TSA Terror Molestation

It’s hard to imagine the current generation rubbing shoulders with the radical revolutionaries of 1776. The 76ers tarred, feathered and revolted against the high price of tea, where many of this generation not only defend the government’s right to grope your private parts and take pics of your naked body, they also think you should smile while they’re doing it.

Some people used to consider rape and child molestation to be a bad thing; today they think it’s completely normal if the government is doing it. Of course these same people would mock the idea of what the TSA does akin to rape or molestation. They suggest that “intent” is a distinguishing factor, but the actual physical acts are quite similar if not the same. Many men have spent years in prison for less intrusive physical acts that the TSA do daily … hourly … every second.

But some say it is necessary to protect us from terrorists who would kill us all if it weren’t for the TSA’s noble efforts which to date have foiled a total of one underwear bomber (at least that’s all I could find, I didn’t look very far.) To be fair, the arguments in favor of TSA are compelling. It is far riskier for underwear terrorists to commit their terror in the police state that is the airport. However, while the TSA’s efforts may be working to minimize terrorism, those efforts to prevent terrorism are arguably a form of terrorism themselves.

Those lacking an imagination may have a hard time seeing the TSA’s acts as terrorism. If you can’t see it, perhaps you are a mid-twenties, well endowed physically, circumcised athlete. For the rest of the world, understanding TSA terror is not that difficult. Men with man-boobs, women with no-boobs, uncircumcised men, hermaphrodites, etc. may feel reluctant about exposing their bodies to TSA naked photo shoots. In fact, the thought of doing so is likely terrifying to them. There’s that word, terrify, or terror.

Isn’t it possible that many people are more terrified of the much greater possibility of TSA terror, than they are of underwear-bomb terror? If so, the TSA has not only become the thing they supposedly exist to prevent, they’ve in fact surpassed it, if we consider the number of people they’ve terrorized.

For those of you who disagree with my assessment, I propose a compromise. I will agree with you that what is being done is necessary and acceptable, if you will agree to call it what it is, terrifying molestation. From now we will call body scans, porno scans. We will call pat downs, invasive private part rubbing. From this day forth we will stop calling it a necessary evil, in favor of TSA-dude getting his hourly jollies. Not fair? Are you suggesting it’s impossible to imagine some of these TSA folks enjoying what they do? Again, who’s being honest, and who’s being politically correct?

I believe my compromise is a reasonable one. For the few of us who, like the 76ers, value liberty over security, what the TSA (a government agency) does is the grossest violation of one of our most valued liberties, privacy. The least you advocate’s of TSA terror molestation can do is let us call it by what it is, without threatening us with even more terror for not being politically correct.

For you TSA terrorists, I ask the following. The least you can do for me, as you take pictures of my naked body, or rub my private parts, is look me in the eyes as you do it. The least you can do is let me call you by what you are, molesters. The least you can do is swallow every curse word I cast at you, as you rub my private parts. I will treat you as I would any molester who touched my body without my permission. I will curse you, your protectors, your advocates ‘til the day I die. And I will pray for the end of this generation of state lovers, and the return of the radical revolutionaries of 1776, who knew a good thing when they saw it. As one of the greatest of that generation said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Premature Merging Bottleneck Syndrome

Anyone who has spent any time behind the steering wheel of an automobile has had the two-lane bottlenecking to one-lane because of roadside construction experience. You know, you’re driving down a two-lane road, suddenly up ahead you notice that cars are all beginning to merge over into one lane, even though the actual construction isn’t taking place until a mile up the road.

The merging of cars a mile ahead of the actual place where merging is mandatory is usually done in obedience to some unwritten, but well known rule. The rule says it’s rude to pass a long line of cars already merged into one lane by continuing to drive in the empty lane until you actually have to merge.

This rule creates what can only be described as a sort of epidemic of premature merging. It exists because the majority of humans (warning, stereotype ahead) are altruists, pacifists or just plain stupid.

Tell me you haven’t been a victim of this phenomenon, you see everyone merging prematurely and so you decide you too need to merge prematurely. Once you’ve merged prematurely, you curse anyone gutsy (or smart) enough to do the logical thing, continue driving until they actually have to merge.

You curse these people, unless you’re like me. I find late-mergers to be heroic. If everyone didn’t merge until they actually had to, that is, abandon premature merging, the inconvenience that is roadside construction would be much shorter-lived.

It’s really just common sense. Two lanes are better than one lane. Two lanes can accommodate more cars than one lane.

When a bottleneck does occur, the inconvenience created by that bottleneck is proportionate to the length of the bottleneck. If the bottleneck is ten feet long, it will inconvenience all of the vehicles involved in the bottleneck for ten feet of time, or until the one lane turns back into two lanes. However, if the bottleneck is twenty feet, or one hundred feet, or one million feet, it will inconvenience all of the vehicles involved in that bottleneck for the proportionate amount of time.

The more cars that merge prematurely, results in the greater the length of the bottleneck. Thus, each car that merges prematurely is extending the length of the bottleneck. Whereas every late-merger is reducing this length of bottleneck time, proportionate to the number of late-mergers there actually are.

It turns out that studies show that my reasoning is not only correct, but that late-merging is also safer than premature-merging.

Thus, late-mergers are all heroic, in the sense that they stand in defiance to the highly contagious epidemic that is premature merging bottleneck syndrome.

The Last Unicorns

In second grade I saw the most tragic film of my childhood, The Last Unicorn. I remember sitting on the floor, cross-legged, elbow-to-elbow with the other little-ones in that classroom filed with child-sized desks and chairs, before an elevated television. My neck strained from having to tilt my head up at a forty-five degree angle to view the screen.

Though I haven’t seen the movie since that early afternoon in the nineteen-eighties, and I’ve all but forgotten the plot, I can remember commenting on many occasions since then that it was the only movie that ever made me cry, a record that was replaced the day I saw Awakenings with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

What I remember of the plot, with a little help from IMDb, is the quest of a unicorn, the last of its kind, seeking the whereabouts of its lost species. This same concept, the last of a particular breed or species searching for clues to the whereabouts of its kind, has been reproduced myriad times in other Hollywood dramas.

Consider Harry, the Sasquatch in Harry and the Henderson’s, or Manny, the mammoth in Ice Age. There is something tragic about the plight of the last-of-a-kind’s quest to discover their lost peers. Most of us have experienced loneliness at some point in our lives, and can empathize with these characters misfortune. They are the extreme minority in a world full of social collectives.

Our world seems to cater to majorities over minorities, on both a political and socio-economic level. While it is true that some minorities have managed to gain political and social attention through carefully organized campaigns, many misfit minorities still have few advocates.

Sadomasochists, prostitutes, anarchists, witches, and even corporate executives are all examples of misfit minorities, who find little representation in this democratic society. The average person spends little time worrying about the civil liberties of the sadomasochist or prostitute. They have a hard time empathizing with millionaire executives, and can’t begin to understand anarchists or witches who espouse political and social views so different from their own. As a member of this latter class, the anarchists, I can relate with the dejected emotions of the last unicorns of the world.

The life of a misfit is one of a perpetual sore tongue from being bitten so often. I rarely find myself in an environment where I feel my opinion is welcome. At first my diffidence kept me from sharing my opinions with others. I soon learned that keeping quiet about my differences, particularly in the classroom setting, resulted in days of regret for not speaking my mind. On the few occasions I did share what I saw as an unwelcome opinion, I was frequently rewarded with an unexpected thanks from someone who shared a similar dissenting view as my own, though not brave enough to share it. These “thank you for sharing” moments filled me with days of gratitude that I had shared my views in the face of a majority of opposing opinions. Now I don’t keep quiet as much, but share my dissent as often as I feel it’s appropriate.

One such rewarding moment happened at a recent Halloween party I held at my home. While parties are not typically the place for serious political discussions, this was my party and I’ll cry if I want to. I’m not sure how the discussion arose, but I was soon engaged in a debate over the fallacies of utilitarianism and the virtues of libertarianism. The gist of my argument was that libertarianism, the notion that you don’t own other people, was not only a more ethical philosophy but was also more pragmatic on a socio-economic level. Like the many other debates I’ve had over the years, I didn’t expect many converts to my ideas. However, a friend I have had for over ten-years was impressed by my words and expressed his agreement with many of my ideas.

Since that night we have shared dozens of text messages and spent hours on the phone discussing these ideas. And unlike the last unicorn, I’ve discovered that there are more of my misfit kind out there in the world. Let it be a lesson to all who conceal their beliefs out of fear of social rejection, they may be missing out on a potentially enduring fraternity.

The valley of validation in the land of truth

Cognitive dissonance and selective exposure are two related concepts in communication theory that have always interested me. Perhaps it’s because I’m part of the civilized minority who actually change their behavior when faced with a challenging notion that demands I do such, in contrast to the uncivilized majority who do just the opposite—nothing.

If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is look at my past … consider where I’ve come from, and who I am now. I’ll spare you a long history, not only because it may bore you, but also because there is a slim chance that this blog may someday be read by someone who knew the old me – the pious me. To summarize, the views I hold now are dramatically different (let me emphasize “dramatically”) from the views I held six years ago. Even more, on a less dramatic level, my views are different than the views I held six months ago.

I believe this fact sets me apart from the average human. First of all, I have my own views in general, which can’t be said about the majority of humans. To be clear, most humans don’t have their own views at all, but have something like a hereditary adoption of their parent’s views. And if this is not the case, the most likely alternative is they hold the exact opposite views of their parents, simply out of rebellion, which still means they don’t have their own views.

Perhaps one of the reasons people are slow to adopt their own philosophy is their belief that a particular school of thought is not widely accepted. There is something within them that makes them believe that numbers equate legitimacy. They believe the masses as a collective are better at determining truth than is the individual. In fact, the government would love for you to believe that.

Remember the class exercise where you did a role-play by yourself and then as a group and discovered that you were better at solving the riddle as a collective than as an individual? You’re supposed to garner from that exercise that you can’t trust yourself to your own ideas. You need the help of a collective to make decisions, hence the government and media’s success at getting you to participate in their systems.

Undoubtedly there is some truth to the notion that combined brainpower is more often effective at solving problems than the individual. Of course, there are obvious exceptions like Einstein or Tesla to name a few. Fortunately, in the same class that I learned about the benefits of collective decision-making, I also learned about synergy.

Synergy is the idea that while two may be better than one, ten may be worse than nine. In other-words, more in not always better when working in groups. Limiting participation in decision-making can effectively create synergy.

If the theory is correct, the whole concept of democracy may be obsolete. Of course, it’s no revelation that democracy may not be such a good idea; many great minds have questioned democracy as a rational approach to governing. Alexis de Tocqueville called it the tyranny of the majority. This blogs namesake, H. L. Mencken, said “under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.” Churchill said, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” Jefferson said “a democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

I for one think truth is not absolutely shared by those who find themselves in the most numerous collective, as in Democracy, but by groups who specialize in a particular field of truth. For example, doctors know more about medical truth than lawyers. Lawyers know more about law than garbage men. Garbage men know more about garbage than economists. Economists know more about economics than environmentalists. And so on. Are you beginning to see the problem with democracy? The whole premise of Democracy relies upon some notion that everyone is an expert, whose ideas we can trust. What the majority decides is right, is right, and the arm of the law will make sure nobody disagrees. 

That’s insanity if you ask me.

That’s why the market truly works better than the government. The market allows experts to prove their expertise through successfully demonstrating through their actions and achievements they are indeed that—experts.

I do see one benefit to the popular notion of democracy: it’s kept the majority in the dark about some really amazing things. And those few of us who are privileged enough to be a part of the civilized minority revel in the secret knowledge we posses. There’s a whole vast library of exciting truth that you’ve never heard awaiting you if you’ll just open your mind. Here, I’ll give you a hint: Mises. That one word, should you choose to Google it, is the beginning of a discovery filled adventure. Think of it as an intellectual Atlantis.

I hope you’ll Google it or click the links, and let it take you to where it’s taken me: the valley of validation in the land of truth.

Enjoy the journey … or not. You decide.  

A world without Vicks.

“It would've been difficult to imagine this back in 2007 when Michael Vick(notes) was being led around in handcuffs,” said Yahoo Sports columnist Matthew J. Damell, “but I'm about to argue that the man is being wronged.” MJD was upset over Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid’s decision to sit Vick in favor of Kevin Kolb in an upcoming game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

I know, I know: Isaac doesn’t blog about sports! And it’s true, I don’t. I’d be doing a disservice to sports fans by doing so, since I’m a massive geek. However, I still haven’t found a place in my heart for Vick, so I felt the need to comment. Remember, he’s the guy who has it in his genetic make-up to not only feel ok about, but actually enjoy hanging, drowning, raping, killing dogs.

I know, I know, the horse has been good ‘n beat! We’ve all heard our fair share of Vick hating! And maybe you have. I haven’t. But, I’ll spare those of you with less sensitive hearts from having to endure more of it. The reason I bring it up is not to hate on Vick, though I think we all should, but to demonstrate something about the beauty of being anti-state, which I am.

Let me demonstrate: the argument for Vick’s redemption goes something like this: He’s served his debt to society (I literally vomit a little every time I hear this line used; can we all say CLICHE together)! Let him be! How long must he serve before his debt has been paid?! Etc. etc.

This argument, for the average statist, is actually a fairly difficult one to answer or even deny. However, for an anarchist like yours truly, it’s quite easily dismissed. For anarchists, individuals determine how long a debt must be paid, rather than an elected representative.

Let me be clear. Vick owed no debt to society. I’m not sure what debt Michael Vick owed or owes. Maybe he owes a debt to a woman who could have been the happy owner of one of his abused pit-bulls, a woman who was raped and killed because she didn’t have the protection of the dog. Maybe he owes a debt to the parent who has to explain to their child why it’s not acceptable to beat the family dog, even though the football legend did. The problem is, none of those things are easily measurable, if provable.

It would even be difficult to prove that Michael Vick owed something to the dogs, because they are just animals, and people kill and eat billions of animals every year. Of course, forcing dogs into rape cages, starving them, hanging them, drowning them, fighting them, etc. is uncommon to the beef and poultry industry. So maybe it could be proven that Vick owed something to the dogs. But the limits to which humans have dominion over animals in general is not an easy boundary to be drawn. I think most of us would agree that whatever the boundary, Vick crossed it.

There in lay the question: If someone crosses a boundary, which is generally accepted as such, who decides the punishment? Historically it looks like mankind has decided the courts should decide. I'm uncertain, I think a wise body of men with a broad understanding of “the boundaries” would do better than, well, the tyranny of the majority. However, I can’t accept the legitimacy of the court, due to the fact that its existence is contingent upon its denial of one of the most basic of all boundaries: liberty.

How does the court deny liberty? It’s not difficult to see. It can be shown through asking another question: Who pays the judge? Well silly, you and I do. How do we pay him? Through taxation. What is taxation? The mandatory forfeiture of your property. What is mandatory forfeiture of property? Slavery.

Therefore, the judicial system as it stands violates in its mere existence one of our most basic and fundamental rights.

You can’t have it both ways.

Right, so you’re saying: but how else can society exist? What would we do without forced taxation? Etc. COME ON PEOPLE! It’s 2010! There are answers to these things! Government is OUT OF STYLE! Hurting people is passé (unless you’re a Republican or Democrat). THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

So this may shock you, but the threat of getting thrown in prison for breaking a law is not the only thing that dictates human conduct! I know: A REVELATION! I doubt when you awoke this morning you said “I’m going to put my clothes on because if I don’t I might get arrested.” Rather, you just put them on … because it would be weird not to. However, had you not put your clothes on you probably would have been arrested. Do you think your average cop goes to bed every night thinking: “without me, there would be a world full of naked people.” And sleeps better than night?

Are you starting to understand? We have all grown so used to the idea that LAW DICTATES MAN that we forget there are other forces at work.

Go ahead, I bet you can’t think of a single example where some other motivator couldn’t be used as an alternative to violence. Sure, violence is the easy way out; it’s also the most unethical.

I want to introduce you to a very modern idea, hoped for by thousands of enlightened individuals throughout the world: liberty. Wait! It’s not that thing you are thinking of, unless you’re an anarchist like myself. I suggest to you that liberty is completely foreign to you, so long as you try to understand it through the lens of government. I can suggest that because the mere existence of government negates the possibility for liberty.

So how would things work without da gubment? Well, there are more blog posts ahead. But if you can’t wait, and you want some very compelling literature to aid you in your discovery of this idea, let me suggest a few reads. Please click the links below to get started on your journey towards liberty.

In the end, if we embrace the idea of liberty, we are sure to see the likes of dog torturer/rapist Vicks all but disappear from the world. Because a people who embrace liberty, a people who shun the initiation of aggression, a people who shun war, etc. are a people who will have no place in their world for dog torturer/rapists.

I’m one of those people. Are you?

A FEW good books to start out your TRUE classical liberal education (btw, most of them are online free in text and audio format):

The Law by Frederic Bastiat

The Market for Liberty by Linda and Morris Tannehill

Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression by Dr. Mary J. Ruwart

Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block

A few good websites and podcasts to help you along your journey:

LewRockwell.com

Mises.org

FreeTalkLive.com

Reptilian Shape-shifting Jews

Reptilians rule the world. It’s true, it’s on Youtube. Everything on Youtube is true. And another thing, one of my favorite bands wrote a song about it: Darwin, by Third Eye Blind. That’s TWO, count them, TWO sources that corroborate reptilian aliens rule the world. If that aint good enough for you, I’ve got a third source, his name is David Icke, and he was like a pro-soccer player once, a sports broadcaster, and claimed to be the son of god once too! THREE sources! You know what a court of law says about THREE witnesses? That’s right: TRUTH!

So here’s the thing, I really don’t believe reptilian aliens rule the world. I wanted to point that out, ‘cause I know I said it above, which could have been confusing. But here’s the thing, I don’t not believe it either. (Sorry about the double negative, it’s so hard to avoid them when talking about reptilian alien elite.) I’ve got an open-mind, really, I do. What follows the double arrows is NOT sarcasm>> I have an open-mind.

So I watched this documentary on David Icke, who fathered the conspiracy theory that a group of shape-shifting reptilian aliens, disguised as the world elite, rule the world. I felt the documentary did a decent job of being objective, though it had some commentary, it was pretty much just an observation of two different groups: David Icke and his followers (some of which are neo-nazi’s) and some Anti-Defamation League activists.

Let’s start with the first group: Icke and his followers. To be honest with you, I’ve known about Icke for a long time. I first heard of him six or seven years ago, doing my own research on “the world elite.” Yes, I’m one of those people interested in knowing history, part of which is knowing who’s been pulling the strings. I’ve actually always hated Icke; I see him as a disseminator of disinformation, an agent provocateur if you will. Icke actually talks about many things that I actually believe are true. For example, reptilian shape shifting aliens rule the world … is NOT one of the things I agree with him on. It’s not that I disagree with him; I just have no evidence of it. Nor do I have evidence that a half-ape, half-dolphin, half-wildebeest (three-halves make a whole) creature stalks state street on Thursday evenings in search of abandoned Egyptian sarcophagus’s … I just think it’s unlikely. But I’m always open-minded, so, maybe.

Anyways, I’ve watched documentaries by the same dude who created the Icke documentary before. One of those documentaries was about Jew-hating skin-heads. He did a pretty great job of revealing them for the bigots they are. So I was expecting to come out of this documentary seeing Mr. Icke for who he really is. Not far into the documentary I was certain it was going to be a scathing depiction of a delusional man lead away by his own mindless convictions. Surprisingly, by the end of the documentary, I found myself feeling sorry for Mr. Icke.

So here’s the thing, Icke spends allot of his time talking about reptilian shape-shifting aliens. And I guess that message appeals to skin-heads (go figure). So the anti-defamation league is convinced that when Icke says “reptilian shape-shifting alien,” he is really saying “Jew.” Ya, that’s right: it’s CODE! And of course, all the anti-Semites are supposed to know, intuitively, that reptilian shape-shifting alien is exactly that: code for Jew. I’m pleased to know that I’m not anti-Semitic, ‘cause I never picked up on the code. And of course Jews should be concerned; they could have another holocaust on their hands! I mean, what more appealing message could a man have? Imagine the followers he could amass with a message like that! I mean who wouldn’t follow a man claiming that the world is run by reptilian shape-shifting aliens? And when he’s amassed his billions of faithful followers, overnight he’ll pull back the curtain and show the few dolts who didn’t already get it, that the whole time he was talking about reptilian shape-shifting aliens, he was actually talking about JEWS!

Fortunately, coalitions have already been formed to prevent him from accomplishing his sinister goals. The documentary highlights one of these coalitions in Vancouver who successfully got him dropped from several radio interviews, and even threw a pie at his face, which missed and got a little on his arm, the remnants destroying some children’s books at a book store he was speaking at.

The truth is I don’t know what is harder to believe: reptilian shape-shifting alien elite (Jews) rule the world, or that some guy who preaches such a thing is going to amass a significant enough following to bring about another holocaust?

What I do know is that the Vancouver coalition against Icke came across as a bunch of spoiled, closed-minded, paranoid, oppressive brats. Man, even as I say that I can imagine my name rising on the Anti-Defamation League’s priority list of likely anti-Semites! I mean, is it possible to criticize them without being accused of anti-Semitism yourself? What a wonderful deal they got going on! Anyone who opposes them couldn’t possibly be doing so because they find logical fallacies in their policies, it’s always because they are Jew haters.

At one point in the documentary David Icke states clearly that the reptilian shape-shifting alien elite are not any race from this earth, including the Jews (he specifies that). The documentarian points out to Icke that the ADL and its like claim that when he says that, it’s actually code for just the opposite. In other-words, what Icke has to say about his beliefs is not decided by Icke … and what he says … but by the ADL and their like.

In the end, I walked away more comfortable with the idea of reptilian shape-shifting alien elite ruling the world, than I am with the idea that the ADL has any influence on today’s politic. Just another confirmation to me, that all government is evil, and with power houses like the ADL influencing it, there is little hope for open debate or dissent as tools to shape a better future. What ADL says is, is. And if you disagree with them, well, you’re just a fascist. I wish the aliens would just come and take me away already.

Welcome! Prepare for cognitive dissonance to set in!

Welcome to my blog! It's been a while since I've posted, so I'm looking forward to all the future pontificating! My hope is to introduce a significant amount of cognitive dissonance into the minds and hearts of everyone unlucky enough to read a post or two. Let's see how you respond: will you change your behavior or embrace selective exposure? If all I accomplish is making you think twice about your next voting decision, I will have succeeded!
In the end this blog is about one thing, hoisting black flags. Personally, I'm an anarchist: that means I think government is evil. Collectively, I'm a panarchist: that means, I don't care if you're a commie, just don't force me to be one too.