The House is Beyond Repair

What system of government to you believe is good? Democracy, republic, monarchy? It doesn't matter. Government at its core has been nothing but a system of violence throughout history. The state is not a guardian that is built from the desire for peace and freedom. It is a parasite that is bred from the desire for human beings to control one and other. It is the rotten pit of filth seething with the violent parasitic class of sociopaths and scoundrels, thieves, liars, murderers and brigands. They are all those creatures that desire most in their heart to control others and bend people to their will. This is the essence of the state and all similar governments that have ever existed. They have never been good they have only ever been varying degrees of evil.

This is because the idea of the state and government cannot exist without the monopoly on violence and force. Do you have the right to wage war and kill people as collateral damage? Can you attack your neighbor and put them in a cage because you disagree with his lifestyle? Is it moral to do those thing? If it is wrong for you to do it then it is completely incoherent to claim that the agents of the state are right to do it.

 The state can't even be funded without the threat of violence on a voluntary basis. If it were funded voluntarily and without violence then it would be nothing more than a business. Can McDonalds force you to pay for a Big Mac? The state can force you to purchase their services. If a business was able to use violence against you to force you to pay for it's service whether you want to or not, it would be an outrage and no one would deny that it was theft. However, when the government does it we politely call it "taxation". Violence shrouded in euphemism.

Most people have the nebulous feeling of malaise and discontent with the government. They know something is wrong but are yet to realize that what is wrong with government is that it is built upon violence, destruction, theft, and oppression. Here people stand, perhaps even people like yourself, Still supporting the state as if there is something virtuous about the system at its core. Believing that the system has been corrupted rather than understanding that the system itself is corrupt. They believe that there is something redeemable about the system. The more you dig the more you will find that it is not just the politicians and their policies that are corrupt. The heart of democracy and the republic is not a shining beacon but a rotten core.

Society is our home. Our society is a home that is surrounded in a building of  of coercion and violence that is the state. The house that we live in isn't a decent home but it is a squalid hovel that you wish to fix but only to look and find that all of its supports are termite infested and broken. It has been built upon a cesspool of aggression and its foundations rest in the festering swamp of force that cannot long support any peaceful structure. It is beyond repair. You cannot fix it. You can only raze the structure, destroy it completely, and return the land to its natural state. After this is done you may seek to replace it but everything put back in its place will still rest upon a foundation of a festering swamp that will breed the same decay that caused the demise of all houses that were built before.

Change only comes from getting people to understand the truth and abandoning the idea that we need this decrepit system. We must acknowledge violent aggression even at the core of our political and social ideas. We do this or risk continuing to perpetuate a society based on aggression, violence, and theft. We can no longer keep trying to fix this house. It's time to rebuild on solid fertile land based on peace and consensual human interaction. A place we can truly call home.

Q&A: Why Intellectual Property Cannot be "Owned"

Q: You say that intellectual property is not property. Yet you say that I can own the product of my labor. As musicians, isn't music (an intellectual property) the product of our labor? As such, do we not have the right to own our music?

A: To own the product of labor someone must own the labor and the resources used to create the product. You can own your labor (or temporarily rent the labor owned by another) in producing music but you cannot own the main resource in its production, sound.

You can't own sound, only your ability and the devices used to produce sound but once a sound is made it dissipates and is impossible to control or own. You can't own sound any more than you can own the air it travels through nor the pressure change it causes in listeners eardrums. You cannot own the brain signals it triggers within another. Once an idea travels to the brain of another you cannot own it. It would be like dumping money in someone else's mailbox and expecting it to be there when you come to retrieve it.

Putting sound waves together may be work, but since you don't own the source material, the product of your work is not entirely yours to own. Do you own all the ideas and information (like the notes and rhythm) used in your song? You can't own G over middle C so how can you own it in the context of a song?

Take this analogy for example - If I steal someones bike to break down and build into a different bike, do I own the new bike? Of course not. Because I didn't own the resources I used. Take any form of idea - words for example. If I take a book and change one word, I have used my work to create a new pattern and thus a new idea. Do I then own that story? No, because I didn't own the source material. Likewise, all the author did was re-combine letters, words, phrases and sentences that already existed. He never owned the source material. We speak words every day that others have said, and combined long before us. Should we be forced to pay royalties every time we benefit from the words of another?

As musicians, we use notes that have been used time after time. There are only 12 notes in western music. Often, in music, the same exact chord progressions are used by artists time and time again. Yet each claim their song to be original. When multiple people claim the same chords for a song who owns those chords in that pattern?


(The Axis of Awesome shows how dozens of artists are claiming to own the same song)
How different must the pattern of information be for it to be a new idea? All information and ideas are just a copy and combination of ideas, sounds, images, and other information that already exists. So where do we draw the line as to what ideas are owned and what ideas are copied, especially when ALL ideas are copied one way or another. The fact is that it is impossible to answer and must rely on some arbitrary subjective opinion. Intellectual property means that someone decides what is a crime based on the same arbitrary subjective opinion.

To reiterate, in order to own something, someone must own the labor and the source material. Letters, words, images, sounds, and all foundational resources of "intellectual property"cannot be owned. Since you cannot own those resources, then all things produced from those resources cannot be owned. That which cannot be owned cannot be stolen.

Ideas cannot be owned or stolen. They only be communicated or forgotten.

Why Cop Block?

Why do we engage in noncooperation and video record police as a form of activism?

We do this to raise awareness about peoples right and to shine the light of a camera on the absurdity and violence of the law enforcement system. Police do not deserve more rights than you. Public servants do not have an expectation of privacy especially on public property. Just like any other private employees do not have an expectation of privacy from their employers while on the job. They do not get to refuse to be recorded. Recording cops is the ONLY way to ensure that they can be held 100% accountable. the thin blue line of police brotherhood means that cops can get away with almost anything. cameras ensure that they get away with nothing.

Police are not your friends. If a cop is talking to you they are most likely trying to gather enough evidence to fine or put you, or a loved one, in jail. Usually this is for a completely spurious charge or some victimless crime.

Police lie. Police are allowed, and even encouraged, to lie to you in order to obtain evidence against you or a confession of some "wrong doing", yet you can be fined and sentenced to jail for lying to a cop. When a cop lies its called justice. When you lie to a cop its called obstruction of justice.

Police are little more than revenue generating machines. Ask a cop how many of the crimes he investigated had a victim. If the cop ever responded with something other than slack jawed confusion, the ratio of real crime to victimless crime would be baffling. Victimless crimes usually result in fines for the "offender". These fines are, in actuality, just hidden taxes.

Police are not obligated to protect nor serve. The supreme court has ruled over and over (Hartzler v. City of San Jos and Warren v. District of Columbia) that the government and the police have no duty to protect citizen. So if your life is in danger the cops can choose whether or not to help you.

Cops need to focus on real crimes with victims like assault, rape, theft, murder. By arresting and fining people who have not harmed anyone they turn themselves from police officers to mafia thugs.

We will question, interrogate, annoy, defy, and record all government thugs and bureaucrats, whenever feasible, until they cease in taxing and caging peaceful people for victimless crimes.

Positive Rights VS. Natural Rights

*Updated*

Rights are the essential basis for all human interaction. Human rights are the moral imperative that governs how we act towards one another and, equally, how we should expect others to act towards us. All things claimed as human rights essentially fall into one of two categories, positive rights and natural rights.

Well-meaning people often claim humans have the right to be provided all manner of goods and services. These are called positive rights. Positive rights are all the rights that can only exist if they are actively given by someone else. For example, you couldn't have the right to education unless a teacher can provide you that right. Likewise, the right to a job is contingent upon an employer, or healthcare upon a doctor. Positive rights usually grant things that humans don't have yet wish to be provided.

Positive rights are positive because they claim what people have the right TO. Things like a job, an education, or even a product such as a vehicle.

The other type of rights are natural rights, also known as negative rights. Natural rights are natural because they are rights that do not require a service or product to be given by another person. They are any right that we can reasonably claim  through our natural existence. These rights that we can claim by our very nature are thus not contingent on an action, nor even the existence, of any other person, group, or entity to grant the right. Natural rights therefore boil down to three rights, the right to your life,  freedom of body and mind, and any property produced through the use of your life and liberty. All of these are guaranteed  as far and for as long as nature allows. These rights do not require another person give you life, body, and property, but simply requires that no one artificially prevents your access to those thing. 
Natural rights are often called negative rights because they declare what people have the right to be free FROM. These are the rights to be free from murder, theft, and slavery.

Both types of rights can be denied but only positive rights must be granted. Denial of positive rights means that someone is refusing to give you use of their property (ie. products), body (ie. services), or life (ie. time) . Denial of natural rights means that someone is refusing to allow you the use of your own property (ie. theft), body, (ie. slavery/imprisonment), or life (ie. murder)


How do we know which of these rights are just. Human rights must be fair and equal among all humans regardless or race, sex, or class. In order to be equal rights they must be universal, equitable and consistent. If rights cannot be applied the same way to every human then human rights are meaningless.
 
Natural rights, as previously stated, are the rights to things that we inherently own through our nature and independent of those things owned by others. Since we do not naturally own the life or body of another we can never claim ownership of another human being.  No one naturally has more or less right to their life and body. As such, these rights are completely equitable among all humans. Since everyone equally owns themselves and no one can own another, the natural rights of one cannot conflict with the natural rights of others. In this way natural rights are entirely consistent.
 
Positive rights are given from one person to another based on human needs and desires. Since human desire and need are malleable and vary from person to person, positive rights can be equally malleable. Thus positive rights can never be universal. What one person thinks someone needs might not be what another person needs. Positive rights can, also, be added to, subtracted from and rearranged, based on cultural whims. These rights to certain goods or services do not exist by yourself but are contingent upon the resources of others. If you are unlucky enough to be born where no one is willing, or hasn't the resources, to grant those rights then you do not have those rights.  Therefore these rights not at all equitable.

Positive rights lay in a perpetual state of potential conflict with other positive rights. One positive right can always potentially trump another. For example, the positive right to a living and the right to food are in complete opposition. Someone who claims the right to food could force someone who makes a living from selling food to abandon the right to make a living in order to give that person their right to food. Likewise someone who has the right to a living could deny someone their right to food in order to protect their livelihood. This is a paradox and makes positive rights a meaningless and capricious war of subjective values. Positive rights are not even internally consistent. 
Ultimately positive rights and natural rights cannot equally coexist because, foundationally,  natural rights must be threatened or removed  in order to guarantee any positive right. If someone claims a positive right to a service or product then logically someone must ultimately be forced to provide it or be forced to fund its provision. For example: 

Lets say that some society grants the people the right to  "widget x" (this can be any positive right). Now let us say that there is no one provide widget x. How would people have the right to this widget if there is no one willing or able to provide it? Some one would have to be forced through some sort of coercion or violence to work to provide it. To be forced to work for the benefit of others is slavery.

What if there were people able and willing to provide widget x but some citizen doesn't want to pay for it or fund its production? If it is a right to have this product or service then no one should have to pay for it. Rights are guaranteed and therefore must be freely available. Again, rights must apply equally available to everyone or else it isn't really a right. No one wishes to pay for this other persons widget when they have worked so hard to obtain their own. Who pays for this widget? If no one volunteers then someone must have their wealth forcefully taken to provide for another. To have wealth or property forcefully removed from someone is theft.

This means that, fundamentally, positive rights are based on an acceptance that someone has the right to enslave and steal to ensure people are provided certain goods and services. Natural rights are based on the the acceptance that aggression is wrong and no one has the right to enslave, steal, or murder. Rights based in violence cannot coexist with rights based in peace.

Since positive rights can never be freely provided in an equitable and universal way then they can't even be called rights. Natural rights, on the other hand, are completely consistent, equitable, and universal. Therefore natural rights are the only type of rights than can reasonably be considered legitimate and positive rights are not actually rights but merely privileges.

Collectivism Makes you a Military Target

Collectivism and its terminology is one of the most harmful ideas that government and society indoctrinates us with. Collectivist terminology is an insidious subversion of our individuality. We have all been conditioned to self identify with groups that we have no direct connection to. For example if your hometown football team wins the championship, you might exclaim "We won" or "Our team did it"! However, you are not part of the team nor do the people in the town own the team. You just happen to live in the town where the team holds it's home games. This seems harmless enough but let us examine this on the political level.

Collectivism has us self identify with our government and military even if we do not work for the government or military. Society has us conditioned to identify ourselves to these groups merely by being born on a plot of land over which this government and its military claims authority. Therefore when the government sends troops to invade a country like Iraq, you might find yourself and others saying things like "We invaded Iraq" or "Our troops are at war". When someone uses these collectivist terms on you or you yourself use these terms, you should be quick to make a correction.

"We invaded Iraq"
"No. I don't know about you but I didn't invade anyone. I'm not even in the military"

"Our troops are at war"
"They are not MY troops. I didn't choose them."

Distance yourself from these statements because this kind of thinking leads you to become linked with every evil perpetrated by the government.

The root of the collectivism in American society comes from the notion that the US government and democracy is a government OF and BY the people. These people include everyone who lives legally within the boarders of America. This notion entails that each citizen IS the government. So it logically follows that citizens, since they are all the government, are responsible for the government's actions. The government, even though they don't physically fight wars, ultimately controls the overall actions of the military because the government has ultimate executive power. This means that the government is, in fact, military, just as a non-combat missions and commanding personnel are part of the military. Since the government is logically a military organization then so too , through collectivism, are the people whether they fight or not.

By this same logic, if an enemy army or terrorist group wants to retaliate against "OUR" wrongful invasion, they can, through the same collectivism, target civilians as valid military target. Accepting collectivism is tantamount to accepting culpablity for all military actions that the government makes. This makes you an enemy combatant to them. When you willfully claim the collectivist notion that "WE" invade countries and are fighting wars, then you accept the fact that "YOU" are part of, and responsible for, the military and are therefor a just military target.

You are not the government. You are not the military unless you choose to be. You are an individual. Choose to be one.

The Crime of Pain Management

Dr. Deborah Bordeaux used to be a pain management specialist. Now she's a convicted felon facing a 100-year prison sentence as a drug dealer. Bordeaux was arrested when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and South Carolina law enforcement raided the Myrtle Beach clinic where she once prescribed opioids to severely ill patients. Siobhan Reynolds is a New York City-based film documentarian with a chronically ill life partner. When Reynolds attended Bordeaux's trial earlier this year, the South Carolina doctor's ordeal and the apparent miscarriage of justice prompted Reynolds to found a new group to advocate for pain patients and the health care workers who treat them, the Pain Relief Network (http://www.PainReliefNetwork.org).

... a growing number of physicians indicted and sometimes convicted of being drug traffickers but who say they were only doing what was best for patients... Florida Dr. James Graves sits in prison pending appeal after being convicted of manslaughter, while three other physicians face murder charges related to their prescribing opioids. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (http://www.aapsonline.org) maintains a list of more than 30 doctors it contends have been unfairly prosecuted over pain management issues.

On September 9, the Pain Relief Network addressed the FDA in response to the rising tide of physician prosecutions and urged it to halt cooperation with the Justice Department until Justice recognizes the current medical understanding of what constitutes acceptable pain care practices. Under the Controlled Substances Act, the FDA must holding hearings on drugs and "advise" the Attorney General as to their proper classification. PRN's Reynolds told the FDA committee the process was fraught with mischief since the Justice Department, through its prosecutions of physicians, had proven it was not interested in the scientific or medical evidence.

Explaining that because her ex-husband had suffered severe pain and problems getting it treated, she eventually formed a listserv for patients and physicians interested in the issue, Reynolds then told the committee what came next. "One by one, I watched as several of our most prominent members were arrested and charged with murder, or subjected to accusations of violating the Controlled Substances Act. I knew, as I watched, that something was going terribly wrong," she said. Reynolds described watching the trial of Dr. Bordeaux. "I sat alongside her and two other doctors tried on similar charges. I was shocked and dismayed to learn that the Justice Department was bringing out of date, antiscientific, prejudicial testimony into a US courtroom in the hopes of convincing the jury that by prescribing medication in conformity with the actual, up to date standard of care, the standard I was familiar with, that these doctors had done something shameful, something unspeakably wrong."

Hundreds of physicians have now been charged with CSA violations because of Justice's stubborn adherence to outdated science, she told the committee. "I'm here to tell you that a terrible misunderstanding has occurred here and that the public health has been inestimably damaged. All over America doctors have simply put down their pens, patients in pain have returned to their beds or committed suicide. The suffering and destruction of innocent life is unimaginable," Reynolds said. "PRN is therefore calling on you to suspend your cooperation with the DOJ and to stand solely for your primary commitment to safeguard the public health."

...Reynolds and the PRN have taken a first step toward bringing the looming crisis in pain management care into the bowels of the federal bureaucracies. But with federal prosecutors cutting down pain doctors like weeds and congratulating themselves for jailing the "drug dealers," this is a battle that is far from over.

Full Original article at Stopthedrugwar.org

Drug Dealers: Unwitting Heroes of Freedom

It is widely recognized that government over-regulation, taxation and outright prohibitions of certain products and services cause the creation of a black market for those products and services. This is because no matter how much the supply is reduced the demand remains the same. Very high demands that go unsatisfied give rise to an illicit black market which, like most high demand markets, almost always requires large organizations to meet the demand. Since business is forbidden to meet this demand in an honest and peaceful way, the supply is instead controlled the most unscrupulous and often violent gangs and cartels.

It is easy tell how high the demand for a product or service is by how large, violent, and organized the criminal group administering the distribution is. Does this mean that all the people involved in providing an illicit service are violent people? No. In fact, the vast majority of people involved in the black market are entirely non-violent. For instance, the street level distributors of a black market product like illicit drugs, rarely initiate violence and, to be quite frank, are heroes of freedom. Granted, the vast majority of drug dealers are just trying to make a living and likely know nothing about liberty or the free market, but, no matter how inadvertent, they are no less champions of both.

Drug dealers operate in almost every city and town in the United States. Chances are you know a drug dealer or know someone who does. It is likely that you peacefully interact with dealers and users every day and most likely have rarely, if ever, heard of any significant drug related violence where you live. The news media, with their gritty crime sensationalism, only focuses on the rare cases of inner city drug related violence. This is violence that is most often perpetrated against the drug dealer by the cartel or a destitute user looking for a quick buck or a quick fix. You won't likely hear about peaceful dealers because the news media can't sell a story without the drama that things like violence bring. Just because some people involved in distributing illicit drugs are violent doesn't mean the whole drug trade is an inherently violent business. Imagine if I were to make this argument:

Some teachers have committed murder.

All murder is wrong.

Therefore, teaching is wrong and should be illegal.

This is obviously false. Such arguments are syllogistic fallacies that aim to unjustly poison the well of any activity.

Based on the Department of Justice prison population statistics in 2009, a little over 50% of the prison population in America is serving time for drug offenses, while roughly 7% of the total population have been convicted of any violent crime. Let's assume that a portion of the set of violent criminals were also involved with drugs. This would mean less than 7% of the population are violent drug offenders. You can further reduce this by taking into consideration the likelihood of violent people who just so happened to be in the possession or under the influence of an illicit drug as well as the many violent crimes that are unrelated to the illegal drug trade. If you divide the violent prisoners who are not drug dealers from the violent dealers, this reduces the amount of violent drug dealers to an even more minuscule percentage of the prison population.

Because of these facts it is reasonable to claim that the street level distributors and users are mostly non-violent. Not only are drug dealers peaceful, but they are peaceful in the face of violence from all sides; from the violent cartel suppliers, from thieves that know dealers have money and no legal recourse, and finally from violence from a government that is looking to fill their prisons with non-violent drug offenders.

On top of the fact that drug dealers are statistically peaceful people they are also providing a valuable service by allowing adults the access to and the ability to chose to consume any substance that they choose. This fact alone makes the drug trade a noble pro-freedom act that is in defiance of tyranny. There is no justifiable reason why an adult should not be able to choose to use and trade any product, including drugs, they wish so long as their interactions do not initiate violence.

All across the country people are refused medicine. For example, most states do not have compassion to patients who can greatly benefit from the use of cannabis so these people are forced to find relief on the black market. Doctors are regularly denying people necessary pain medication because they fear the government destroying their practices for the phony and arbitrary crime of "over-prescribing". If a drug dealer helps only one suffering person get relief from their illness then not only are they heroes of freedom but also heroes to the the ill who are suffering under the treads of the drug war machine.

Objections:

"But drug dealers are harming the addicts by providing them with drugs"

This is the mentality of the person that would also like to keep you from smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and even eating fried food and red meat, by blaming the businesses providing those products. To accept this mentality is to, deny that people are responsible for themselves and thus admit that someone else has ultimate control over their body, which is slavery.

"What about the children? Drug dealers harm children by providing them with drugs"

It is regrettable that some children may come to use drugs, but it is also regrettable that they use alcohol which is legally distributed to adults. According to the government's NHSDA statistics, in 2001, 8% of respondents under the age of 18 have admitted to recently (past month) using any illegal drug. In the same year the NHSDA reported that of the under 18 demographic, only 2% had admitted to recently (past month) using alcohol. Only 1/4 of children get high off of alcohol than illegal drugs. This only proves that the already relatively safe distribution of drugs would be safer if the product was distributed on the free market. Some kids are harmed by starting fires for fun. Should we ban the distribution of matches and lighters to adults?

Feel free to send me any objections or corrections.