The game of Commerce

DALLAS (Reuters) - A 65-year-old woman made it past a checkpoint and onto a flight at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday with a revolver tucked away in her handbag, and was only stopped after the plane was called back to the gate, the airport said.

This post is probably going to be controversial.

Contrary to what news article commenters say ("Oh, if it makes us safe, it's okay!"), all of this TSA nonsense has nothing at all to do with real safety and everything to do with taxing citizens via fines and charges for accidentally breaking the law. It's the same as with New York City's gun laws; these laws are designed to generate revenue in the courts, not to stop badguys, and are only changed when enough of the non-criminal element get caught as to draw attention to the scheme. And despite what angry Americans may say about all of this and how evil it is, it was done with the consent of the populace.

There is no conspiracy, nor is there evil, when the very citizens who bitch about it let it come about in the first place. Just like in the game of Monopoly, if you want to sit at the table and play, you have to obey the rules; and that means that if your thimble lands on an arbitrary square that says "Go to Jail," than you send your piece to jail. It may be nonsensical, and no true crime was committed, but it's the rules. You land on the block, you have to pay a fare.

Back to the article, notice that the 65 year old woman was not only allowed through the checkpoint, but had already boarded the plane which was on its way to the runway. The planes were only turned around when somebody realized that a mistake was made. This very well could have added up to a Jack Bauer moment in the mind of some "security officer," but in the end it was a simple accounting error: the fare for carrying a handgun on a plane was not rendered. Disagree with me if you want, but the takeaway from this is that the goons in the blue shirts are not enforcing anti-constitutional gun laws as much as they are merely facilitating the collection of a tax -- the re-venuing of currency -- on compliant, consenting persons who asked for this very thing in the name of feeling secure.

"Did you see all the knives they caught that guy with? I'm glad they got him! I'll sleep soundly on my flight to El Paso knowing that that dangerous dude is behind bars!" Feeling safe is important to many people, and I don't blame them one bit. Feeling secure is a natural human desire, and getting it at someone else's expense can make it feel even more sweet. That's not the way I live by, but I've come to accept that that's the way it is, that the vast majority of the country feel that way, and the rules are made to suit them. When somebody's thimble ends up in the fictitious slammer, the other players say "HA!" and they play right past them, because that's how the game is played. Arguing against it is like trying to stop the sun.

Now, change the rules if it bothers you, sure. Good. Great. I'm all about it. But know that when you deny one funding stream, the government with find another, and will construct an organization tasked with taking up the collection. You say that marijuana should be legal? Cool beans, but there will need to be something given in kind because there are no free lunches. I'm on a hunch that pot will be legal in the next 5 or 10 years just as citizens want, and in return for this there will be an ever larger network of sex offender laws with an agency created to enforce it. Either that or, considering the sharply divided mindset of Americans, there will be crimes against the homeland used for government commerce. If you haven't noticed yet, the struggling economy is effecting the government as well, and the predictable reaction from it is to draw funds from areas both large and small, like SOPA for a large scale revenue generating function, and nitpicking citizens for random stuff like lightbulb disposal as an example of the small stuff.

Again, there are no free lunches, and there's nothing new under the sun. If you get what you want, you have to give something in kind. Choose wisely.

The speed safari

I got a kick out of this article on Virginia State Police from the General Discussion forum on ARFCOM.

As a lifelong Virginian, I can tell you without a doubt that the entire I-95 corridor, I-81, and I-64 are nothing more than high speed game trails, and the VSP and county mounties are big game hunters looking to bag your speeding ass and mount it on the wall at the courthouse. They are not in it for public safety; it is about the collection of revenue.

Now, in the link above you have some Virginia law enforcement as well as locals who defend the speeding safari by flatly telling you that if you do not speed you will not get a ticket. While one could possibly argue that point successfully, I point out that if you're the person NOT doing 85+ mph on I-95 than you're the one who is acting recklessly, and are probably the guy going home to ARFCOM to breathlessly argue in favor of VSP writing so many tickets. Getting passed on the right by pissed off drivers will get to you after a while, no doubt.

In my experience, the VSP has been a very professional organization so far, except for that one cop who blatantly and deliberately lied to the judge about my speed one night. It's all good though, hoss - I forgive you of your dishonor, but I don't think the majority of Virginians will be so nice. Lying in court to ensure a kiddie porn serial murderer doesn't get off on a technicality is something that will perhaps be forgiven from time to time, but when you make a habit out of revenue'en the good natives with fictitious affidavits and questionable statements, it's only a matter of time before the friendlies change their mind about your organization and say bad things about you on the internets. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.

Lastly I'll say this: if you're riding down the highway at +10 mph, the radio up, and you're the only fool around, you're not endangering the public. Getting that ticket for nothing more than violating a written rule that was conjured up by people who's intention was to make it legal to siphon fundage out of your wallet does not make you a public nuisance. It would be awesome if the Johnny Law types out there who know that this is damn-well the case would stop insulting the free spirited Virginians who go foul of these speed rules and not give the high horse lecture when writing a ticket. I know exactly what you're up to sport, and it's not stopping reckless and probable terrorists from doing harm at Linda's soccer game.

Greed and commerce

Two women are charged with luring their landlord into a compromising position and then trying to blackmail him.

Compromising position indeed. This one's chock full of stupid.

On its face, there wouldn't be any controversy if the women had kept up their side of the bargain; it's simple give-give. The landlord is a scumbag for accepting adultery as payment, as he already has an obligation to his wife. The two women twice dishonored the agreement, which makes them scumbags too. For one, they couldn't handle their obligation to the rent as agreed, so they made a bargain, and then dishonored that too. Then to top it off, they tried to make a third contract by blackmailing the landlord for $11,000.

That's some goat rope those people have there. I guess there is no honor amongst thieves after all.

Your daily dose of stupid

Haven't done one of these in awhile, but this morning I did a face palm when I read this:

“There should be one standard for applying for what is a constitutional right,” Timilty said.

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this sentence?

At issue here is the licensing of human beings who have unalienable rights by police chiefs in order for those human beings to exercise said rights to own, carry, and operate private property in the form of a firearm. Simple, no?

So by this douchebag's confession, it's yippy skippy for some police chief, endowed with powers privileged upon him or her from citizens, to issue unalienable rights with a new law? Exactly how does a police chief have the authority to give rights to citizens, when those citizens are the ones who give the authority to the police chiefs?

When I buy groceries, I own them. The groceries are my property. When I feed those groceries to my kids, I sure don't ask them for permission to own the groceries. Now I would never deny my kids food, that's not what I'm saying, but I don't ask permission to own things that I already know I own. It's simple commerce.

It's become very obvious that people in today's America no longer understand Common Law, nor the simple laws of commerce hewn from thousands and thousands of years of human interaction. When you own things, you do not ask permission to use those things - unless of course you have trusted them to someone else for whatever reason. I guess if people don't understand how they own things in the first place -- in this case rights -- then there is no way they could possibly understand trust. Somehow in the naked simplicity of all of this, where 5,000 years ago a caveman, literally, could do it, modern "advanced" society forgot what the hell was going on.

So now that people in the most powerful country on earth don't understand property and the ownership associated with it, I can't see where this knowledge will ever return unless a big ass meteor wipes out like 99% of the population and things start over. We're very happy these days that we don't live in mud huts and hunt with clubs like our ancient ancestors, but at least they knew what the hell was theirs.