Roderick Long on a stateless society (podcast)

Listen to this great interview:

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My Philosophy of Liberty – by Anthony Freeman

From Anthony Freeman:

The following is a loose overview of my personal “Philosophy of Liberty” which I have developed up to the present time. It warrants further refinement and I’m sure I will continue to modify it as I continue my studies of economics and liberty. Those champions of individual liberty that have contributed to my personal philosophy are too numerous to list here but I have provided links below to sources where you will find many of their works. I hope that my philosophical observations may be of benefit to you and give you some ideas in the development of your own “Philosophy of Liberty”.

Simplified Definitions

Liberty: the ability to live one’s life as one wishes while respecting the lives of others.

Property: the goods that man produces or acquires through voluntary exchange and/or gift. Claims of land ownership are included here as well.

Murder: the taking of man’s life without his voluntary consent. This deprives him of his future (and future productivity).  Excluded from this definition is the taking of another person’s life in the act of self-defense against an aggressor (when one believes one’s life is threatened) or in the defense of others when the lives of these others are threatened.

Slavery: the taking of man’s liberty without his voluntary consent. This deprives him of his present.

Theft: the taking of man’s property without his voluntary consent. This deprives him of his past (the time energy and talent that he used to produce this property).

Plunder: The ill-gotten gains from theft.

Foundational Axioms

Man occupies space and consumes energy.

Man seeks happiness (and seeks to remove uneasiness).

In order to live man must consume those things that sustain his life (food, shelter, etc.).

In order for the necessities of life to be consumed they must first be produced.

An infant cannot produce for himself so he must rely on the production of others through charity.

As a child matures he must continue to rely on the charitable production of others until he learns to produce for himself.

In the process of producing for oneself man usually develops a specialization resulting in a surplus that can be traded for the specialized products of others (comparative advantage/specialization of labor). This process of production results in what is often referred to as “the fruits of his labor”.

These products are an extension of man because they are the direct result of his expended time and energy (life).

First Conclusion

Based upon the propositions set forth, anyone who seeks to take another man’s life, liberty or property against that man’s voluntary consent is an enemy to human life. With this understanding I propose to label my philosophy of liberty as “pro-life” as I am vehemently opposed to murder, slavery, and theft. This is not to be confused with the label of “pro-life” as it relates to abortion although abortion is certainly an issue to be considered within this broader philosophy (the issues regarding abortion will not be addressed in this missive).

Further Observations

There are some men who seek to take away the property and liberty of others in order to use this production for personal profit. These men choose this path as they find it preferable to producing for themselves.

This short-term benefit is not only dangerous to the thief but it is detrimental to his long-term well-being because his victims must divert a portion of their resources toward protection services instead of to production. This loss of production reduces the overall societal standard of living as there are less products and services available for trade.

Despite this, the thief is not concerned with the detrimental, long-term effects of plunder as he only cares about the immediate benefit. Therefore, the rest of society must take protective measures if they wish to safeguard their life, liberty and property. It follows then that the degree of man’s freedom is proportionate to the level of protection he has secured.

The Ignorant Plunderers

These are the individuals that participate in plunder as they have not thought through the consequences of their actions. Those in this category are the majority of all plunderers and, unfortunately, a large percentage of society.

The Purposeful Plunderers

These are the individuals who know that their actions are contrary to human well-being and they continue in their plunder anyway. They can be thought of as “anti-life” or “evil”. Those in this category are in the minority of all plunderers.

On Advancing Liberty

It appears then that there are three worthy endeavors that must be undertaken if one wants to enhance life (freedom):

First: One must work to master himself.  Self-mastery.  Self-control.  He must work to adjust his actions so that he is no longer a participator in plunder.  Robert LeFevre referred to this as Autarchy or “self-rule”.  Freedom is self-control, not license to impose on others.

Second: One must work to educate those individuals that are Ignorant Plunderers so that they can recognize the negative consequences of their actions and then, hopefully, change those actions.

Third: One must invest a portion of his resources toward the protection of his life, liberty and property from both types of Plunderers. Harry Browne recognized this when he said that “freedom is self-defense” in his fantastic Rule Your World seminar.

On Self-Defense

There many strategies for defending one’s life, liberty and property which will not be addressed in detail here. Instead I direct you to resources such as those found at www.KeepYourAssets.net.

One strategy for dealing with the Purposeful Plunderers that I will call your attention to is the one put forth by Marc Stevens in his book Adventures in Legal Land. His key observation is that the Purposeful Plunderers must maintain a veneer of legitimacy or moral authority in order to continue their plunder. Marc’s techniques for destroying that veneer are powerful and they warrant further study, analysis and practice.

On Education

Thankfully for the internet there are now numerous resources where people can learn the ideas of liberty. A few that I will mention here are The Freedom School, LewRockwell.com, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

On Self-Rule

On this wise I will refer you to two, short discourses that explain this principle better than I ever could.  The first is Robert LeFevre’s Autarchy.  The second is A Way To Be Free – Epilogue which I feel are some of the finest words ever written concerning the cause of liberty.

Conclusion

With my personal philosophy I can easily be referred to by any of the popular labels: Libertarian, Liberal, Classical Liberal, Voluntaryist, Autarchist, Capitalist, Free-Market Capitalist, Anarcho-Capitalist, Anarchist, Agorist, Counter-Economist, Idealist, Realist and so on but when you really get to the heart of the matter I am ultimately “Pro-Life”.

How things get done in a Command (Socialist/Totalitarian) Economy

from SeattlePI:

$100 Bribe to Ticket Agent Allows Unknown Package to Fly on JetBlue

Although millions of dollars are spent on airline security each year in the United States, it only took $100.00 for a JetBlue ticket agent to allow a unknown package to go onto a flight, coming from an unknown person.

On November 19, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was at Charlotte Douglas Airport testing out JetBlue’s security. Their goal was to try and get an unaccompanied package onto a flight headed to Boston and unfortunately, they succeeded. An undercover TSA agent told a JetBlue ticket agent that he needed to get a package to Boston that day and would pay the agent $100.00 for helping. The agent took the $100, put it in his pocket and proceeded to follow the unknown person’s instructions. The ticket agent chose a passenger’s name at random, which just happened to be an unaccompanied minor, and the package went through the screening process with no problems. Although the package was harmless, the TSA pulled the package just before being loaded onto the aircraft.

“That’s really alarming,” Anthony Amore, a former high-ranking TSA official at Logan Airport told a local Boston CBS station. “When you have multiple layers in place you hope that they all stand in the way of a terrorist or someone who wishes us harm. In this instance, many of the layers were cast aside and we were left with this one layer of checked baggage screening.”

When the local station asked the TSA for a comment, they were told, “While we cannot comment on the specifics of an open investigation, TSA can assure travelers that, like checked baggage, every package tendered at the airline counter is screened for explosives.” JetBlue confirmed that they are “fully cooperating with the TSA’s investigation” and “the involved crew member is no longer employed at JetBlue.”

I do not share this story to cause additional security-related fear, nor do I want to “teach the terrorists” how to commit crimes against passengers. I share it, since I think it shows how spending so much money on the front door of airline security and so little attention on the back is a big mistake. Although JetBlue is partly to blame for training issues, this could have happened with almost any airline. They just happened to have a bad-seed-employee in the wrong place at the wrong time. Currently, the TSA is not talking about how often they conduct these sorts of tests and how often they get a package through.

Sadly, this story is just one of many that place many questions on back-door airport security. At the same exact airport, just a few days earlier, a teenager was able to sneak onto the airport secured area, illegally board a US Airways aircraft without being caught (unfortunately, he died en-route). There is also the story of the pilot who pointed out that airport security workers could by-pass security and caused him a lot of grief. Similar stories keep popping up and I have a feeling more will continue to do so. As passengers continue to give up their freedoms and are willing to put up with many annoyances to fly, while at the same time seeing how porous the security is behind the scenes, people will take note and demand for change.

Enforcement is the State’s Systempunkt

From Kevin Carson:

John Robb, who writes about asymmetric warfare and networked organization, is one of my favorite writers.  A central theme of his work is what he calls “systems disruption.”  To disrupt centralized, hierarchical systems, it’s not necessary to take over or destroy even a significant portion of their infrastructures.  It’s simply necessary to destroy the most vulnerable of their key nodes and render the overall system non-functional.

These vulnerable, high-value nodes are what Robb calls the “systempunkt.”  It’s a concept borrowed from German blitzkrieg doctrine.  The “schwerpunkt” was the most vulnerable point in an enemy’s defenses, on which an offensive should concentrate most of its force in order to achieve a breakthrough.  Once this small portion of the enemy’s forces was destroyed, the rest could be bypassed and encircled without direct engagement.   Likewise, a few thousand dollars spent incapacitating several nodes in a gas or oil pipeline system can result in disruption that costs billions in economic damage from fuel shortages and spikes in prices.

Actually capturing the bulk of the system’s infrastructure would be enormously costly — quite possibly costing the attacker more than it cost the enemy in economic damage.

We can apply these lessons to our own movement to supplant the state.  Conventional politics aims at taking over the state’s policy apparatus and using it to implement one’s own goals.  But taking over the state through conventional politics is enormously costly.

To a certain extent, from the perspective of the plutocrats and crony capitalists who run the system, the state itself is a systempunkt — if, that is, you start out with enough money to make seizing the key node a realistic possibility.  A large corporation may donate a few hundred thousands to campaign funds or spend a similar amount hiring lobbyists, and in return secure billions in corporate welfare or regulatory benefits from the state.

But from our standpoint, that’s out of the question.  Victory in conventional politics means we have to outcompete billionaires in a bidding war to control the state, and outdo them in navigating the rules of a policy-making process that their money already controls.  The odds of carrying that off are about the same as the odds of beating the house in Vegas.  You have to outcompete the RIAA in influencing “intellectual property” law, ADM and Cargill in setting USDA policy, the insurance industry in setting healthcare policy — and so on, ad nauseam.

And that’s not even counting the people higher up, the real government that persists untouched from one election to the next, that they never mentioned in your civics text:  The drug cartels, the banks that launder drug money, the U.S.-backed death squads funded by such money, the Pentagon and CIA “black budgets,” and mercenaries like Halliburton and Blackwater.  It’s a good thing the political system’s so heavily rigged in their favor, in a way.   The reason those people don’t bring out the death squads is precisely that they don’t see conventional politics as a threat.  Anyone presenting a credible threat of beating them in civics books politics would either be bought off or wind up like Jimmy Hoffa (or Paul Wellstone).

So how do anarchists deal with the state?  How do we respond to state interventions, which protect its privileged corporate clients from competition by suppressing low-overhead, self-organized alternatives?  How do we get the freedom to organize our lives the way we want, in the face of a government dedicated to keeping us on the corporate reservation in order to meet all our needs?

We must find some weak point besides gaining control of the state.  For us, the state’s systempunkt is its enforcement capability.  By attacking the state at its weak point, its ability to enforce its laws, we can neutralize its ability to interfere with our building the kind of society we want here and now — and we can do so at a tiny fraction of the cost of gaining power through conventional politics.

For example, conducting torrent downloads under cover of darknets, with the help of encryption and proxies, is a lot cheaper than trying to out-compete the money and lobbyists of the RIAA in influencing “intellectual property” law.  The same is true of local zoning and licensing laws, which protect incumbent businesses from competition by low-overhead household microenterprises, and of attempts to enforce industrial patents against neighborhood micromanufacturers.  To a large extent, similar measures — encrypted local currencies and barter systems, secure trust networks, etc. — can neutalize government’s power to tax and regulate the counter-economy out of existence.

Trying to capture the state is a loser’s game.  But we don’t have to control the state or change the laws in order to end the special privileges of big business and the rentier classes.  We just have to make the law unenforceable, so we can ignore it.

Driver’s Licenses: Not Really About Driving – by Eric Peters

From LewRockwell.com:

Why do we bother with driver’s licenses at all?

They’re certainly not a measure of even minimal competence as a driver. You take a written (now digital) test that Forrest Gump could pass, along with (maybe) a cursory “road” test that takes place in the parking lot of the DMV. A 12-year-old could pass these tests. More to the point, adults far less competent than the average 12-year-old routinely pass these tests. They have a driver’s license, alright – but calling them “drivers” is generous. The sail fawn-addled, SmoooVee doing 80 in a snowstorm, ’86 Buick in the left lane refusing to move right, double-yellow-crossing, half-blind inattentive Taco-eating marginality of the average Driver Americanus is known the world over.

So, we do we bother with them at all? Because in the U.S., a driver’s license is really an ID card. A sort of internal passport we’re all compelled to carry – and produce, upon demand. It has very little to do with driving – and much to do with herding us like the cattle we’ve become.

I go too far? Well, see how far you can go without a driver’s license – even if you never get behind the wheel of a car. Banks want to see your driver’s license before they’ll open an account – which you need to cash your check from your employer – who won’t hire you unless you produce the government-issued internal passport – which you also can’t board an airplane without and do many other things besides.

All of which have exactly zilch to do with competently operating a motor vehicle.

Of course, it was the Germans who invented the “driver’s” license. (Stifle the PC outrage; your angry correspondent is as ethnically Volkdeutsch as sauerkraut.)

The first one was issued to Karl Benz for his Motorwagen in 1888 – and like so many other not-so-great ideas from the Fatherland such as Social Security, it has migrated to the Homeland.

The Germans have a DNA-encoded fetish for controlling things – including other humans. Again, stifle the PC outrage. I understand the German mindset because I grew up within in it and am plagued by it myself. It takes an everyday act of will to remind myself that other people are not my playthings and that they have as much right to do as they please – provided they’re not harming anyone, of course – as I do.

Anyhow.

We now have to carry around these infernal internal passports that have nothing to do with driving ability, in order for the authorities – government and corporate – to be able to identify, record and process us.

Like the 4th Amendment and other former freedoms we’ve surrendered over the years, the freedom to travel thus no longer exists in this country. Even if you are on foot you can expect trouble if you cross paths with a representative of the sicherheitspolizei who – for no reason or for any reason – demands you “show me some ID” – and you don’t happen to have any. Doesn’t matter that you’re just walking to the store (or whatever) and haven’t done a thing to warrant suspicion of criminal conduct (the old standard; long since thrown in the woods).

Yes, I know that technically – in some states – “the law” still says they have to have some sort of articulable probable cause. See how much that helps when the SD man is Tazering you – or worse – for “resisting” or whatever he’ll say you were doing. In fact, in the real world, possessing an ID – a driver’s license – is a functional necessity, not simply to transact day-to-day business but to avoid becoming the star player in the next YouTube video episode of Don’t Taze Me, Bro!

It’s weird. Almost none of us question the basic of idea of being made to carry a driver’s license/ID card – even as many of us have lately erupted in anger (rightly so) over the TSA’s creepy and degrading low-rent porno scan n’ feels.

Maybe we ought to.

If a driver’s license were what the term implies – proof that you have shown you’re competent to operate a vehicle, based on successful completion of an at-least slightly demanding driver’s test in an actual car on actual roads – then, okay.

Maybe.

At least then, the bearer could take some pride in the same way that a college graduate or a person who holds a sharpshooter’s certificate can take pride in a real achievement.

But the “driver’s” licenses almost all of us carry today are nothing more than the equivalent of the yellow tags you see stapled into the left ears of cows. And serve the same purpose.

I think it’s time for the cattle to question the whole business…

January 17, 2011

Eric Peters [send him mail] is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities and Road Hogs (2011). Visit his website.

Copyright © 2011 Eric Peters

In Defense of Clear Thinking – Butler Shaffer

From LewRockwell.com:

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

~ Herbert Spencer

My academic life in college was largely spent studying what were then referred to as the “liberal arts.” History, geography, economics, philosophy, art, literature, music, psychology, and the genuine sciences, were among the various subject areas we considered essential to becoming mature, self-directed, learned individuals. We also studied one or more foreign languages, not simply to help us navigate our trips to other lands, but to provide us with the perspective that there are other people on the planet who think, live, and speak differently from us.

This approach to learning helped to provide us with the means of thinking clearly, rationally, and logically; to help us understand causal relationships in analyzing the interconnected and unpredictable complexities of our world; to distinguish fact from fantasy, and transcendent truths from fashionable opinion; all for the purpose of living as responsible individuals pursuing our respective self-interests with others.

I won’t dwell, here, on how most colleges have long since abandoned such purposes in favor of curricula that [1] focus on career skills, and/or [2] serve the ideological policies of groups with social/political agendas, whose members have largely taken over the so-called “social sciences.” One of the numerous adverse consequences of this transformation has been to produce many college graduates who are unable to bring the art of critical thinking to an analysis of events. An example is found in the incapacity of so many persons to identify causal connections between actions undertaken by political systems and the consequences thereof. When government officials intervene in economic decision-making [e.g., mandating minimum wage laws] that produces adverse consequences [e.g., increased unemployment], even seemingly well-educated men and women fail to see the relationship. Indeed, economic ignorance tends to feed upon itself, a fact addressed in Murray Rothbard’s comment that “[i]t is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

Another example of the disordered thinking produced by the failure to develop causal explanations of events began occurring right after the recent shootings in Tucson. How easily have people fallen for the statist lines that these killings were “caused” by private gun ownership, talk radio, the Internet, hostile rhetoric, or some mushy sense of a “failure to get along.” I am surprised that the statists have not tried to exploit the shootings as another symptom of global warming! The comments made by politicians, government officials, and media flaks, have all acknowledged the presence of an atmosphere of anger in America, but none have addressed the cause of such widespread resentment.

Nearly four decades ago, I wrote an article – titled Violence As a Product of Imposed Order – that was published, in 1975, in the University of Miami Law Review. At the core of this article was a discussion of what is known as the “frustration-aggression” hypothesis. Briefly stated, the idea is premised on a recognition that each of us is motivated by the pursuit of what we consider to be our self-interest. Without any need for forcible direction from others, we will organize our energies and other resources in an effort to maximize our well-being.

When our self-directed, self-serving undertakings are forcibly interfered with by others [e.g., the state], our purposes become frustrated, a consequence of which is often a resort to aggression. A number of contributors to the study of aggression tell us much of the dynamics regarding aggression. Two such commentators observe, “[a] person feels frustrated when a violation of his hopes or expectations occurs, and he may then try to solve the problem by attacking the presumed source of frustration.” In words that seem to have particular application to our present world, another adds: “I believe we are witnessing at all levels of our social network a conflict based on dualistic thinking, the polarities of which are personal or individual freedom as against social structures maintaining the functions of regulation and control.” Another scholar expresses the point more succinctly: “[w]hen our drive to master the environment, or take from it what we need, is obstructed, we become angry.” As two others observe: “the feeling that one has little control over his own destiny may lead to attempts to restore oneself as an active agent. This may involve attacking those who appear to be influencing and controlling the individual.”

The voices of institutionalism – whose function it is to constantly remind us that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” – will reject notions that the forces of the status quo have any causal connection to the violence and other aggression that surrounds us. When, during the 2008 Republican presidential “debates,” Ron Paul introduced the idea of “blowback” as an explanation for the terrorism of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani revealed himself as intellectually unfit for any government office by expressing shock and resentment at Paul’s analysis. What Paul was explicating, of course, was the “frustration-aggression” hypothesis: if X attacks Y, Y may choose to retaliate by attacking X. Children on the playground understand this basic fact, even if former New York City mayors do not. Those with even a rudimentary understanding of physics will recognize the proposition as Newton’s “third law of motion.”

Those who refuse to recognize the causal connection between state action and the epidemic of anger sweeping the world, would do well to ask this question: why do political systems have to rely on the use of violence to accomplish their ends? Violence forces life to abandon its own purposes, and to move in directions it does not want to go. What could be more frustrating, more conducive to aggression, than to deny to life its very sense of being? Individuals and firms operating in the free market don’t employ such methods. Indeed, this is what clearly distinguishes the state from a free market system. Buyers and sellers in the marketplace prosper by appealing to – not frustrating – one another’s purposes. Voluntary transactions are not only profitable to each of the participants, but to society as a whole. Why, then, the attraction of some, and the sanction of so many others, to violent methods of dealing with one another? Why do we persist in pretending that such practices serve any purposes beneficial to life? Why do we condemn the victims of state-generated conflict, compulsion, and brute-force for their counterattacks? Why do we not grasp the obvious fact that we are destroying our lives, as well as the lives of our children and grandchildren, by refusing to withdraw our energies from the kind of antiquated, organizational thinking that life, itself, can no longer tolerate?

The vertically-structured systems through which the institutional order has long operated are in a state of collapse. In large part because of technologies [e.g., the Internet] that are diffusing the control of information into the hands of the millions rather than just the few, our social systems – and thinking – are rapidly becoming decentralized. The political establishment has mobilized its violent powers in a desperate effort to shore up its weakened foundations and reinvigorate the status quo. But such efforts will no more halt the ongoing transformations than did the Luddite machine-breaking riots curb the Industrial Revolution.

What the state’s increasing resort to coercion will do, however, is to further expand the sense of frustration people experience in their efforts to promote their self-interests. As economic dislocations continue to spread; as wars against the rest of the world widen the paths of destruction; as individual lives are subjected to more expansive and sophisticated police-state surveillance and intrusions; as men and women experience an ever-diminishing sense of the material and emotional quality of their lives; the resulting frustrations will produce more aggressive reactions.

As a result of institutionalized conditioning, we have grown up with certain expectations of the political system. Among these are lies such as that government exists to protect our lives and other property interests; that the state is necessary for the creation and maintenance of social order; and that we – the ordinary people – control it. In recent years, men and women have gotten fleeting glimpses of the man behind the curtain, and are beginning to see through the fraud and deception that has long been practiced upon them. There is a growing awareness that the system does not serve its avowed purposes, thus producing a frustration of expectations which, in turn, produces more aggression. Even as the statists try to shift the blame for all of this to the Totos of the world, centrifugal forces continue their redistribution of social energies, and neither “all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men” will be able to stop the process. As we discovered, along with Dorothy and her friends from Oz, you cannot lose your innocence more than once.

January 17, 2011

Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918–1938 and of Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival. His latest book is Boundaries of Order.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Man Sues City of Driver’s License Checkpoints

The odds are pretty slim that the State will rule in his favor but it is nice to see someone objecting the Soviet style “your papers please”.  Notice the remark from the police chief at the end of the article – very telling…

From the North County Times:

Man sues city over driver’s license checkpoints

Lawsuit seeks $15M in impound fees for drivers whose vehicles were towed

By EDWARD SIFUENTES – esifuentes@nctimes.com | Posted: Sunday, January 16, 2011 6:26 pm

An Escondido man filed a $15 million lawsuit against Escondido challenging the city’s driver’s license checkpoints, according to court documents obtained Friday.

The suit was filed in August by Rich Dudka after he drove through one of the checkpoints in Oct. 5, 2009, and his truck was impounded, according to the court documents obtained by the North County Times.

Dudka is asking the court to grant the lawsuit class-action status on behalf of everyone whose vehicles were impounded during driver’s license checkpoints held between Jan. 1, 2004, and Aug. 1, 2010. He is asking the city to reimburse drivers for all the money the city received through the checkpoints.

The suit estimates that amount to be in excess of $15 million, according to court documents. Dudka is also seeking punitive damages and legal fees.

Dudka could not be reached for comment on Friday. His attorney, Tomas Flores, issued a written statement.

“Driver’s license checkpoints, as practiced in the City of Escondido, run counter to our American ideals of freedom,” Flores wrote in an email. “This practice is a violation of our fundamental rights and we look forward to our day in court to defend the erosion of our individual liberties.”

Escondido’s city attorney, Jeff Epp, could not be reached for comment on Friday. City Manager Clay Phillips declined to comment.

The city has said that its checkpoints are conducted in a legal manner.

The lawsuit alleges that the driver’s license checkpoints conducted by the Escondido Police Department violated state law. It claims that the checkpoints violate Vehicle Code section 14607.6, which says that an officer “shall not stop a vehicle for the sole reason of determining whether the driver is properly licensed.”

The city has not responded to the lawsuit, but it asked the court to move the suit from San Diego, where it was filed, to the Vista Courthouse. The court agreed to move it to Vista.

According to the lawsuit, Dudka drove his 2005 Toyota Tundra through a driver’s license checkpoint on North Escondido Boulevard shortly before noon Oct. 5, 2009, and his vehicle subsequently was impounded. The lawsuit does not address why the vehicle was impounded, and the attorney could not be reached for clarification.

The truck was later sold because Dudka could not afford to pay the impound fees, according to court documents.

“At the time (the) officer stopped (the) plaintiff’s vehicle, (the) officer had no probable cause to stop (the) plaintiff,” according to the lawsuit. “As such, (the officer’s) stop of the plaintiff’s vehicle was unreasonable, and illegal.”

In February, Dudka filed a claim with the city asking for $250,000 in damages, according to court documents. The claim was denied by the city.

Until last year, the police department conducted primarily two kinds of checkpoints: sobriety checkpoints, which included driver’s license checks, and driver’s license-only checkpoints, which were primarily focused on verifying that the driver was properly licensed.

The driver’s license-only checkpoints were criticized by various groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties and the North County-based activist group El Grupo.

Last year, the police department agreed to change its oft-criticized driver’s license-only checkpoints to avoid a legal challenge from civil rights groups.

The checkpoints, now called traffic safety checkpoints, include other inspections, such as whether the vehicle is properly registered and whether occupants are wearing seat belts.

At the time, Maher and Epp said the checkpoints were conducted in a legal manner. However, the chief and Epp agreed to modify the operations to address the concerns made by the groups.

“Rather than argue with them, we will ask for more than just driver’s licenses,” the chief said last year.

Staff writer Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511.

Is Wikileaks anti-freedom?

Taylor Conant has observed important clues about Wikileaks ideology that aren’t friendly to freedom.

Click here to read this important observation

The immorality of government bond ownership – Frank Chodorov

via LewRockwell.com:

Chapter 17, Out of Step (1962). An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Steven Ng, is available for download. The reader might consider the further merits of Chodorov’s argument, given the existing federal debt of $12 trillion.

In 1800, the United States Treasury owed $83 million. The population was then three million. Every baby born that year was loaded down with a debt burden of about $28; if the interest rate was 6 percent, the newborn citizen could look forward to paying a service charge on the national debt of $1.68 per year. Today the debt load of the nation comes to well over $290 billion, and the population is, in round figures, 180 million. Thus, while the population has increased by 60 times, the national debt has increased by 3,600 times; and figuring the interest rate at 4 percent, the cost of handling this debt is, roughly, $68 per citizen per year. The child is now loaded down at birth with a debt load of $1,700. These figures might be adjusted to the increased production per citizen, and to the decreased value of the dollar. Even so, the fact sticks out that posterity does not pay off anything of the national debt, that each administration adds to the debt left to it, and that the promise of liquidation implied in every bond issue is a false promise.

The bulk of the rise in the national debt has occurred since 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt abolished the gold standard and thus made money redeemable in – money. When money was redeemable in gold, the inherent profligacy of government was somewhat restrained; for, if the citizen lost faith in his money, or his bond, he could demand gold in exchange, and since the government did not have enough gold on hand to meet the demand, it had to curtail its spending proclivity accordingly. But, Mr. Roosevelt removed this shackle and thus opened the floodgates. The only limit to the inclination of every politician to spend money, in order to acquire power, is the refusal of the public to lend its money to the government. Of course, the government can then resort to printing money, to make money out of nothing, but at least the people will not be compounding the swindle. Therefore, I offer the following gratuitous advice:

Don’t buy bonds.

The advice is based on purely moral, not fiscal, grounds. I could point out that when the government issues a bond it is diluting the value of all the money in existence. Every bond is, in effect, money: the fact that the indenture bears the seal and imprint of the government makes it so, even though it may not enter the market place as money; it does not become monetized for some time. That is, every bond issued by the government is inflationary, and thus robs the savers of the value of their savings. That, of course, is a swindle and is immoral. But, the immorality of bonds runs much deeper.

In the first place, when the State spends more money than it receives in taxes – a fact indelibly written into the bond – it is deliberately committing an act of bankruptcy. If your neighbor should do that you would promptly put him down as a dishonest person. Is the dishonesty transmuted into its opposite when committed by a legal entity? By what multiplier can robbery be made a virtue? The act of borrowing against imaginary income is a fraud, no matter who does it, and when you make a loan to that borrower you aid and abet a fraud.

The State’s excuse for borrowing is that it invests the proceeds of its bonds for the benefit of posterity. Instead of putting the entire burden of meeting the cost of its beneficial acts on the living, it proposes to demand of unborn children their share of the cost. Quite plausible! But is this not the impossible doctrine of control of the living by the dead? What would you think of a prospective father who deliberately put a debt load on his expected offspring? That is exactly what you do when you cooperate with the State’s borrowing program. You are loading on your children and your children’s children an obligation to pay for something they had no voice in, and for which they may not care at all. Your “investment for posterity” may earn you nothing but the curses of posterity.

The use of the word investment in connection with a bond issued by the State is a treacherous euphemism. When you buy an industrial bond you lend your money to a corporation so that it can buy a machine with which to increase its output of things wanted by the market. The interest paid you is part of the increased production made possible by your loan. That is an investment. The State, however, does not put your money into production. The State spends it – that is all the State is capable of doing – and your savings disappear. The interest you get comes out of the tax fund, to which you contribute your share, and your share is increased by the cost of servicing your bond. In effect, you are paying yourself. Is that an investment?

When you depart from this earth you pass on to your heirs both the tax-collecting bond and the tax-paying obligation it represents. Or, as is usually the case – for the history of bonds is that ownership tends to concentrate in a few hands – if you sold your bond, the new owner in due time passes on to his heirs a claim on the production of your offspring. Your great-grandchildren are called upon to labor for his great-grandchildren. The bond thus becomes a legacy of slavery.

The fact is that posterity never pays off its ancestral debts – or not in the way you are led to believe by the bond-selling State. The present generation is posterity to all the generations that have gone before. Are we paying off any of the debts incurred by our forebears? Hardly. We have spending of our own to do and must leave to our posterity some new debts as well as those we inherited. They, in truth, will do likewise.

Whether or not there is any obligation on the living to liquidate the debt left by an arbitrary ancestry, the political machine prevents its being done. Actual liquidation would necessitate increased taxation, on the one hand, and a curtailment of State spending on the other. Increased taxation the State always welcomes, for any increase in taxes means an increase in State power, and the politicians are always for that; it can never spare a sou for the reduction of the national debt. No State – absolutist or constitutional – has ever put aside its ambitions to make good on its promissory notes. The “posterity should pay” argument, in the light of this historic fact, becomes the equipment of a confidence game.

What, then, becomes of the national debt? It grows and grows until, like a balloon, it bursts. But, though this is inevitable, thanks to the money-making monopoly of the State, it takes a long time before the balloon does burst, and certain conditions must prevail to cause the explosion.

When the promissory paper of a small nation is held by a powerful one, some semblance of financial rectitude is maintained by means of the marines; the economy of the defaulting State is impounded until the debt is liquidated, and sometimes for a longer period. Internal debts, on the other hand, are never liquidated. When the burden of meeting the service charges becomes economically unbearable, and the State’s credit is gone, repudiation or inflation is resorted to.

Of these two methods, repudiation is by far the more honest. It is a straightforward statement of fact: the State declares its inability to pay. The wiping out of the debt, furthermore, can have a salutary effect on the economy of the country, since the lessening of the tax burden leaves the citizenry more to do with. The market place becomes to that extent healthier and more vigorous. The losers in this operation are the few who hold the bonds, but since they too are members of society they must in the long run benefit by the improvement of the general economy; they lose as tax collectors, they gain as producers.

Repudiation commends itself also because it weakens faith in the State. Until the act is forgotten by subsequent generations, the State’s promises find few believers; its credit is shattered. Never since the Russian repudiation of 1917 has the regime attempted to float a bond issue abroad, while its import operations have been largely on a cash basis. Internally, Russia does its “borrowing” from its own nationals as a highwayman does.

Anyhow, since honesty and politics are contradictory terms, the State’s standard method of meeting its debt obligations is inflation. It pays off with engraved paper. To be sure, even as it issues its new IOUs to pay off its defaulted ones, the inflationary process is on, for every bond is in fact money; like money, it is a claim on production. The bond you buy increases the circulatory medium, thus depressing its value, and you are really exchanging good money for bad. You are cheating yourself. That is demonstrable by comparing the purchasing power of the dollar at the time you bought the bond with its purchasing power at maturity.

As Germany did in the 1920s, the State can make inflation and repudiation synonymous; it can inflate for the purpose of repudiation. This is what is called “uncontrolled” inflation, another impostor term. There is really no such thing as “uncontrolled” or “runaway” inflation, because the printing presses do not run themselves; somebody must start and keep them going until the desired end, the wiping out of the national debt, is accomplished. The disadvantage of this process, as against outright repudiations, is that in wiping out the debt it also wipes out the values which the citizenry have laboriously built up; it wipes out savings. However, no nation has ever resorted to “uncontrolled” inflation until its economy has been destroyed by war, until production was unable to meet the expenses of the political establishment, to say nothing of the debt piled up by its predecessors.

But, how about the natural pull of patriotism? In the face of national danger, is it not right that we put our all into the common defense? Of course it is right; and people being what they are, the pooling of interests is spontaneous when community life is threatened, as in the case of a flood, an earthquake or a conflagration, or when the Indians attacked the stockade. In such catastrophes we give; we do not lend. Patriotism weighted with profit is of a dubious kind. Bonds do not fight wars. The instruments and materials of war are forged by living labor using the existing stock of capital; the expense must be met with current production. The bonds are issued because laborers and capitalists are reluctant to give their output for the common cause; they put a greater value on their property than on victory. Were confiscatory taxation the only means of carrying on the war its popularity might wane; the war would have to be called off.

This specious resort to spurious patriotism reaches its ultimate in the textbook justification for the public debt. It runs something like this: citizens who have a financial stake in the State, by way of bonds, take a livelier interest in its doings. Thus, love of country is made contingent on the probability of returns, both as to capital and to booty. This smacks of the kind of patriotism that motivated the money brokers of the Middle Ages; once they invested in their king’s ventures they could not afford to become lukewarm in their fealty.

It is not patriotism that is engendered by the borrowing State. It is subservience. With its portfolio chock-full of bonds, the financial institution becomes in effect a junior partner whose self-interest compels compliance. An allotment of bonds to a bank carries force because its current large holdings might lose value if doubt were thrown on the credit of the State. A precipitate drop in the prices of federal issues would shake Wall Street out of its boots; hence new issues must be taken up to protect old issues. The concern of heavily endowed universities in their holdings of bonds is such that professorial doubt of their moral content could hardly be tolerated. Even the pacifist minister of a rich church would have to be circumspect in voicing his opinion of the public debt. That is, the self-interest of the tax-collecting bondholders, not patriotism, impels support of the State.

Taken all in all, the bond is a thoroughly immoral institution. I would not be caught dead with one of these papers on me.

Reprinted from Mises.org.

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966), one of the great libertarians of the Old Right, was the founder of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists and author of such books as The Income Tax: Root of All Evil. Here he is on “Taxation Is Robbery.” And here is Rothbard’s obituary of Chodorov.

The Straw that Breaks the Camel’s Back – Front row seat to a revolution

Interesting to observe what finally triggers a popular uprising.  Kind of reminds me of “V for Vendetta“.  It is interesting to see also the power of Wikileaks in this revolt.  Do you think there is enough discontent for this to happen in the USA?:

Tunisians drive leader from power in mass uprising
Tunisians drive out strongman; 1st time in modern Arab history popular uprising ousts leader

Elaine Ganley and Bouazza Ben Bouazza, Associated Press, On Friday January 14, 2011, 8:02 pm

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — After 23 years of iron-fisted rule, the president of Tunisia was driven from power Friday by violent protests over soaring unemployment and corruption. The ouster, virtually unprecedented in modern Arab history, sent an ominous message to authoritarian governments that dominate the region: Even strongmen can be overthrown by the power of the street.

Tunisians buoyant over Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ouster immediately worried, however, about what’s next: the caretaker leadership of the prime minister who took control, the role of the army in the transition, and whether Ben Ali’s departure — to an as-yet unconfirmed location — will be enough to restore calm.

The upheaval followed the country’s largest protests in generations and weeks of escalating unrest, sparked by one man’s suicide and fueled by social media, cell phones and young people who have seen relatively little benefit from Tunisia’s recent economic growth. Thousands of demonstrators from all walks of life rejected Ben Ali’s promises of change and mobbed Tunis, the capital, to demand that he leave.

The government said at least 23 people have been killed in the riots, but opposition members put the death toll at more than three times that.

On Friday, police repeatedly clashed with protesters, some of whom climbed onto the entrance roof of the dreaded Interior Ministry, widely believed for years to be a place where the regime’s opponents were tortured.

With clouds of tear gas and black smoke drifting over the city’s whitewashed buildings, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi went on state television to announce that he was assuming power in this North African nation known mostly for its wide sandy beaches and ancient ruins.

“I take over the responsibilities temporarily of the leadership of the country at this difficult time to help restore security,” Ghannouchi said in a solemn statement on state television. “I promise … to respect the constitution, to work on reforming economic and social issues with care and to consult with all sides.”

The prime minister, a longtime ally of the president, suggested that Ben Ali had willingly handed over control, but the exact circumstances were unclear.

In a string of last-ditch efforts to tamp down the unrest, Ben Ali dissolved the government and promised legislative elections within six months — a pledge that appeared to open at least the possibility of a new government. Before his removal of power was announced, he declared a state of emergency, including a curfew that was in effect Friday night and was to be lifted at 7 a.m. Saturday.

People in downtown Tunis appeared to be respecting the curfew, though there were isolated bursts of gunfire.

European tour companies moved thousands of tourists out of the country. Foreign airlines halted service to Tunisia, and said the country’s airspace had been temporarily shut down.

Ben Ali’s downfall sent a potentially frightening message to autocratic leaders across the Arab world, especially because he did not seem especially vulnerable until very recently.

He managed the economy of his small country of 10 million better than many other Middle Eastern nations grappling with calcified economies and booming, young populations. He turned Tunisia into a beach haven for tourists, helping create an area of stability in volatile North Africa. There was a lack of civil rights and little or no freedom of speech, but a better quality of life for many than in neighboring countries such as Algeria and Libya.

Ben Ali had won frequent praise from abroad for presiding over reforms to make the economy more competitive and attract business. Growth last year was at 3.1 percent. Unemployment, however, was officially measured at 14 percent, and was far higher — 52 percent — among the young. Despair among job-seeking young graduates was palpable.

The riots started after an educated but jobless 26-year-old committed suicide in mid-December when police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling without a permit [emphasis mine]. His desperate act hit a nerve, sparked copycat suicides and focused generalized anger against the regime into a widespread, outright revolt.

The president tried vainly to hold onto power. On Thursday night he went on television to promise not to run for re-election in 2014 and slashed prices on key foods such as sugar, bread and milk.

Protesters gathered peacefully Friday in front of the Interior Ministry, but six hours after the demonstration began hundreds of police with shields and riot gear moved in. Helmeted police fired dozens of rounds of tear gas and kicked and clubbed unarmed protesters — one of whom cowered on the ground, covering his face.

An AP Television News reporter heard gunfire in the center of the Tunisian capital late Friday afternoon, in addition to the popping of tear gas pistols.

A few youths were spotted throwing stones, but most demonstrated calmly. Protesters were of all ages and from all walks of life, from students holding sit-ins in the middle of the street to doctors in white coats and black-robed lawyers waving posters.

“A month ago, we didn’t believe this uprising was possible,” said Beya Mannai, a geology professor at the University of Tunis. “But the people rose up.”

“My first reaction is relief,” said Dr. Souha Naija, a resident radiologist at Charles Nicole Hospital. “He’s gone. … I finally feel free.”

“They got the message. The people don’t want a dictator.” However, she voiced concern for the future because, officially at least, Ben Ali vacated power only temporarily.

“It’s ambiguous,” she said.

Nejib Chebbi, a founder of the main legal opposition party, said the dramatic developments do not amount to a coup d’etat.

“It’s an unannounced resignation,” Chebbi said by telephone. To declare a permanent absence of a head of state, such as in a coup, elections would have to be held within 60 days, he said. “So they declare a temporary vacating of power.”

U.S. President Barack Obama said he applauded the courage and dignity of protesting Tunisians, and urged all parties to keep calm and avoid violence.

Arabs across the region celebrated news of the Tunisian uprising on Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Thousands of tweets congratulating the Tunisian people flooded the Internet, and many people changed their profile pictures to Tunisian flags.

Egyptian activists opposed to President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade regime looked to the events in Tunisia with hope. About 50 gathered outside the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo to celebrate with singing and dancing. They chanted, “Ben Ali, tell Mubarak a plane is waiting for him, too!”

Ben Ali’s whereabouts were a mystery. “We don’t know where he is,” opposition leader Chebbi said. “The most probable thing is that he’s left the country.”

Unconfirmed rumors about Ben Ali’s location reached such a fevered pitch that the governments of France and Malta — just two of several countries where he was speculated to be heading — put out statements saying they have had no requests to accommodate him.

One French official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the French government did not want Ben Ali there.

Ghannouchi is a 69-year-old economist who has been prime minister since 1999 and is among the best-known faces of Tunisia’s government. He did not say anything about a coup or about the army being in charge.

Ben Ali, 74, came to power in a bloodless palace coup in 1987. He took over from a man called formally President-for-Life — Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern-day Tunisia who set the Muslim country on a pro-Western course after independence from France in 1956.

Ben Ali removed Bourguiba from office for “incompetence,” saying he had become too old, senile and sick to rule. Ben Ali promised then that his leadership would “open the horizons to a truly democratic and evolved political life.”

But after a brief period of reforms, Tunisia’s political evolution stopped.

Ben Ali consistently won elections with questionable tallies: In 2009, he was re-elected for a fifth five-year term with 89 percent of the vote — and that was the lowest official percentage of any of his victories. Before that vote, he had warned opponents they would face legal retaliation if they questioned the election’s fairness.

U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have called Tunisia a “police state” and described the corruption there, saying Ben Ali had lost touch with his people. Social networks like Facebook helped spread the comments to the delight of ordinary Tunisians, who have complained about the same issues for years [emphasis mine].

Under Ben Ali, most opposition parties were illegal. Amnesty International said authorities infiltrated human rights groups and harassed dissenters. Reporters Without Borders described Ben Ali as a “press predator” who controlled the media.

There is little precedent in the Arab world for a ruler being ousted by street protests. In Sudan in 1985, a collapsing economy and other grievances sparked a popular uprising, although the government was eventually ousted by a military coup.

The closest parallel in the broader Middle East comes from Iran — which is not an Arab nation — where mass demonstrations helped topple the shah and usher in the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Tunisia’s giant neighbor Algeria saw huge protests before it was shaken by a military coup in 1992, with a five-man leadership put in place after the army canceled the nation’s first multiparty legislative elections, which a Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win. The party, the Islamic Salvation Front, became a vehicle for popular dissent.

There were also massive demonstrations in Lebanon in 2005, dubbed the “Cedar Revolution,” but those were directed against Syrian influence in the country and not the Lebanese government per se. The protests led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and the resignation of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian prime minister and fresh elections.

Al-Qaida’s North African offshoot appeared to try to capitalize on the Tunisian unrest, offering its support for protesters this week. There has been no sign of Islamic extremist involvement in the rioting.

Nicolas Garriga and Oleg Cetinic in Tunis, Angela Doland, Greg Keller and Jamey Keaten in Paris and Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Cairo contributed to this report.

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