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Boarding Up For Safety In The ‘Land Of The Free!’

by | Nov 2, 2020 |

It’s telling that we have reached a point where only hyper-partisans are speaking up and attempting to make a “big deal” out of the fact that an election is happening and businesses are boarding their windows and doors in areas where a sizable portion of the population resides. Think about that; tomorrow an event is taking place that we were brainwashed in government schools to believe makes us more special than any other people in the world. And the only people talking about it are ones who want to rally people to their personal cause. As Hotep Jesus says, “It’s grifter season!”

You’ll have to scour the internet to find articles – mostly on smaller blogs – that may actually make the point that this isn’t what was sold to us; that this isn’t the legacy we were promised. But, as Vin Armani pointed out way back at the beginning of all of this, “People believe that they’re entitled to the liberties of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights but they didn’t put themselves at risk. How long did they think they were going to benefit from someone else’s hard work?” Now, many of us know that those promises are bunk but the reason to bring them up is that the overwhelming majority of the people believe them. But they have abandoned even considering those principles.

I hope that anyone reading this has already come to the conclusion that what we are seeing (leaving Covid out of this); riots, radical cultural divisions, “this is the most important election of our lifetime;” that these things are not going away. The riots strengthen the political class. The cultural divisions have been here since the founding. And it’s always the most important election.

If these issues are things that consume your thought, that you’re someone who wonders what the culture will look like even 5 years from now, I hope you have at least reached the “acceptance” stage of “grief,” and like myself, are constantly looking for ways to navigate it. It appears to me that taking care of self and family first, and then looking for like-minded, local individuals, to partner with is a smart way forward.

I don’t know how to talk to the person who believes this will go back to whatever they think “normal” was. Again, that points to the individual.

USA Police Training: ‘Be a Ruthless Killer’

by | Nov 1, 2020 |

NYT: Kentucky Police Training Quoted Hitler and Urged ‘Ruthless’ Violence

“Because the courts have ruled that government employees can never be held accountable for crimes you commit, so who cares?” was just implied, I guess.

A slide in a training manual used by the Kentucky State Police includes a quote from Adolf Hitler encouraging the “regular employment of violence.”

A slide show once shown to cadets training to join the Kentucky State Police includes quotations attributed to Adolf Hitler and Robert E. Lee, says troopers should be warriors who “always fight to the death” and encourages each trooper in training to be a “ruthless killer.”

The slide show, which came to light on Friday in a report from a high school newspaper, brought harsh condemnation from politicians, Jewish groups and Kentucky residents, but not from the Kentucky State Police department itself, which said only that the training materials were old. …

The quotations attributed to Hitler, the genocidal leader of Nazi Germany, and Lee, the Confederate general, are included among 33 slides that were shown to cadets in the Kentucky State Police Academy as part of a slide show entitled “The Warrior Mindset.”

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence,” reads one quotation attributed to Hitler, who is quoted more than anyone in the training document. Some of the statements attributed to Hitler link to a website providing biographical information about him and listing books by and about him.

The training itself emphasizes that troopers must be ready to employ violence in order to do their jobs properly. One of the slides that quotes Hitler — under the heading “Violence of Action” — also says troopers should “be the loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer.” Another says warriors “always fight to the death, they never quit” and that they must be willing to “commit to the fight.” …

The slide show was first reported by The Manual Redeye, a student newspaper at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, in an article written by the 16-year-old and 14-year-old sons of another lawyer involved in the lawsuit against the trooper.

Modern Age: “What Character from Creative Literature Would Be The Best Choice For President?”

by | Nov 1, 2020 |

Modern Age is pleased to offer some relief that nonetheless has a measure of relevance. We asked some twenty of our friends and contributors to weigh in on the best choice for president—but not the best choice on the ballot this November. Instead, we asked them to choose the best character from all of creative literature for the role. The result, we hope, is a symposium that’s diverting and amusing, but that may also reveal something valuable about the nature of presidential leadership and the politics of a free society. It certainly reveals some underlying tendencies in conservative and libertarian thought today, although our contributors are not all so readily classified.

Our friends were free to select any character from any book, film, play, television program, poem, or folk tale—and we even let them enter the equivalent of a “write-in” candidate who didn’t fit the formal criteria, if they preferred to imagine some other impossible (yet illuminating) scenario, as some did. So here is a different sort of election survey, for a fictional president, in the service of real principles. —Daniel McCarthy.

RACHEL BOVARD

Vito Corleone, The Godfather
Regina George, Mean Girls (for VP)

There are two movies I use to explain Washington, D.C., to those unfamiliar with how the city truly works. One is, perhaps predictably, The Godfather. The other? Tina Fey’s masterpiece of teen-girl bitchiness, Mean Girls. Together, the movies’ plots and characters capture the essential nature of what makes D.C. function: the revenge-driven, eye-for-an-eye Mafia-style politics that exist alongside the petty rules that enforce the hierarchies of a high school lunchroom.

Vote wrong? You can’t sit with us! Don’t raise us enough money for the party? You broke my heart, Fredo. Everyone wants to make you a deal you can’t refuse while secretly plotting to push you in front of a bus. Should you violate the city’s unwritten and unspoken rules (on Wednesdays, we wear pink!), revenge will be served (cold, of course). As a senator, you may have elected those party leaders, but don’t be jealous. They can’t help it that they’re popular.

We’ve spent years governing Washington aspirationally, but perhaps we should govern it as it actually is: a giant high school with deadly, high-priced vendettas. Put the Godfather himself, Vito Corleone, in the Oval Office to manage the political alliances, while the head of the Plastics, Regina George, takes on the role of vice president to execute the side-eye tyrannies that keep the proletariat in line.

Washington, D.C., is about two things: power and pettiness. Vito and Regina are thus an unstoppable force. Kiss the ring. And slay, kween.

Rachel Bovard is the senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute.

 

Breonna Taylor Grand Jurors: Police Actions Were ‘Negligent’ And ‘Criminal’

by | Oct 29, 2020 | ,

Two grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor case said the actions of Louisville, Kentucky, police officers the day of the botched raid at her apartment were “negligent” and “criminal.”

“They couldn’t even provide a risk assessment,” one of the anonymous grand jurors, identified as juror one, said in an interview scheduled to air Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” “And it sounded like they hadn’t done one.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Why We Need a Fully Free Marketplace of Ideas

by | Oct 28, 2020 |

No true seeker of truth can oppose the fully free marketplace of ideas. For details of the hardheaded practical case, you can do no better than to consult chapter 2 of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. If you can’t spare the time to read this short chapter and book, here’s the money quote: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”

Techno-Agorist: Local Politics Is Still Politics

Techno-Agorist: Local Politics Is Still Politics

by | Oct 27, 2020 |

My name is Ryan and I am an agorist. Today we are talking about the different yet equally-destructive levels of government

There is a pervading idea among many people that somehow local government is less bad, less corrupt, or easier to control than higher levels of government. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. Government on all levels is excellent at making shady deals and screwing over their populace.

I recently left Allentown, the third-largest city in Pennsylvania. The previous mayor of Allentown is currently in prison. He had announced lots of new public investment into the city. They roped off a large portion of the downtown and designated it as the “neighborhood improvement zone.” They drove out the local, small, minority-run businesses and then the city promised to pay up to 50% of the building costs of any new builds approved by the city in that zone. Over time, old buildings were torn down and a number of fancy new buildings went up. Of course, the city was broke, but that didn’t stop them. Afterward, it was found out that ALL of the contracts for building those fancy new buildings went to one single business with political connections to the mayor. All the things he had done to “improve the city” were actually just schemes to move huge amounts of money from the city to his friends.

We were lucky that he actually went to prison for it. Most politicians get away with it.

I can understand why if you don’t think much about it, local politics seems less frightening. It feels like since it is closer to home, it will be easier to control. Maybe that is the case in some extremely limited cases, but Allentown is hardly unique in how corrupt it is. Just ask Marvin Heemeyer. Rest in peace.

The problem is that when you give a person or group of people coercive control over your life, you set them up for failure. It doesn’t matter whether it is a government, a social media site, or even parents. Abuse flows from unchecked power. When you add legal violence into the mix, it just exacerbates the problem.

Avenged Sevenfold released a song a few years back called “Hail to the King.” In it, you see a seemingly-innocent boy find a crown and take it. Over time, you watch as the boy grows into a man of violence. At the end, you see him sitting on his throne. What once was an innocent boy is now a skeleton, a symbol of death, sitting on his throne while smoke from all of his destruction rises around him.

Power corrupts. That’s the story of humanity. Don’t ever excuse people who use violence to control you. Don’t ever make excuses for people who make up laws then point a gun at you if you don’t follow them.

Instead, ignore these people. Don’t take part in their systems. Make your own systems, your own markets. Appeal to people’s humanity in your interactions. Don’t ever use violence to coerce people to your will. The only way we can break free is if we stop justifying violent coercion on all levels, both public and private.

This is Techno-Agorist, episode 41.

Originally posted at: https://technoagorist.com/41

Techno-Agorist on LBRY: https://lbry.tv/@TechnoAgorist:8

Techno-Agorist is a production of the MLGA Network. Find more great content at: https://mlganetwork.com

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