laws theoretically limiting the state’s power are interpreted by — wait for it — officials of the state. The commission of the actual military, intelligence and diplomatic crimes themselves, the classification of documents that evidence those crimes, and the setting of civil and criminal penalties for revealing wickedness in high places — all these things are done by officials of the same government." Continue reading →

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The Compulsion To Rule

"A system that insists on controlling others through increasing levels of systematic violence; that loots the many for the aggrandizement of the few; that regulates any expressions of human behavior that are not of service to the rulers; that presumes the power to wage wars against any nation of its choosing, a principle that got a number of men hanged at the Nuremberg trials; and finally, criminalizes those who would speak the truth to its victims, has no moral energy remaining with which to sustain itself. The treatment accorded private Manning may have been the final nail driven into the coffin of the American state." Continue reading →

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