The whole 'eccentric religious community meets militant federal response and over eighty people die' thing that happened in 1993 in Texas (aka. 'The Waco Seige') holds personal significance for me. I'd been working a number of sales gigs—telemarketing, 'Billy Mays style' live product pitching, and more—over the preceding five years or so (after graduating High School) and it likely led me to be particularly conscious of 'spin' when I watched reports of the standoff on TV and read accounts in newspapers. Regardless, for whatever reason, at one point I noticed distinctly how narrowly limited and repetitiously phrased the various reports I was seeing were. Especially the exclusive use of the word "compound". Always "The Branch Davidian compound", never "community" or "center" or any other more neutral/less militant term. This led me to feel deeply concerned that something was dangerously amiss and in fact express such to some of my friends at the time. Well before the military tanks showed up and it all went up in flames. As the ashes cooled, I actually wrote some "I thought this sort of thing only happened in other countries" themed letters to some of my state legislators. A first for me.
While I'd been a card carrying Libertarian Party member for a year or two a few years earlier (something I've since grown out of) and read a few alternative 'zines on occasion, up until the Waco debacle I'd still held on to core patriotic beliefs that 'my' government was ultimately a largely trustworthy and positive force. The PR spin/smear campaign interlaced with excited federal agents leading the use of military hardware against civilians ... leading to ... flaming death ... left me achingly disillusioned. I had seen the fnord and having done so found that for me it could not be unseen.
With a sigh and a heavy heart,
—Kevin Jones—
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Stardust to stardust
In the long run I think we just need to ensure that enough folks get off
planet (leave behind the eggshell and yolk sac) to ensure that a
functional level of genetic, memetic, and technological diversity can
travel on. The rest of the (us) dipshits are pretty much just afterbirth
at that point. Encourage yo' kids to develop skill sets attractive to
early colonization efforts. A good blend of technical savvy, practical
skills, and an ability to play-well-w/-others in confined habitats. Then
point 'em towards the stars, slap 'em on the ass, and tell 'em to get
the hell outta' Dodge.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
"There oughtta' be a law"
If a person chooses not to educate their children in a manner consistent with regulations of the state then officers of said state may come upon them armed with guns (and tasers, pepper spray, and/or with a slew of any number of other lovelies at their disposal) to haul them off to a cage before presenting them before other representatives of the state. Often ones wearing black gowns and sitting on high chairs.
The gun is present in all matters of law in the U.S. as all police (the hands-on enforcers) have them. They are the 'force' in enforcement.
The fact that declaring something a law concurrently initiates a process of force is unfortunately (IMHO) often overlooked.
Threat of imprisonment by armed agents of the state backs even the most trivial law. If one feels they were within their rights to have acted contrary to a given statute and refuses to comply with demands to adapt their behavior and/or to concede to fines being extor... err... levied against them then the state reserves the privilege to send armed mercenaries to seize person and property with deadly force.
What would it take for most of us to pick up a gun and walk over to a neighbors house and demand that the neighbor make some change to their behavior? Or to organize an armed posse of neighbors to collectively do so?
And yet think about how freely many throw around the phrase "there oughtta' be a law" without realizing that they are essentially making the same proposition. Except that the 'dirty work' gets outsourced to specialists. Those that hire a hitman do not have to scrub the blood from under their nails, and yet society chooses to regard them as murderers. Perhaps it would serve us well to think twice before saying "there oughtta' be law". And thrice, and ...
When something which was once taken seriously* comes to appear trivial due to familiarity I think it's worth asking to what extent what has changed. The 'thing' or us?
*[In this case cautious use of the power of law and state force. Does 1776 ring any bells? The government was much less extensive and intrusive and yet found by many to be intolerable. Enough so to enact a change. Things were much more wild then I suppose. Now the farm rabbits of 'Watership Down' come to mind.]
The gun is present in all matters of law in the U.S. as all police (the hands-on enforcers) have them. They are the 'force' in enforcement.
The fact that declaring something a law concurrently initiates a process of force is unfortunately (IMHO) often overlooked.
Threat of imprisonment by armed agents of the state backs even the most trivial law. If one feels they were within their rights to have acted contrary to a given statute and refuses to comply with demands to adapt their behavior and/or to concede to fines being extor... err... levied against them then the state reserves the privilege to send armed mercenaries to seize person and property with deadly force.
What would it take for most of us to pick up a gun and walk over to a neighbors house and demand that the neighbor make some change to their behavior? Or to organize an armed posse of neighbors to collectively do so?
And yet think about how freely many throw around the phrase "there oughtta' be a law" without realizing that they are essentially making the same proposition. Except that the 'dirty work' gets outsourced to specialists. Those that hire a hitman do not have to scrub the blood from under their nails, and yet society chooses to regard them as murderers. Perhaps it would serve us well to think twice before saying "there oughtta' be law". And thrice, and ...
When something which was once taken seriously* comes to appear trivial due to familiarity I think it's worth asking to what extent what has changed. The 'thing' or us?
*[In this case cautious use of the power of law and state force. Does 1776 ring any bells? The government was much less extensive and intrusive and yet found by many to be intolerable. Enough so to enact a change. Things were much more wild then I suppose. Now the farm rabbits of 'Watership Down' come to mind.]
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Piece & Dove
Something else bubbling around my brain ... On a general tack of emotional responses disconnecting with present understanding of an ecosystem in public debate about wildlife management policy.
I'm recalling how a number of years ago there was a big fuss going around as to whether or not to allow a dove hunting season in Ohio. I was young and still in process of discovering that many of my professed views might actually have more to do with exchanging cues of group 'tribe' coherence than anything I'd really thought out independently. My peer group mostly centered around a large university district and it's satellite neighborhoods and a litany of artsy-fartsy and academic urban intellectual 'progressive' boilerplated ideas/ideals. Anyway, it was an article which broke things down citing figures from the DNR and graduate studies that really ended up making a big impression.
I'm gonna' make up arbitrary numbers for convenience, but the relevant pattern should still hold true.
Let's say there are 100,000 doves in a given region in the fall after the breeding and raising seasons. However, records show that the region only ever supports 30,000 – 50,000 over the winter. In other words, a max of only about 40,000 ever make it to the next spring, regardless of the size of the population in the fall. If the fall population is regularly say 90,000 – 110,000 doves then 30,000+ of them could be harvested annually by human hunters without any noticeable impact on the year to year dove population. As long as thought/study was given to understanding what percentage of doves that were getting 'naturally culled' were dying of starvation and disease vs. predation. If predators were relying on a significant portion the numbers could be adjusted to reflect such. The point being that what was being demonstrated by boots on the ground research was that some folks going out with shotguns every fall and harvesting doves was unlikely to affect the doves collectively as a species much if at all. Other than sparing some of them a slow demise to hunger and cold.
Folks opposed to having dove hunting generally not only did not refute the figures but actually refused to address these figures at all. Generally making unsubstantiated (well, scientifically unsubstantiated) pleas to emotion. The vast majority of these folks had no qualms about eating commercially farmed chicken and turkey products (i.e. birds someone else killed for them). So what was the big deal with doves? They weren't up-in-arms about pheasants, wild turkeys, or water fowl? Or crows for that matter. Why doves?
What seemed likely to me was a theory put forth that doves had iconic associations in people's minds with peace, love, and bibles and that it was bleed over from their use as symbols which was interfering with some folks accepting their use as food.
I'm recalling how a number of years ago there was a big fuss going around as to whether or not to allow a dove hunting season in Ohio. I was young and still in process of discovering that many of my professed views might actually have more to do with exchanging cues of group 'tribe' coherence than anything I'd really thought out independently. My peer group mostly centered around a large university district and it's satellite neighborhoods and a litany of artsy-fartsy and academic urban intellectual 'progressive' boilerplated ideas/ideals. Anyway, it was an article which broke things down citing figures from the DNR and graduate studies that really ended up making a big impression.
I'm gonna' make up arbitrary numbers for convenience, but the relevant pattern should still hold true.
Let's say there are 100,000 doves in a given region in the fall after the breeding and raising seasons. However, records show that the region only ever supports 30,000 – 50,000 over the winter. In other words, a max of only about 40,000 ever make it to the next spring, regardless of the size of the population in the fall. If the fall population is regularly say 90,000 – 110,000 doves then 30,000+ of them could be harvested annually by human hunters without any noticeable impact on the year to year dove population. As long as thought/study was given to understanding what percentage of doves that were getting 'naturally culled' were dying of starvation and disease vs. predation. If predators were relying on a significant portion the numbers could be adjusted to reflect such. The point being that what was being demonstrated by boots on the ground research was that some folks going out with shotguns every fall and harvesting doves was unlikely to affect the doves collectively as a species much if at all. Other than sparing some of them a slow demise to hunger and cold.
Folks opposed to having dove hunting generally not only did not refute the figures but actually refused to address these figures at all. Generally making unsubstantiated (well, scientifically unsubstantiated) pleas to emotion. The vast majority of these folks had no qualms about eating commercially farmed chicken and turkey products (i.e. birds someone else killed for them). So what was the big deal with doves? They weren't up-in-arms about pheasants, wild turkeys, or water fowl? Or crows for that matter. Why doves?
What seemed likely to me was a theory put forth that doves had iconic associations in people's minds with peace, love, and bibles and that it was bleed over from their use as symbols which was interfering with some folks accepting their use as food.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Going off on off-grid
Saw this ...
http://csglobe.com/florida-makes-grid-living-illegal/
... posted on Facebook and responded thusly:
I read some of the local news reports back when this story first broke. Much of the issue came down to her property being hooked up to the municipal sewer but not having an active municipal water account hooked up. The sewer system there gets financed via a portion of the municipal water fees. Kinda' like gasoline taxes that go towards highway expenses. She has said she no longer uses the municipal sewer connection, but gave the impression that—at the time of the initial complaint—she had been (presumably by filing the toilet tank manually) .
An elegant solution might have been to come up with an ad hoc sewer line fee and move on, rather than escalating, but gov't bureaucracies generally are unable to muster up such flexibility. Easier to interpret and respond as 'defiance' as there are known familiar protocols in place for such. Responding to special needs/context would call for a level of creativity that was clearly lacking. And unfortunately, allowing officials creative flexibility in enforcing stuff has slippery-slope double-edged-sword implications to consider.
Anyway, while the OP csglobe.com article pushes in the direction of my personal bias—having subsistence living completely off grid within a property allowed*—I still feel compelled to point out that their piece comes off to me as blatant highly spun PR trash. I endorse their goal, but condemn the way they've chosen to go about it. I find the woman's situation plenty interesting without having to turn it into a completely polarized PR caricature. I encourage folks to consider how they would react if they came across a piece written in the same style but about something they opposed or were even just neutral about.
*[Something I like to give thought to at times when musing about off-grid living is that there's a 'money grid' in addition to the typical power, food, and water and such to be considered. Namely relating to the idea of 'alloidal title' as property taxes (like utilities with no opt-out option) require one—by law—to interact with Federal Reserve credits (i.e. money, $$$s). There's an element of bondage in being prohibited from setting up a completely neutral-impact balanced subsistence existence on a property—perhaps with a few friends—and then never touching currency again. I could see some level of direct service requirement perhaps, but as is one must interact with mercantile middlemen in some way to generate Federal Reserve tokens and then take what's left after various parties have skimmed their bits in order to pay gov't rents and fees. At the very least, allow folks to negotiate a fixed rate when purchasing a property so that folks on fixed incomes don't get pushed out just because some absentee developer builds a subdivision or shopping complex across the road hence giving tax vultures an excuse to reappraise the hypothetical/future resale value of one's property to raise one's real/current taxes.Oi!]
</end rant>
http://csglobe.com/florida-makes-grid-living-illegal/
... posted on Facebook and responded thusly:
I read some of the local news reports back when this story first broke. Much of the issue came down to her property being hooked up to the municipal sewer but not having an active municipal water account hooked up. The sewer system there gets financed via a portion of the municipal water fees. Kinda' like gasoline taxes that go towards highway expenses. She has said she no longer uses the municipal sewer connection, but gave the impression that—at the time of the initial complaint—she had been (presumably by filing the toilet tank manually) .
An elegant solution might have been to come up with an ad hoc sewer line fee and move on, rather than escalating, but gov't bureaucracies generally are unable to muster up such flexibility. Easier to interpret and respond as 'defiance' as there are known familiar protocols in place for such. Responding to special needs/context would call for a level of creativity that was clearly lacking. And unfortunately, allowing officials creative flexibility in enforcing stuff has slippery-slope double-edged-sword implications to consider.
Anyway, while the OP csglobe.com article pushes in the direction of my personal bias—having subsistence living completely off grid within a property allowed*—I still feel compelled to point out that their piece comes off to me as blatant highly spun PR trash. I endorse their goal, but condemn the way they've chosen to go about it. I find the woman's situation plenty interesting without having to turn it into a completely polarized PR caricature. I encourage folks to consider how they would react if they came across a piece written in the same style but about something they opposed or were even just neutral about.
*[Something I like to give thought to at times when musing about off-grid living is that there's a 'money grid' in addition to the typical power, food, and water and such to be considered. Namely relating to the idea of 'alloidal title' as property taxes (like utilities with no opt-out option) require one—by law—to interact with Federal Reserve credits (i.e. money, $$$s). There's an element of bondage in being prohibited from setting up a completely neutral-impact balanced subsistence existence on a property—perhaps with a few friends—and then never touching currency again. I could see some level of direct service requirement perhaps, but as is one must interact with mercantile middlemen in some way to generate Federal Reserve tokens and then take what's left after various parties have skimmed their bits in order to pay gov't rents and fees. At the very least, allow folks to negotiate a fixed rate when purchasing a property so that folks on fixed incomes don't get pushed out just because some absentee developer builds a subdivision or shopping complex across the road hence giving tax vultures an excuse to reappraise the hypothetical/future resale value of one's property to raise one's real/current taxes.Oi!]
</end rant>
Saturday, March 8, 2014
I was a card carrying Libertarian
I was a card carrying Libertarian at some point in my late teens/early twenties.
While I still value things I learned from that phase (e.g. law is inherently an initiation of force), I now find some libertarian ideals to be like the simplistic Newtonian physics models I was presented with at first in High School. Beautifully elegant and self consistent but lacking in many real world practicalities like friction, and such.
I now find some libertarian ideals to depend too much on the hypothetical existence of ideal libertarians. This does not mesh with my real anecdotal boots-on-the-ground experience with humanity. Nor does much of it fit with modern scientific understandings (socio-psych-neuro) of human responses and motivations.
No matter how beautiful, logical, and robust a rational proof may be. It comes tumbling down if it's discovered to be built upon false prepositions. Upon flawed suppositions about human social primates.
I may be a Vulcan hybrid myself, but I am no longer so naive as to expect everyone else to think/behave like one.
While I still value things I learned from that phase (e.g. law is inherently an initiation of force), I now find some libertarian ideals to be like the simplistic Newtonian physics models I was presented with at first in High School. Beautifully elegant and self consistent but lacking in many real world practicalities like friction, and such.
I now find some libertarian ideals to depend too much on the hypothetical existence of ideal libertarians. This does not mesh with my real anecdotal boots-on-the-ground experience with humanity. Nor does much of it fit with modern scientific understandings (socio-psych-neuro) of human responses and motivations.
No matter how beautiful, logical, and robust a rational proof may be. It comes tumbling down if it's discovered to be built upon false prepositions. Upon flawed suppositions about human social primates.
I may be a Vulcan hybrid myself, but I am no longer so naive as to expect everyone else to think/behave like one.
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