Happy Monday, everyone. Hopefully Lord Humungus’s caffeine buzz has worn off and the rest of us will get a word in edgewise. LH, you want a slot doing links, let me know.
GM Hopes you’ll pay $1500/month to drive any Caddy you want, but own nothing. The good news is you can drive up to 8 different cars a year. The bad news is you’re paying $1500/month for a rental car. I haven’t priced Budget, but I’d be surprised if the rates weren’t competitive.
I, personally, believe that the most interesting player in international relations will be cheap oil brought on by fracking. Which seems to only be valuable when all of the oil that is actually cheap to extract is artificially inflated in price. Its this weird free-ish market ceiling on prices. Oh, and it already cost me a job, so I’m not just rooting my interest.
You know, that Bill of Rights stuff? We’ll stay with the first eight amendments to make things simpler.
There’s been a really big debate on whether the U. S. Constitution requires the states to obey the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court used to say no, then mostly no, now mostly yes.
Around a year ago, I thought I could write up some material about the states and the Bill of Rights and the history of this whole controversy.
The problem is lots of other people have written about this too, so I would have to find a distinctive way of doing it.
I decided that a series of vignettes, real-life human-interest stories, each story dealing with some facet of the subject, might make the whole topic of “the Bill of Rights and the States” come alive.
So I did some research and gathered some material for the various vignettes.
All that research was sitting around for some time doing nothing when Glibertarians said they were accepting contributions.
So I says to myself, I says, “finally, somewhere to unload all this stuff!”
No, actually what I said was, “the educated and sophisticated people at Glibertarians would make an ideal audience for all this material!”
So until someone pulls the plug on this or I get tired, I think I’ll share some of the material in my Bill of Rights research files.
Now allow me to pad out this post with some pictures.
Here’s a statue of James Madison:
Memorial Hall. Statue of James Madison by Walker K. Hancock. Library of Congress James Madison Building, Washington, D.C.
By Mid-Town Orphan Recycling | Over 1 Million Served!
I never was a fan of the hair. While some of my Libertarian brethren celebrate proclamations of deregulation, I remain doubtful. For me, net liberty is the best way to measure a President’s Libertarian bent or lack thereof. If Trump manages to reduce federal regulations by 20% but pushes trade protectionism, continued military engagement in Middle East matters, the expansion of the surveillance state, and other freedom-hating projects, that’s probably not a win for liberty.
I hope Trump proves me wrong, but his biggest obstacle, in any liberty-minded endeavor, will be his own party. Despite being given yet another opportunity to pass whatever they want, many Republicans lack the gonads to dismember big government. This should not be surprising given the party’s reluctance to adopt any meaningful reform efforts in the past. The opportunist in me hopes Trump can get them in line: The liberal media has gone full retard, and the political landscape is about as polarized as it can get. Reform efforts aren’t going to turn enemies into friends, but that ship has sailed. Most of the country has lined up behind their champion, and they aren’t going to switch sides anytime soon. This is the time to get unpopular things passed: Now is the time to burn it down and not look back!
Alas, Republicans seem blissfully unaware that this may be their last chance to keep the party from imploding. The election of Trump proves that a big portion of the base does not support the standard party line. That should be a wake-up call to every elected politician with the desire to maintain some authoritah. I doubt they’ll get the message – The future looks very bright for the populists.
Of course, voters want free health insurance and an Obamacare repeal; they want free retirement but don’t want to pay for it; they want free college and forgiveness of student loan debts they fully accepted; they want perfect security and zero terrorism. This puts republicans in the position of trying to satisfy unlimited demands for free shit and pipe dreams. The alternative is to back unpopular reform efforts that will lower costs, increase liberty and boost the economy. It’s time for Republicans to see the writing on the wall: The progs and populists will beat them on any efforts to give crap away; the expansion of the security state can only go so far before it collapses under its own weight. Taking the unpopular stance with big reforms now can give them support for the future, once voters see the overwhelmingly positive results of smaller government. Despite this, I expect Republicans will continue down the unsustainable path of max-security-prog-lite.
Even with my doubts on Trump’s commitment to liberty, there is something for which I owe him my deepest thanks…
Normally, I’m a news junkie. I watch and read news voraciously, and incidentally find myself completely pissed off with the slanted coverage from just about every media outlet. While I’m an equal opportunity hater of news, the liberal outlets are the frequent objects of my ire. Then Trump came along, and everything changed.
The intellectually-challenged liberal media went all-in to discredit Trump, pushing Russian conspiracy theories in the process. Allies circled the wagons and defended bad articles as merely false stories, but not fake news. #NeverTrumpers reliably bought into the media conspiracy machine, while others saw through the naked bias and tuned out. Too busy celebrating their fake news as Pulitzer-prize worthy material, the liberal media was oblivious to the fact that they had given Trump exactly what he needed…a villain and a polarized country.
Trump’s greatest skill isn’t his leadership ability or business acumen; it’s his ability to manipulate the media: If the phrase, “there is no such thing as bad publicity” is true for anyone, it’s true for Donald J. Trump. So Trump hit back and hit hard. He spewed his fair share of crap, but the media’s flailing efforts to take down Trump gave him plenty of legitimate ammunition too. And somewhere in all that mess I finally made peace with the state of the media.
Trump is not a Libertarian, not even close, yet he has brought balance to the force. Somehow, someway, the people of the United States of America elected the best possible candidate to completely undermine the media…and I love it! For years, I’ve watched the liberal media act as a direct extension of the progressive PR machine, while their trained monkeys throw shit on their chosen enemies. The people responded with Trump, a man who could throw shit faster and in greater volume than anyone else. The liberal media has met its match, and they have no idea how to fight it!
The media, as we’ve recognized it for the past decade, is done. Once the dust settles, we will see a dramatically different fourth estate: Progs will grow exhausted from their perpetual outrage act and turn their attention back on the rifts within their own movement. The resulting drop off in already low ratings will leave liberal outlets with a choice to change direction, or get pushed to the fringes. Meanwhile, the media void will be filled with interesting upstarts, a phenomenon which is well underway. The future of media is more choice, though not necessarily less bias. Still, I’ll take it!
On the name Derponomicon: it is a combination of derp and the Greek words nomos (law) and ikona (image). Thus, the name may be translated as “an image of the laws of the dumb.”
A few years ago, I compiled The Derponomicon from a series of dialogs with a prog who was by far the most infuriatingly stupid person I have ever known. His responses are below. I did not correct his typos.
In this excerpt, his topic was the following quote from Augustine of Hippo:
“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, ‘What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.’”
As far at the Augustine of Hippo quote, it is most certainly in reference to a mideval kingdom system of government. Equating a mideval kingdoms system of government to the modern day US government is once again, like comparing apples and hippos. In modern day US, tax dollars pay for roads, bridges, air traffic safety, clean air, clean water, inspected food, the military, satellites, the infrastructure of plumbing/electric/utilities/etc. we all enjoy, and about a zillion other things. In a kingdom, the people were lucky to get a water source. You literally cannot exist in modern society without taking advantage of what society (I.e. The government) provides. When you step on a sidewalk, or use electricity, or drive on a street in a car that isn’t exploding, etc. You are taking advantage of what the government provided to you.
Ignorance of history, a conflation of society with govt, and an argument from ignorance.
A response to my favorite Sowell quote:
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
-Thomas Sowell
On the Thomas Sowell quote, As I have mentioned before, he is a favorite of the white supremacist crowd, which really says a lot about who he speaks to. Of course the lesson of economics is a finite amount of everything, otherwise no one would need to buy it. But that general statement isn’t new casserole true. The first lesson of economics is laziness. People will pay for anything that requires the least amount of work. When people are given the choice between growing their own food for free in their backyard, or buying food at a restaurant or a prepared meal, what will most people choose? When given the choice between paying for produce and meat and making food yourself, and ordering a pizza, what will most people choose? MOST aspects of our economy are built on taking advantage of people’s laziness. People are willing to pay for any product or service that will make their life easier. So generally speaking there is pretty much an unlimited amount of goods and services that Americans are willing to buy if they can afford it, from a service that cleans up dog shit in your yard, to custom hats for your baby. So in America that rule doesn’t really apply. What does however have a finite amount to go around is wealth, and the more wealth we hand up to the top percentages, who know how to manipulate and hide it, in the most literal way takes from everyone else. There are only so many slices of the pie to go around, and when the richest people get the most pieces of pie, that leaves nothing but a slice and some crumbs for everyone else to fight over.
More baseless smears, more deflection, more yammering that the economy is a zero-sum game. The denial of scarcity is the cherry on top.
Time to get back to work, you damn dogs. Well, after you check your bracket to see how you’re stacking up. I can officially say that I’m not doing too well. Anyway, the links are why we’re here. Not to gloat over Duke going down or to bitch about how the officials all but handed a few big favorites their games. So let’s get down to business.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ REWARDS HIS BRUTALS WITH NIGHTLY LINKS, FOR HE IS PLEASED WITH YOU. HOWEVER, ZARDOZ STILL DOES WISH MUCH GOING FORTH AND KILLING, SO ZARDOZ MIGHT DO A BIT OF @#a$%STIRRING…
FOREIGN BRUTAL POLITICIAN CAUGHT IN OLD LIE? [ZARDOZ THROWS RED MEAT FOR IMMIGRATION FIGHT AMONGST BRUTALS]
AMERICAN BRUTAL POLITICIAN DEMANDS GERMAN BRUTALS BUY MORE GUNS. ZARDOZ IS PLEASED, AS THE GUN IS GOOD!
I’ve recently become aware of the American Community Survey. And I am outraged at this overreach of government and violation of Constitutional principles and protections.
If you are blissfully ignorant of the ACS, as was I, allow me to disrupt your pleasant Sunday afternoon by sharing the gory details with you. Oh, take a moment to pour an adult beverage first. You’ll need it.
“Results from this survey are used to decide where hospitals and fire stations are needed.”Each year, approximately 3.5 million US households are randomly selected by the US Census Bureau to receive the ACS. It arrives in your mailbox in a large official envelope bearing the legend YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. There have been some efforts to make it voluntary in the past, but it remains mandatory as of this writing.
“If it’s voluntary, then we’ll just get bad data,” said Kenneth Prewitt, a former director of the census who is now at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “That means businesses will make bad decisions, and government will make bad decisions, which means we won’t even know where we actually are wasting our tax dollars.” NY Times, 20 May 2012
So what is it?
As you are undoubtedly aware, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution requires a decennial census for a very express purpose. This purpose is limited to enumeration to determine the apportionment of “Representatives and direct Taxes.” That’s it. This, of course, began to be perverted quite early on.
Started in 2005, the ACS “replaces” the long-form census questionnaire that was formerly randomly assigned to households during the regular census years. This survey contains an amazing range of intrusive questions. Here are just a few of them, and please note that these are summaries of the very detailed layered queries:
Seriously? Don’t ALL 5 year olds have difficulty bathing and dressing?
your name and phone number
gender (only the traditional male and female are given check boxes)
age and birth date
race
relationship of all persons living in the home
year the building was constructed
actual sales from agricultural products from the property
does the dwelling have hot and cold running water
does the dwelling have a refrigerator
does any resident have a computer, including mobile devices
how do you get ‘net access
how much were all your various utility bills last month
does anyone receive Food Stamps or SNAP
do you have a mortgage or home equity line, and how much is your payment
what is the market value of your home
what are your property taxes
what time did you leave for work LAST WEEK (emphasis theirs)
what is your income from all sources, including child support
for whom do you work, what is the address of your employer and what do you do for them
how much education did you receive and in what major is your degree
where did you live a year ago – provide complete address
how many times have you been married and what’s your current marital status
in what year did you last get hitched
are you raising grandchildren
do you have a disability
do you have difficulty climbing stairs or bathing
number of persons living in the home
(Wait, what? They actually ask a question for which they have authority? Or anyway, they would have authority to ask it were this a decennial census.)
All of these questions, by the way, must be answered for each and every person living in the home. 28 pages in all, if there are five household members.
The Census Bureau freely admits that this entire process is a time-and-hassle burden (FYTW!), providing a “burden estimate” of 40 minutes right on the back of the form and in the brochures accompanying the letter from John H. Thompson, the director of the CB. If one were to actually provide accurate information for the detailed financial questions, it would require gathering of documents and calculations and would take far longer than 40 minutes if your papers are not perfectly ordered. (My total water bill for the last 12 months? Um….)
What happens to the data?
Legit?Now, all other considerations aside, filling out this form and popping it into the mail seems like a field day for an identity thief. In fact, the ACS seems so intrusive and shady to so many people who receive it, that consumer hotlines regularly get phone calls and emails asking reporters to look into it. Austin’s Bob Cole asked Politifact to check it out when he received it. Even the bureaucrats at the Census Bureau realize it sounds suspicious! (See the second question on their own website at right.)
If you are concerned about mailing a form with all this info, you can simply respond to the survey online using the code on your form and a PIN they will assign you when you start the process. Yes, answering invasive government questionnaires from your personal computer seems like a fine idea.
But, hey, don’t worry. The Census Bureau is keeping your information confidential! We all know there has never been a problem with information security in government. Even the tags on FAQs on the ACS website seek to reassure you. “Keywords: security, online, safe, legitimate.”
Surely, too, there has never been a case of a government worker misusing their access. After all, the very pretty “Frequently Asked Questions” brochure that accompanies the form in the mail tells you that every Census Bureau employee has taken an oath and is subject to jail, fines, or both if they disclose “ANY information that could identify you or your household.” I feel better already.
How is the data used?
1 in 38 households receives an “invitation” to participate. (click to enlarge)“The American Community Survey helps local officials, community leaders and businesses understand the changes taking place in their communities. It is the premier source for detailed information about the American people and workforce.
“When you respond to the ACS, you are doing your part to help your community plan hospitals and schools, support school lunch programs, improve emergency services, build bridges, and inform businesses looking to add jobs and expand to new markets, and more.”
Yep, that means Starbucks is using this data to decide where to erect another tribute to burnt coffee. Which, you know, means jobs for your neighborhood hipsters and convenient access to overpriced coffee for you.
The Rutherford Institute has a handy article which expands a bit on the ACS and how the data is put to use:
“The Bureau lists 35 different categories of questions on its website and offers an explanation on how the information is to be used. For 12 of those categories, the information is used to assist private corporations. For another 22, the information is used to aid advocacy groups, and in nine of those cases, the Census Bureau states that the responses will be used by advocacy groups to ‘advocate for policies that benefit their groups,’ including advocacy based on age, race, sex, and marital status.”
Help me out here. I’m a little rusty on the Constitution. Which Article covers Target and Home Depot using the government to do their market research for them at the expense of citizens? And certainly the advocacy groups must be in there somewhere, too….
What are the penalties for refusing the invitation to participate?
According to Title 18 U.S.C Section 3571 and Section 3559 you can be fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned. However, nobody seems to have been penalized for failing to attend this particular soiree.
It is far more likely that you will simply be hounded and harassed by Census Bureau field agents.
In order to collect the required American Community Survey (ACS) data, we use a multi-part strategy, including Internet, mail, telephone calls, and personal visits.
First, we send a letter to let you know your address has been selected for the ACS.
Then most respondents receive instructions to complete the ACS online. If the survey is not completed, we send you a replacement questionnaire in about two weeks.
If we still do not receive a completed survey, we may attempt to call you from one of our call centers. You may also receive a telephone call if you completed the survey, but clarification is needed on the information you provided.
If we cannot reach you by phone, we may send a Census interviewer to your address to complete the interview in person.
If you think this sounds fairly benign, read through the 900+ comments on this article. Even discounting the, er, less stable commenters, there is a clear pattern of harassment for not playing along and voluntarily giving up your privacy.
What can you do about it?
See how happy we can all be if you just get with the program?This is certainly a perfect opportunity to be a thorn in the side of your Congress humans. Not that I think they will care one little bit. Unless perhaps your Representative happens to be Daniel Webster, Jeff Duncan, or Justin Amash.
You can try simple avoidance techniques, but those field agents are a wily bunch and very determined not to let your privacy remain intact. Perhaps it’s better to take the advice of the Rutherford Institute and hit it head on. They’ve provided strategies in the article linked above and have created a form letter that you may send off to the Census Bureau.
Crazy Arms. North Korea tests high-thrust rocket engine. For their “space program”.
R.I.P.
Bring Another Drink. Half of women drink while trying to get pregnant or shortly after conception but give it up once they know they’re with child. Yeah, maybe that’s because they’re normal, Vandy.
Go Bobbie Soxer. Cybersecurity companies hoping women are able to help fill a large number of the 1.8 million jobs they’re expecting. Because diversity is more important than competence.
Vaya Con Dios, Dominican Republic. The US is moving on to the semifinals of the WBC after eliminating our Caribbean friends.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ PROVIDES LINKS FOR HIS BRUTALS, KNOWING THEY MAY BE HUNGOVER FROM BRUTAL HOLIDAY FESTIVITIES OF YESTERDAY.
PURIFY THE EARTH OF BRUTALS — AND TALK TO BRUTALS ABOUT THE BOOK OF MORMON
