May 2015 – Page 11 – The Burning Platform

SF – NO BUBBLE HERE

The charts below certainly reflect a rational free market trend. Right? Home prices always double in the space of three years when the economy is limping along with sub 2% GDP growth and median real household income is still 7% below the levels of 2007 and equal to levels of 1989. These are the median home prices, so they aren’t even skewed by the really high end prices.

San Francisco is now unaffordable to 99% of the US population. Only the richest of the rich can afford to live there. The titans of technology usually lean to the left and spout gibberish about equal rights, going green, and fighting poverty as they occupy gated estates with armed guards to keep the riff raff out. They want the rest of the country to do what they say, not what they do. They don’t want the peasants living near them. The help can live in Stockton and take the bus to arrive on time to clean their toilets.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY – ANARCHY EDITION

“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”

Robert Higgs

“What makes anyone think that government officials are even trying to protect us? A government is not analogous to a hired security guard. Governments do not come into existence as social service organizations or as private firms seeking to please consumers in a competitive market. Instead, they are born in conquest and nourished by plunder. They are, in short, well-armed gangs intent on organized crime. Yes, rulers have sometimes come to recognize the prudence of protecting the herd they are milking and even of improving its ‘infrastructure’ until the day they decide to slaughter the young bulls, but the idea that government officials seek to promote my interests or yours is little more than propaganda—unless, of course, you happen to belong to the class of privileged tax eaters who give significant support to the government and therefore receive in return a share of the loot.”

Robert Higgs

“In regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven’t even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I’ve never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts.”

Robert Higgs

“Every year, on Veterans Day, orators declare that our leaders have gone to war to preserve our freedoms and have done so with glorious success, but the truth is just the opposite. In ways big and small, direct and indirect, crude and subtle, war—the quintessential government activity—has been the mother’s milk for the nourishment of a growing tyranny in this country, and it remains so today.”

Robert Higgs, Neither Liberty nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government

“H. L. Mencken famously said that “every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.” By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights—not only mine, of course, but everyone’s. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.”

Robert Higgs, Neither Liberty nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government

BECAUSE IT’S BEEN TOO LONG

Militarization Is More Than Tanks and Rifles: It’s a Cultural Disease, Acclimating the Citizenry to Life in a Police State

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military

Talk about poor timing. Then again, perhaps it’s brilliant timing.

Only now—after the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment to local police forces, after police agencies have been trained in the fine art of war, after SWAT team raids have swelled in number to more than 80,000 a year, after it has become second nature for local police to look and act like soldiers, after communities have become acclimated to the presence of militarized police patrolling their streets, after Americans have been taught compliance at the end of a police gun or taser, after lower income neighborhoods have been transformed into war zones, after hundreds if not thousands of unarmed Americans have lost their lives at the hands of police who shoot first and ask questions later, after a whole generation of young Americans has learned to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates—only now does President Obama lift a hand to limit the number of military weapons being passed along to local police departments.

Not all, mind you, just some.

Talk about too little, too late.

Months after the White House defended a federal program that distributed $18 billion worth of military equipment to local police, Obama has announced that he will ban the federal government from providing local police departments with tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms and large-caliber firearms.

Obama also indicated that less heavy-duty equipment (armored vehicles, tactical vehicles, riot gear and specialized firearms and ammunition) will reportedly be subject to more regulations such as local government approval, and police being required to undergo more training and collect data on the equipment’s use. Perhaps hoping to sweeten the deal, the Obama administration is also offering $163 million in taxpayer-funded grants to “incentivize police departments to adopt the report’s recommendations.”

While this is a grossly overdue first step of sorts, it is nevertheless a first step from an administration that has been utterly complicit in accelerating the transformation of America’s police forces into extensions of the military. Indeed, as investigative journalist Radley Balko points out, while the Obama administration has said all the right things about the need to scale back on a battlefield mindset, it has done all the wrong things to perpetuate the problem:

distributed equipment designed for use on the battlefield to local police departments,
provided private grants to communities to incentivize SWAT team raids,
redefined “community policing” to reflect aggressive police tactics and funding a nationwide COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program that has contributed to dramatic rise in SWAT teams,
encouraged the distribution of DHS anti-terror grants and the growth of “contractors that now cater to police agencies looking to cash DHS checks in exchange for battle-grade gear,”
ramped up the use of military-style raids to crack down on immigration laws and target “medical marijuana growers, shops, and dispensaries in states that have legalized the drug,”
defended as “reasonable” aggressive, militaristic police tactics in cases where police raided a guitar shop in defense of an obscure environmental law, raided a home looking for a woman who had defaulted on her student loans, and terrorized young children during a raid on the wrong house based on a mistaken license plate,
and ushered in an era of outright highway robbery in which asset forfeiture laws have been used to swindle Americans out of cash, cars, houses, or other property that government agents can “accuse” of being connected to a crime.

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800 USA!USA!USA! Military Bases

Ever wonder where you taxes go … (besides supporting Free Shitters)?

No new info here …. just a nice presentation.

Shouldn’t We All Be ANARCHISTS?

Few (other than Sensetti and Rex The Douche) are left here who consider themselves Repubs or Dems.

I guess the alternative is Libertarian.

But what about Anarchists?? In all the years I’ve been here I can hardly recall that being discussed — other than in a passing comment here and there.

Admittedly, I know very little about it. I’m thinking that it’s time to learn more about it. What say you?

Interesting short video … is it not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ko_CHk7R8Tw000

Even if Congress Repeals the PATRIOT Act, You’ll Still Have Zero Electronic Privacy

Guest Post by Mark Nestmann

I got a good laugh earlier this month when a federal appeals court ruled that the National Security Agency (NSA) could no longer collect the phone records of all US persons – and then store them in a massive database.

The laugh didn’t result from the decision itself, which I wholeheartedly support. It came from the media coverage of the ruling, which made it sound like the NSA could no longer vacuum up all of our electronic data without any meaningful limits.

The decisions issued by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals dealt with the NSA’s interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. That section authorizes the government to collect data “relevant” to terrorism investigations. However, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the Bush and Obama administrations interpreted Section 215 as giving the government carte blanche authority to collect the phone records of virtually every person in the US.

This should come as no surprise. For many years, I’ve documented the phenomenon of “surveillance creep,” where a technology or law intended for narrow law enforcement or anti-terrorism purposes is used much more broadly.

The FBI’s National DNA Index System, originally used to track sex offenders, has expanded to the point where the federal government now collects a DNA sample from every baby born in the US. In effect, newborn babies are now ranked with sex offenders.
The so-called E911 initiative that makes it possible for emergency responders to locate you when you dial 911 in the US quickly morphed into a massive GPS surveillance initiative. US courts have gone along, on the theory that your cell phone location data isn’t your property, and you therefore have no “expectation of privacy” that it won’t be disclosed.
And my “favorite” example: In the UK, anti-terrorism legislation now is being used (I kid you not) to investigate dog poop.

And just like DNA surveillance, GPS surveillance, and even dog poop surveillance, the Second Circuit’s ruling will do little or nothing to restrict the NSA from sweeping up our electronic data. That will be true even if Congress fails to reauthorize Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, as appears increasingly likely, and despite the claim by some in Congress that the repeal will “end bulk data collection.”

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