In a scene from a cheap war movie, a man with a sidearm asked me where we were from and where we were going. Milling about were five other holstered agents with a guard dog, deciding whether my story met with their approval.The officer at my window, with his challenging mannerisms, listened to my story and made his decision, all the while holding my life and liberty in the balance. It was then that I realized that it wasn’t just my family that was on vacation — we have allowed liberty to go on vacation as well. FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/8188/from-the-heartland-to-the-border/
From the Heartland to the Border
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Who likes line-cutters?
You stand there waiting your turn, then some
low-IQ dolt, who believes he/she is the center
of the universe, step in front of you–CHEATS
however many are standing behind and
waiting their turn.
Nobody is telling the truth about these Mexican
Indians – and the rest – who are invading America
–not in mainstream media, anyway.
This scribbler doesn’t like line-cutters. They
ought to be despised and VERY BADLY
treated by everyone. And line-cutters’ children
are no defense against the RULE OF LAW,
which RULE keeps us from the savagery inherent
in line-cutting:
Illegal Aliens Trash America
http://illegaalienstrashamerica.blogspot.com/
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Correction for link to my article about
illegal aliens:
http://illegalalienstrashamerica.blogspot.com/
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Isn’t it ironic that so many laws do nothing but inhibit the freedom of law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to curb criminal activity?
Isn’t it ironic that so many laws do nothing but inhibit the freedom of law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to curb criminal activity?
That’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
If our militarized police were genuinely serious about controlling the border, they’d just do that. Or they’d sue employers.
But that’s not the real purpose of these checkpoints. The checkpoints exist to install military law, one inch at a time. We are witnessing the implementation of military law in slow motion.
In San Antonio over Memorial Day weekend, the local police just decided (with no legal authority) to have what they euphemistically called a “no refusal weekend.” For that weekend only, you could not refuse a breathalyzer test. Normally, if you do, they seize your car and license to drive. But for one weekend only (like it was a tent sale or something), if you refused the breathalyzer, you’d get an involuntary “stick” — a collection of your BLOOD.
No refusal weekend.
Just to test the waters. Just to acclimate us to the process. Just to inch us along down the road to a total police state.
The militarization of our local police is a VERY BAD DEVELOPMENT. The Dept. of Homeland Security provides grants to local law enforcement, for training and hiring and equipment (like the DOD-issued armored personnel carrier the sheriff’s office used to seize 400 children from that religious compound recently.) Local police now openly consider themselves to be paramilitary organizations.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. The DHS now pays the piper of every local police and sheriff’s office.
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Attn: fundamentalist
What is it about libertarians
and their dislike of the ideas
“law” and “rule” and “order”?
Laws effected the very first
step away from the cave’s
entrance, from which we
have taken but one or two
these past 50,000 years
or so; that is, laws have
effected our steps away
from raw savagery.
Yes?
No?
Fact is, laws are far more
good for us than not, as
they help to keep good
social order–keep the
peace.
The very first law ever
applied in human relation-
ships was this: Keep
your hands off of my
body!; then, my spouse;
then, my family; then,
my things; then, my land;
then, my community;
then, my town; then, my
state; then, my race;
then, my nation-state;
then, my civilization
(Note: The anthropological
definition of “nation” is “a
people of common
ancestry,” to explain my
reference to RACE).
Laws separate us from
being mere animals
grunting their way thru
existence here.
“To grunt or not to grunt?”
That is the question.
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Too many people seem to think that laws are legislation passed by legislators and enforced by government. Deacon is a case in point. But law is really the rules of society, as accepted by society. Common law, or the Law Merchant are good examples of htis. Sometimes legislation is acceptable to society and becomes law, and sometimes it doesn’t.
I’m sick of people who argue that we should abide by bad laws until they can be changed or fixed–that’s not what freedom is about.
This one’s for Deacon: Your comment “And line-cutters’ children are no defense against the RULE OF LAW, which RULE keeps us from the savagery inherent in line-cutting: Illegal Aliens Trash America”.
And so they did when they hit shore after arriving here on the Mayflower. (Remember, they were not carrying any “papers” to prove their legality). And they trashed it so bad that they annihilated 500 nations that had arrived here before them. They raped, pillaged, burnt, murdered, stole and cheated the residents of their families, lives, land and property and to add insult to injury they used those people for target practice.
And if this is not a unique display of savagery, then I don’t know what is.
I am in total agreement with Michael A. Clem. So let’s revisit The Function of Government. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Law, Rule and Order as long as they are made to protect us from the government and not the other way around, which seems to be the case these days.
The function of government is to govern. (Interfering in business or in the everyday lives of individuals do not happen to be included. The government has three agencies at its disposal to protect the Rights of Each Individual and those are: The Police force which protects citizens from harm, the Armed forces that defend this country from invaders by defending it on its own soil (and not by attacking other countries and calling it defense) and the Law courts to protect citizens from unlawful activities.
The government has no right to appropriate to itself that which it has not earned. It does not have the right to confiscate legally held property and the earnings that could result from such property.
It has no right to steal the hard earned incomes of its citizens under the pretext of defending a country that’s never been attacked by another country, or to provide public services. Each and every endeavor, no matter what it’s size, be it utilities, medical services etc can be privately owned (including roads and traffic lights). Business is not the government’s business.
Voluntary Taxation can be imposed to create funds to maintain the three agencies. And by that I mean Lotto, Powerball etc. Hundreds of trillians of dollars are not required to maintain these agencies. It’s these inconceiveable sums of public funds in the hands of adventurers and cavaliers on Capitol Hill that create organizations like the Pentagon with Trillion dollar budgets. Under the laws of the Constitution and true freedom, the Pentagon would have been housed in a single 20X20 foot room.
It’s a sad commentary on the government of a country whose citizens have to hold bake sales to finance their local schools while Trillions of dollars are spent on weapons of mass destruction.
Deacon: Rationality is what separates us from the animals, not laws.
Speaking of the rule of law, where is the power to police the borders enumerated?
“citizens have to hold bake sales to finance their local schools…”
It costs about $10,000/year/child to fund the government public school system.
A good private school is half that.
The “bake sales” are because vast quantities of money are being spent on administration and governance of the public school system, and not on educating the students.
The “bake sales” are a ruberic, designed to bring such emotions to the fore that people vote for even more levies, bond measures and taxes to “fund the failing schools”, so that ever more money can be spent on administration.
Those “bake sales” are an indication of the poverty of the government run school _concept_.
Jim, thanks for your excellent and almost lyrically written post.
Deacon, to see where people here are coming from, you might want to consider first, that it is not law that creates wealth, but voluntary transactions, which also creates the commerical practices that were the first real law and, second, the increasing gap between the growing burden of law (and rather naked discretion) as it applies to citizens and the increasing unrestricted power and lawlessness of our leaders (witness Presidential signing statements, the naked breach of FISA in spying on Americans, the increasing secrecy, opacity and stream of lies of the Administration).
The law is a tool, and increasingly deployed to oppress, for the benefit of elites, bureaucrats and petty mandarins.
You might also want to consider the damage that the so-called “war on drugs” does not merely to our own society, but on the economies of and rule of law in Mexico and other southern neighbors. The corruption of drug money is holding back development and increases the relative attractiveness of opportunities in the US.
“I am in total agreement with Michael A. Clem. So let’s revisit The Function of Government. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Law, Rule and Order as long as they are made to protect us from the government and not the other way around, which seems to be the case these days.
The function of government is to govern . . . ”
Lol! That doesn’t make any sense Enem! One moment you use ‘government ‘as a synonym for a criminal gang then say what the role of governemnt is! Who knows? Maybe T.T. calls a spade a spade. Laws are simply abritrary rules made by someone else to restrict the rights and exclude others. Therefore there’s no such thing as ‘rightful law’ as one person shouldn’t have the positive right to restrict the rights and choices of others. Or to put it another way rights aren’t given by someone else either you have them yourself or you don’t. But I have said before that if it can be shown ‘rights’ are only derived from someone one’s ability to make something happen then there aren’t ‘rights’ merely ‘abilities’, ‘strengths’ or ‘transactions’. E.g. you have the ability to be strong to defend yourself from the violent actions of other or you may be to afford to buy the strength of others to help defend yourself – but to presume you have the positive right to assume people should come to your defense without any payment isn’t just proper is it?
Deacon,
“The very first law ever
applied in human relation-
ships was this: Keep
your hands off of my
body!; then, my spouse;
then, my family; then,
my things; then, my land;
then, my community;
then, my town; then, my
state; then, my race;
then, my nation-state;
then, my civilization”
Please get off my planet. I’m using it. Thanks.
Isn’t it amazing how severe were the penalties for dealing with Mexicans on your vacation and how militaristic the “Border Patrol” folks on your return trip. Both of these examples would suggest that there is really an attempt by government to stop the invasion of this country by MILLIONS of illegals from south of the border. Well, if this is what you encountered on your vacation, these must be the ONLY two places all along our southern border where there is any effort being made to stop this invasion. The facts about the virtually non-existent efforts to stop, detain and/or deport illegals are so well documented they do not need to be repeated here. Indeed, there is photographic proof of the MEXICAN ARMY moving these “undocumented immigrants” as much as 60 miles into the US before they are permitted to continue their northward journey. As for your “stick painters”, they aren’t the problem because THEY GO HOME AT NIGHT.
And, of course, all of these illegals are around us and among us using up our resources, destroying the job base of our lowest paid workers, destroying our hospitals and health care centers, getting welfare and all the while supporting the downfall of the US and the return to Mexico of most of the Southwest.
Perhaps you should send those park police and border patrolman to Long Island and other places further north. It seems as if they at least are TRYING to do something however pointless.
And, of course, all of these illegals are around us and among us using up our resources, destroying the job base of our lowest paid workers, destroying our hospitals and health care centers, getting welfare and all the while supporting the downfall of the US and the return to Mexico of most of the Southwest.
Hmm…you mean they are stealing “our” resources, or paying for them like any other consumer? If they’re stealing them, then why are the local police unable to stop them? Isn’t that why we pay tax dollars, so the police can enforce the law and protect people’s rights? Are you saying the police are ineffective? That we need private police or vigilantism? But if they’re paying for them, then what are you complaining about? They’re not your resources unless you are, in fact, the owner of them, in which case, YOU are the one being paid for their use. Just stop selling them to illegals.
As for them getting health care and other welfare benefits, I’m all for recognizing that such things are not rights, because again, such things are actually resources that are owned by specific people, who have the right to sell or not sell to whom they please. But if health care, welfare, etc, are not rights, then that means that even U.S. citizens are no more entitled to them than illegals are.
I’m all for ending government welfare in all its forms, including corporate welfare that redistributes from the poor to the rich, and letting private welfare help out who THEY see as the most needy in our society.
Are you anti-illegals willing to join me in this?
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