Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Liberty

  • The Hyperbole’s Homebuilding Houseparty – The Penultimate Part

    Previously on H3

    Part 1: Introduction, Caveat, and Stakeout

    Part B: Permits and Foundations

    Part III: Do’h, Stumps, Rodan!!!, and Framing

    Part The Fourth: Rough-in, Decks, and Inspection

     

     

    Insulation, Drywall, Paint, Siding

    Carbonara

    First off my apologies for the delay in getting this part out, but I’ve been busy what with building homes and whatnot1. Assuming we passed the rough-in/framing inspection we now get to cover everything up and get to finishing. First comes the insulation. We have always subbed out the insulation, in the early days we did so because installing insulation is a nasty, scratchy job and more importantly the big companies could do the job for little more than what the cost of the insulation alone would be to us, economies of scale, FTW. I hear the insulation isn’t as itchy these days and sometimes they use the sprayed in fibrous and/or foamy stuff. Today it’s still cheaper to let the pros do it, plus we now have stricter standards on just how much insulation we need and we have to “prove” that we meet those standards. One “proves” this by submitting forms filled with calculations that I’d wager no one even checks2, but it’s in the file, so it’s all good. The insulation companies have people who fill out these forms, so we let them, it costs more but at least the homeowners know that their homes are nice and tight.

    Speaking of which, with the house wrapping, caulking every crack, and the better insulation, some areas started seeing “Sick Home Syndrome,” a situation where people would get sick simply from being in certain buildings too long. Turns out all these energy efficiency regulations were making homes too tight. The answer – require a pressure test and add air exchangers so the houses can breathe3. Government – breaking your legs so it can supply you with crutches.

    After the pink stuff comes the grey stuff.4 Drywall is another trade that we have always subbed out, apart from very small jobs it’s just not worth the hassle. In ’88 we used a couple of brothers who hung and finished the jobs themselves, they used hammers and nails but the screw guns were only a few years away. Most drywallers today seem to specialize in either finishing or hanging, the guy we use today doesn’t even employ hangers; he hires a crew that works for two or three other finishers. There are not many codes concerning drywall, we have to hang fire-rated boards on any walls between living spaces and garages but that’s about it.

    After the grey stuff comes the stuff that’s whatever color you want it to be5. In the early days I spread a lot of paint6 but as my skill/value in other areas increased it became wiser to sub out the painting and staining. Which isn’t to say that painting is easy and that any hillbilly can do it. In fact, one of the most conscientious tradesmen I have worked alongside of was our long-time painter and wood finisher. Outside of the exemption in footnote #57 there aren’t any codes regarding paint…yet, you can still paint your farmhouse kitchen some shade that’s almost blue or your imperial bedroom an off yellow. I don’t know much about the technological advances in paints; what I do know is that over thirty years the cost has skyrocketed. It could be market driven, but since most things seem to come down in price over time-unless artificially manipulated- my money is on government intervention. Admittedly, this is a personal bias; I’ll gladly defer to anyone with actual knowledge of the ins and outs of the paint game.

    Outside it’s time for siding, these days that means vinyl siding and cultured stone. For the first few houses, we used T-111 sheathing and later cedar. T-111 is cheap8 and the cedar expensive, both require maintenance, so vinyl and stone it is. Other than styles, not much has changed in siding; vertical is popular right now and they have some halfway decent looking fake shakes and stone products. The tools might have improved but the application is still the same, likewise with the stone; we’ve used the same masons for 25 years and they’ve always done things the same way.9

     

    The Big Finish

    From here on out it’s mostly cosmetics; technically all you need for the final/occupancy permit is a WC, hot water, and a kitchen sink. This is also about the time the owners start to get happy feet, the exterior is done and all the ‘big’ steps have been taken, but there is still plenty to do. I imagine if you had a big enough crew-or separate crews-installing cabinets, hanging doors, and trim, putting in the various floor coverings and such you could finish up quickly but we10 do all that stuff ourselves, so it’s going to take some time. Back when I did our electric, I would start with the lights and outlets, as it makes finishing easier when you don’t have to drag lights and extension cords everywhere.

    Other than carpeting, which one likes to install dead last, I like to get the hardwoods, laminates, and ceramic down next; saves having to undercut doors and work around cabinets. Styles and products have changed over the years, laminates are the most popular now, and they have improved a lot. People still like hardwood and ceramics, but the cost difference is substantial. After flooring I like to set the cabinets; they, too, have improved mostly in the hardware, soft close hinges, full extension drawers and such. Countertops are mostly granite or quartz, and those farmhouse apron sinks are all the rage. I use a laser to level the cabinets, and the countertops are digitized and cut on CNC machines.

    After the countertops are installed, the plumber can return and finish up, while I move on to hanging doors and trim. All these little things seem to go on forever, installing latch sets, door stops, towel bars, closet shelving, and the inevitable “favors” we do for the homeowners- hanging the wall mount TV brackets they bought or that big mirror and heavy pictures or the swinging porch chair… But then one day it’s done, the inspector can come by and stick his tester in a few outlets11, flush all the toilets and make sure the water at the sink is hot, but not too hot. We gather up any tools and materials still around and move on to the next job.

    I know this section comes across as sparse, but other than styles and aforementioned improvements in tools and products finishing, a house hasn’t changed all that much during my 30-year career. To make up for that here’s some argument-starting clickbait type opinion stated as fact.

    Every Tom Waits Album12 Ranked Worst to First.

    test
    Proof I’m not selling wolf tickets

    The Black Riders
    Blood Money
    Real Gone
    Foreign Affair
    Alice
    Closing Time
    The Heart of Saturday Night
    Franks Wild Years
    Bad As Me
    Small Change
    Bone Machine
    Nighthawks at the Diner
    Swordfishtrombones
    Raindogs
    Heartattack and Vine
    Mule Variations
    Blue Valentine

     

    That’s it for the penultimate part. Next time will be the last time. I’m going to attempt to wrap all this up with some observations about what all this has to do with libertarianism, or perhaps better said, how it has influenced my particular take on libertarianism. If you have any questions or would like more details about some particular area hit me up in the comments and I’ll endeavor to address those issues as well.

     

    1. Mainly trying to drink all the beer Riven sent me.
    2. Not one time have I seen an inspector refer to any of the various forms we must submit while he’s doing the inspecting
    3. Just like they used to.
    4. That might be a euphemism…I’m just not sure for what
    5. Except for outside, but I’ll get to that next time
    6. [waggles eyebrows]
    7. see footnote 5
    8. But not inexpensive.
    9. Recently retired, maybe the new masons will have new tricks.
    10. With Dad pushing 80 that really should be “I”
    11. Now, there’s a euphemism!
    12. Yes, Nighthawks is technically a live album, but since it’s all original songs (aside from the Red Sovine cover) that aren’t on any other studio albums I include it here.

  • Independence Day Open Thread

    I’ve mentioned before that I came to my liberty-loving worldview early in life, thanks mostly to my father and his Appalachian parents.

    My Dad’s family was self-reliant, hard-working, generous, welcoming…and distrustful of government and “outside interference.” Along with large family holiday get-togethers throughout the year, I spent weeks with my grandparents each summer, soaking up their knowledge and way of approaching life. The broad range of life skills and strength of character my grandparents exhibited was inspiring to me as a child, and continues to inspire me still, even though they have been gone for more than 20 years. I know I fall far short of their example, but I strive to be as much like them as I can manage.

    Anyway, I thought it would be fun to hear how the Glibertariat came to be more liberty-leaning than average. Did you have a particular person who influenced you? Was there a defining incident that served as a wake up call? A series of little things chipping away and shaping you? Was it a path that caused strife in your family?

    Please share!

  • Suicide: Libertarian Style

    NB: This piece speaks about suicide in an abstract and philosophical manner and should not be construed as advocating for or endorsing suicide.  If for whatever reason, you have stumbled upon this page and are actively considering suicide, please go here or call 1-800-273-8255.

    Preamble

    This is probably not going to be a happy or fun piece.  Death is sad. It represents the great unknown; the termination of our fragile existence into something we know not what.  It is permanent; more permanent than anything else we deal with in this world. And it causes overwhelming emotions of loss, grief and sadness.  Suicide adds many additional dimensions to this. When someone chooses to die, the typical emotions of grief are compounded by a whole host of other emotions; confusion, anger, guilt and helplessness all come along for the ride.  Perhaps most pernicious, suicide seems to be contagious in that friends and family of people who have committed suicide are more likely to experience suicidal feelings and even carry it out.  Along with criminal acts like rape, incest and murder, suicide is one of the most taboo actions we have in our (read: Western) culture. I struggled with whether or not I should even write this piece lest the unlikely event of someone reading it was driven to commit suicide (hence the disclaimer above).  That fear and the stigma surrounding suicide makes it a difficult topic to discuss dispassionately. Why should this be? What goes into a person making the decision to self-terminate? Can it really ever be called a rational decision? These are the questions I’m going to try and tackle.

    Who Commits Suicide?

    Before getting into this, first I think I better define what I mean when I’m talking about suicide in this piece.  There is a somewhat fine line between suicide and euthanasia. When I think of euthanasia, I think of someone with a terminal illness for whom death is imminent regardless of what action they take.  They are also suffering greatly and would prefer to “get it over with” rather than suffer through a few more weeks or months of pain before expiring. As is wont to happen, this definition is expanding in places where euthanasia is legal to include people with mental illnesses or non-terminal but painful conditions.  After all, we’re all terminal, it’s just a matter of the timescale right? That further blurs the line between suicide and euthanasia. The difference, as I see it, is that someone who is depressed is not going to experience depression as an imminent proximate cause of death. It may be horrendously painful, but there is at least a somewhat decent possibility that that person can receive treatment and return to some kind of baseline level of health.  The same cannot (usually) be said of someone with Stage IV brain cancer. There is plenty of debate about euthanasia and its ethical and moral implications as well, and it certainly is related to suicide, but it’s not what I want to talk about here. To that end, when I refer to suicide, I’m talking about a person making a conscious decision to end his life when there is no physical condition that will otherwise cause imminent death.  (I can already see you saying “depression is a physical condition!”  Yes it is, but if you lock a severely depressed person in a room without the means to kill himself and force feed him to keep him from starving, he’ll certainly be miserable, but the depression on its own won’t cause him to keel over).    

    Because of stigma and shame surrounding suicide, it’s notoriously difficult to get quality statistics on it.  Often, surviving families, if there’s any ambiguity, will try and get the cause of death to be classified as accidental to avoid that shame.  For example, it’s estimated that the majority of opiate overdose related deaths are actually intentional, but it’s very likely that most/all of them get classified as accidental.  With that caveat, best quality studies put incidence at around 1% of the population or 12 out of every 100,000 people. This number puts it at about the same prevalence as schizophrenia, though the real number is likely higher.  About 75% of all suicides occur in the developed world and are overwhelmingly male. Although women are more likely to attempt suicide, approximately four times as many men succeed (some regional variation exists). It’s hard to peel apart “suicidal gestures” and “calls for help” from authentic suicide attempts so that even further muddies the statistical water.  Speaking generally, suicide is most common in Europe (especially Eastern Europe), Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. It is least common in East/Southeast Asia (Japan and South Korea being notable exceptions) and Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa. There is a pretty solid inverse correlation between the level of collective religiosity of a population and prevalence of suicide.  Most religions put a very strong prohibition on suicide, Catholicism going so far as to classify it as a mortal sin on par with murder. Most of these prohibitions stem from the view that life is a gift from G-d and rejecting that gift is the ultimate contemptuous rebellion toward the Creator. Along with explicit prohibition on suicide, religious people are more likely to be members of tight-knit communities of like-minded people; a suicide preventative.

    Why?

    This is the question that invariably haunts friends and loved ones in the aftermath of a suicide.  Very occasionally, people will commit ideologically motivated suicide as a political statement (think Buddhist monks self-immolating during Vietnam) and their purpose is pretty clear.  These are outliers, however. It is far more common for the reason to be, if not a complete mystery, then opaque at best. Even in the presence of a detailed note, people left behind are often flummoxed about the reasoning of the suicidal individual.  However, this is one of the key things to understand about suicide; the suicidal individual’s thinking is often distorted and the reasoning leading to the conclusion that suicide is appropriate only makes sense to said individual. This is important because it calls into question the assumption that suicide is a rational decision.  Is distorted logic somehow inferior to “consensus” logic? What does “distorted logic” even mean?

    One thing is for certain: suicide almost always leaves a trail of destruction behind it.  The shattered families, inconsolable grief, confusion about motive and unanswerable questions will haunt those left behind forever.  As stated before, it can be contagious. I have personal experience in which family friends experienced the suicide of the father, then both daughters within a 5 year span, leaving the mother alone.  Needless to say, this was an unparalleled tragedy that resulted in nothing but misery, pain and nihilism. After seeing that kind of shitshow, it’s very hard to be dispassionate and logical about the ethical implications of suicide.  However, as a group of people driven primarily by principle, such an analysis should be done.

    Self Ownership

    A keystone of libertarian philosophy is the axiom of absolute self-ownership.  What you do to yourself, as long as it doesn’t violate the NAP, is permitted unquestionably.  This goes for drug use, sexual behavior, obesity etc. All is not fun and games, however, as you are expected to bear the burden of responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.  Don’t smoke 3 packs a day and then expect the taxpayer to bail you out when you get cancer.

    That said, is suicide a violation of the NAP?  I’m inclined to say no. You are hurting your loved ones and the people around you, but are you engaging in aggression toward them?  Not in the sense that you’re endangering their physical safety or liberty directly. One could argue that smoking 3 packs a day is suicide, just in slow motion.  If we agree that’s acceptable behavior, then giving a blow job to a .357 is equally acceptable.

    This brings me back to the “distorted thinking” point from earlier.  Can someone who chooses to self-terminate really be considered to be “in their right mind” and capable of making such a choice?  I say the question is irrelevant because being in a state of “right-mindedness” does not have a clear definition. Distinct from the “reasonable person” standard of law, postulating some kind of philosophical “right mind” takes us down a slippery slope that leads to reeducation, crimethink and “enthusiastic consent” arguments re: drunken sex.  What about if someone has dementia or schizophrenia and is imagining things that are objectively false which leads him to suicide? This is a situation in which philosophical vagueness comes into play and I don’t have an easy answer (a bit of shameless self promotion, check out my discourse on vagueness here).  The distinction between distorted and undistorted thinking is a blurry one and the unintended consequences of trying to define it solidly are too great.  Besides, this goes into a question of motives, which ultimately are irrelevant. Why does someone smoke 3 packs a day when he knows how bad it is for him?  Doesn’t matter. Mind your own business. Fuck off, slaver.

    These edge cases certainly don’t justify nullifying the larger principle of self-ownership, so I feel comfortable declaring suicide to be ethical from a libertarian perspective.  (Reminder: ethics are derived from external codes of conduct and morals are principles on which an individual’s judgement of right and wrong are based; they are intertwined but not identical).  If libertarian ethics are derived primarily from the NAP, then I can’t see how suicide is unethical. I believe as libertarians, we have to reserve the right of people to terminate their own existence.  After all, your own self is your most fundamental piece of property, and you can dispose of your property however you wish. To say that you are partially owned by your loved ones opens the door to slavery.  If one really wanted to construct an ethical argument against suicide without referencing religion (which is easy: G-d said not to), you’d have to fall back on deontological arguments. One could say that implicit in a marriage contract and/or the implied contract between parent and child when said child is brought into the world is a duty to live for the sake of those people.  I’m OK if you want to make that argument; it at least seems to be logically consistent, but that’s as far as I go. I don’t believe any similar argument can be made in regards to the relationship between a suicidal person and his parents or his friends.  Taking that approach very quickly slides into “social contract” territory and we all know where that ends up (nowhere good). To be sure™, I’m not even sure how I feel about “implicit” clauses in marriage and parental relationships; if your future spouse is known to be suicidal, put a prohibition against suicide in your vows (or better yet, don’t get married to that person).

    What of morality?  Well, trshmnstr had an excellent piece about, what he called Deferentialism vs. Restraintism (see here) that sums up two opposing philosophies of how libertarians can approach the problems of moral relativism inherent to libertarian thought.  In each case, however, I think the approach to the problem of suicide is similar to the problem of drug use. Many libertarians recognize how stupid it is to shoot heroin.  They may condemn it as evil and morally reprehensible. However, no libertarian worth his salt would say using it should be illegal or a reason to be locked in a cage. Suicide is trickier because, if carried out properly, there is no one to arrest or lock up.  The only way then for it to be codified as wrong is in a personal code of conduct or with a deity. I’ve already argued that, in spite of its colossal collateral damage, suicide is not a strict violation of the NAP. Therefore, it has to fall into the same category as drug use or adultery or promiscuity or a host of other social pathologies that libertarians must tolerate in order to live in a free society.  Whether an individual considers it to be immoral likely falls on the Deferentialist/Restraintist spectrum.

    Coda

    When it comes to suicide, I fall on the Restraintist side of the aisle.  I strongly condemn it as both immoral and stupid. I recognize a person’s right to take himself out of the game, but I also reserve the right to call that person a moron making a terrible decision.  I say this not without compassion for those suffering through deep depression which distorts reality to the point that suicide seems rational. However, life is about taking personal responsibility. Part of being a fully actualized, mature human being is being capable of knowing when things in your life are going sideways, and then acting to fix them.  Some people see suicide as “fixing” their problems and I suppose in some ways it does. However, to use a cliché, it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It’s sending your car to the junkyard when the brakes go bad. It’s tunnel vision resulting in extreme selfishness. No matter how much you may think it, people will not be better off without you.  And if you need to find a reason to live, you can always look at boobs on the internet.

  • The Best Article Ever Written For Any Website On All The Intertubes – Part I: Introduction, Caveat, and Stakeout

    Introduction

    Thirty years ago, I helped my father build a house. I worked with him for the previous few summers on smaller projects…decks, screened-in porches, fences and the like, but that year I was finished with school and so for the first time I had a hand in the construction of a home from start to finish. I learned how to set up a transit level and surveyed the site with Dad, we discussed views, elevations, and placement options when the plans were still sketches, and later I walked through the completed home, room by room, checking for undotted I’s or uncrossed T’s before packing up the last of our tools and leaving the home to its new owners. This spring we will start building our sixtieth-ish*.

    ‘That’s really sweet The Hyperbole,’ the impatient glibers may ask, ‘But what does any of that have to do with Liberty, Limited Government, Beer, Pizza, Board Games, or Boobs?’ Good question, I’m glad you asked. Turns out we built all but one of those homes in the same gated, HOA-run community, and over the years I have watched as rules, regulations, fees, and fines skyrocketed, at times it seemed as if the powers that be were actively trying to discourage new construction.**. In the same time, I have also witnessed the development of new tools and products. Some of those changes added value to the final product, some of them only made it cost more. I imagine you can guess which was which.

    And so I figured that I would write a few articles comparing the building of that first home back in ’88 with this year’s model. Focusing on the above-mentioned observations, with the odd anecdote tossed in here and there, like the story of the building inspector who would walk through doorways and down stairwells with his thumb placed on top of his head with his fingers extended upwards*** to check headroom clearance. As per Brett’s instructions, I will try to use sentences and paragraphs but I can’t promise anything, I never done too good in writin’ class.

    Caveat

    My father likes to oldmansplain that when he was a kid the phrase “Why don’cha make a federal case out of it?” was a common rebuff when someone made too large of a deal over some perceived insult or slight. As he points out**** it was a rebuff because very few things were federal issues, today it’s a meaningless phrase because everything is a federal issue.

    Except, remarkably, residential home building which has largely stayed a local issue. To get a building permit In one county all you may need is the approval of your proposed septic system, in the next county over you might need to submit plans showing every little detail down to the color of the tile in the guest bathroom. Thus when I bring up a code change, some of you may have always lived under stricter codes, while others of you may not even have to comply with the old code that is being changed. In short, don’t take any of what I say as a general rule. Always check with your friendly and helpful local building code enforcement department official and get all necessary permits before you build that deck. Unless you can’t easily see it from the street and you can put on your shocked face and say “I need a Permit? For a tiny little stoop? I had no idea!” believably, if so get cracking, those post holes aren’t going to dig themselves.

    Stake Out

    Richard Dreyfuss #metoos all over Madeline Stowe while Charlie Sheen’s more talented brother watches and Forest Whitaker languidly mast…What’s that? …Oh, STAKE…OUT, not Stakeout. That makes a lot more sense. One of the first steps in building a house is figuring out where you are going to build it, as I mentioned above, back in 1988 my father and I surveyed the property to make this determination, by survey I mean in both the ‘looked over the grounds’ and in the ‘found corner pins, pulled strings down property and/or backset lines’ sense. Thus we made sure the house we intended to build fit on the lot in the orientation we wanted. In 2018 we still do the same but we ‘approximate’ more, ‘Close enough’ has replaced ‘lets double check.’

    You see, in ’88 after siting the house we would carefully stake out its’ footprint, so that the guy with the back-hoe knew where to dig and so that the representative from the HOA***** could verify that we were building where we should, and most importantly, so that WE could verify that we were building where we should. What could be more embarrassing (and costly) for a home builder than to build over a backset line or on the wrong lot? but much like how drug companies will kill their customers without government oversight, greedy builders will build on wrong. So now, In ’18 we are required to have a state licenced surveyor stake out the house so we figure ‘close enough’, it saves us a few hours but cost the homeowner $300-$500 in surveying cost.

    Uh…Dad, I think we have a little problem.

    This change happened fairly early on, perhaps in the mid 90’s. The association hired a local architectural firm to take over the inspections that up until then were done by a board member or volunteers on what was called the Environmental Control Committee. Turns out the lackey that the Architect sent out to do the inspections was an idiot******, and approved a number of jobs that encroached on backset lines. The association could have hired someone competent or required surveys in cases where the building is very close to the backset lines. Instead, they went one size fits all, whether you are trying to stuff a 10-gallon house on 5-gallon lot or you are tossing a hot dog of a home down a hallway of a lot, you are required to pay for a survey.

    Some of you may be thinking “What’s the big deal it’s just a few hundred dollars? and it’s a good idea to get a professional survey anyway.” Yes, it’s not a ton of money but bear in mind we don’t even have a building permit and haven’t moved one shovelful of earth yet. And if like 90% of our clients you recently purchased the lot the property itself will have been surveyed, the title companies make sure of that. The professed purpose******* of the stake out is to ensure that the proposed house fits on the lot, something a properly drawn plot plan does. And guess what? we have always been required to include a plot plan with our permit application. The stake out survey is a redundancy at best. It doesn’t protect the property owner, it only shifts liability from the builder to the surveyor, and allows the HOA to act like they are doing something by approving the stakeout, without having to actually check the stakeout.

    That’s it for Part One. If there is any interest in Part Two, I will delve into the permit process, and discuss Excavating, foul-mouthed masons, lasers, and more!!….

    Not sure if only the links posters get to sign off with a song or not [ED: go right ahead!], but if it’s cool here’s The Woggles covering Chubby Checker.

    *I haven’t kept count.
    ** And in some cases they were.
    *** Imagine an inverted Little Rascal’s high-sign.
    ****Repeatedly, Jesus wept, do all old people tell the same damn story over and over?
    ***** For a while it was a retired realtor who was also one of the first full-time residents of the community, in short, he knew what he was doing, the idiots that came after? not so much.
    ****** He once questioned whether the window in a bedroom met the egress size requirements, it did, also there was a patio door right beside it.
    ******* You may think it’s about ensuring that the house is actually built where it should be, it’s not. More on that in Part Deux, if there is a Part Deux.

  • My Son

     

    I have been lugging a pistol around for thirty five years. It is a nuisance. I have to make certain I remember to bring it with me every time I leave the house. I have to always know where it is, make sure it is safe from theft or curious hands, and it can be heavy and uncomfortable to wear. Mind you, I love my pistols because most of them are the pinnacle of the machinist’s art. My collection, better than I ever thought I would have as a young man, goes back five generations in my family. They aren’t just tools. They are a testament to the ingenuity and skill of man, but just carrying a hunk of steel around is a pain in the butt. When I am home, I always have one either within arm’s reach or a step or two away. I have solved some of the problem by stepping down from a full sized pistol to a sub-compact, but it is still a nuisance.

    Stainless, timeless, priceless

    I find recreational shooting enormously enjoyable and years ago I did some competitive shooting. For me, the competition was just organized recreational shooting. Back in those days, I would burn through fifty thousand or more rounds per year. I was no Jerry Miculek but I guess I wasn’t too bad. I could break clays with ease with a pistol even drawing after the clay was in the air. Unfortunately, that is a perishable skill as I recently learned. Despite my enjoyment of all that, utility carrying is no fun. I wish I lived in a world where I could just put them all back in the safe after playtime is over.

    I raised or partially raised several children, but I have only one biological son. He was the kid everyone wishes they had. He was never any trouble and actually followed the advice I gave him. I don’t know how much of that was because of me. I know his mother was no small part of it, but I like to think I wasn’t, either. He is a grown man now, married with two children and owns his own wildly successful business. He is smart and industrious and a true credit to our society.

    When he was one year old, or thereabouts, his mother and I had our own business. It was a lot of work and meant long work days, sometimes up to 16 hours. We took turns in the evenings taking our son home and putting him to bed. One evening it was my turn so I put him in the child seat and strapped it in on the passenger side front seat. It was a dreary night, pissing rain and cold. Visibility was bad. In those days we had a small traffic circle that I had to navigate through to get home. Because it was so small, it was impossible to yield and then zip around. Invariably cars had to stop and wait. It functioned more as a four-way stop than a circle. On that evening, as usual, I had to stop. There were several cars in front of me and cars stopped behind me.

    Without any warning a man began pounding on the passenger side window with his fist, just inches from my infant son. He was yanking on the door handle and trying to break the glass at the same time. He was screaming and cursing at me and demanding that I open the door. I don’t know where he came from. I have no idea what his circumstances were or why he was doing that, but no way in hell was I going to unlock that door. Fortunately, I had my pistol tucked between the seat and the console. I drew it out, reached across the cabin and pointed straight at his chest. I tapped on the window three times with the end of the barrel. *Poof*. The guy disappeared like smoke in the wind. I looked around the windows and in all of the mirrors, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. He must have dropped to the ground and crawled away. I still thank God he had the wisdom to do that. I didn’t have to pull the trigger but if he had broken that window or gotten that door open I certainly would have. In all of the years I have carried a pistol, that is the only time I have had to lay hands on it in earnest.

    A pistol is exactly analogous to a fire extinguisher: another tool that I keep close at hand all of the time. I keep two of those in my jeep. You lug it around and 99.9999% of the time you don’t need it, but when the moment arises that you do need it, by God you need it.

    As you can imagine, anti-gun and anti-second amendment arguments don’t carry much weight with me. Walk out all you want. Yammer lies until your jaw falls off. I am keeping my guns. It just isn’t up for discussion. My son is likely in the world today because one rainy evening twenty five years ago I had a pistol.

  • Constitutions, guns and limited government: a constant uphill battle

    As I may have mentioned before, I hail from the far away land of Romania, a country with a history of communism which basically wrecked the country and without a particularly strong tradition of limited government, where most peasants were still serfs almost up to the 19th century. I was asked before on various positions on limited government Romanians hold, and thought I’d write a quick post on it, mainly an anecdote, really.

    Romanian built, number 1 best quality, good price
    Too scary for locals, but we export them

    Are notions of limited government increasing? Not really. You would think after a history of bad government and massive abuses of power, many would think to give the other side a shot. But sadly, this does not happen. We just need the right top men, you see. One problem is that people want things and rarely thing of the implications, the ramifications, and both the expected and unexpected consequences. They have the view of government which does everything they want and nothing they do not. And I am talking here about the upper echelon in terms of intelligence, education, and professional success. As such, I have little hope of clear improvements in the future.

    As an anecdote, I will talk of someone I know who is, let’s say, someone I had high hopes of when I thought of a move towards freedom in Romania. He grew up in communism, finished Polytechnic university in Bucharest, got his PhD in France, and was a very successful semiconductor engineer. Of course, for most of his life, he was the kind that didn’t pay much interest to things outside his field, and only recently did he read some books on economics and political philosophy. But this makes him more knowledgeable than most in my company who did not read anything on these topics, although they have really strong opinions on politics and economics. He is what, for Europe, would be vaguely classical liberal / libertarian on economic issues, although quite vaguely. When he reads a libertarian book, he often agrees with what it says, but he simply cannot get past his many years of thinking that government must do way too many things in society. So this generally causes a few days of thinking a bit differently, followed by a comeback to the old ways.  So he would not be a reliable voter for strictly limited government, and if he is not, I have little hope for most other Romanians.

    As a Romanian, he hates guns. He thinks they are dangerous and wants them banned. The government’s job is to disarm the population, he states. In this he is joined by his brother, also an engineer by trade in semiconductors, who immigrated to the States and now lives in a leafy and quite lefty suburb of Boston. His brother also hates guns and republicans in general, and thinks America is too right wing.

    But, to be fair, the guns are scary amendment is desperately needed in the US. though
    We need ourselves a better version of one of these things in Romania

    The man I speak of trusts his brother’s judgment, and I had several debates with him on US politics which ended because his brother is his ultimate argument and tells me he is more informed than me because of what the brother tells him. I, frankly, find this rather annoying because his knowledge of US culture, economy and its politics is probably 10% of mine. And his brother’s does not seem much better, as he forwarded to me some emails that could have been taken directly out of the New York Times. I remember speaking about certificate of need legislation in US and he outright said that is not true, such things do not exist; it is not possible in a capitalist country like America for the government to prevent a hospital from expanding, let’s say. He did not really care to read about it because he had his sources. This is his answer.  It is obviously impossible to argue with someone whose main argument is “my brother told me this so it must be true.” I have asked countless times for data for his claims, but he literally said, “I do not have data but it is true. I have my sources,” – his main source being his brother. This is quite dispiriting. Someone who is more politically knowledgeable than most people I know, one of the few to have actually read some economics. If he can’t argue properly and form a more informed opinion, who can? Most Romanians still tell me that the US is the land of no government and unrestrained free market capitalism, and they believe that. Especially when it comes to the completely private and completely unregulated healthcare systems you Americans seem to have.

    Recently I hear the complaint – coming from the brother originally, of course – that the problem with US in that the constitution is too difficult to change as to disarm the population. A smart, accomplished engineer with some knowledge of economics does not give a jot of thought to the ramifications of what he claims if it will lead to his preferred outcome. He would be so willing to see all guns banned for civilians, that he would tear the constitution apart for this. Of course, he does not claim that. He says only the second amendment, not others. But if you give the power to easily change the second, how would you prevent that power being used to change the others? How can you create a system where just one article of the constitution is easily changed? The ridiculous view of government doing everything I like and nothing I don’t.

    What is the point of the constitution is it is easily changed? Majorities are fickle. One may have the 51% now, the others the next time. Laws change with majorities. The whole point of the constitution is that it is not as easily changed and it needs broad consensus. And if you look at US history, many bad things came exactly when the constitution was not respected. How can we get a more libertarian view in Romania when people lose their reason when it comes to topics they feel strongly about? How can we argue when people say, ‘I don’t have any data but my brother told me”? I do not know, but I do not have my hopes up, lest I be too often disappointed.

  • Two in the Pinker; One in the Stinker

    Last week, as part of his latest book-shilling tour, Steven Pinker looked us straight in the eye and threw down the gauntlet with his Big Think rumination “Why libertarianism is a marginal value and not a universal value.” Pinker argues that “the free market has no way to provide for poor children, the elderly, and other members of society who cannot contribute to the marketplace.” Furthermore, Pinker claims a robust social safety net as a necessary characteristic of a “developed” economy.

    Of course, this is argument is even more laughably fallacious than his criticisms of the connectionist model of language acquisition. To support his premise, Pinker indulges in a false choice fallacy, argumentum ad populum, and the beloved ‘Somalia fallacy‘. It truly is a mediocre bit of hackery that exposes the poverty of his arguments in just a little over 4 minutes.

    Split Pinker’s wig and bust his cheeks open in the comments below, and when you are finished, you can wash your ears out with this.

     

     

  • A Political Theory about Libertarians

    I thought about titling this “Hey Hihn, how’s this for deep libertarian thought?”, but I’m not that spiteful. This article is based upon an idea I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while. It usually comes back to the forefront whenever we’re talking about transfolk or open marriages. As with all of my articles, I make no representation that I’m not unknowingly ripping off some philosopher or, even worse, walking into some trap.

    http://www.vitamin-ha.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Obama-bows-to-Burger-King.jpgThere seem to be two types of libertarians… really more of a spectrum with clustering near the edges. On one end is what I’ll call the Deferentialists. The Deferentialists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is the right decision for them. Deferentialists’ motto is “live and let live.” They’re deferential to the individual’s decision making.

    On the other end is what I’ll call the Restraintists. The Restraintists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is their decision to make, whether or not it is the right decision. Restraintists’ motto is “who am I to tell you what to do?” They restrain their own sense of morality to avoid overstepping their authority.

    http://www.bslw.com/images/posters/authority_control_200x300.jpg
    The oddest image that came up for “authority”

    I’ve written in the past about my authority-based view of rights. To sum it up, your mom had the authority to wash your mouth out with soap when you cussed as a kid, but a politician doesn’t have the authority to punish you for your speech. This places me firmly in the Restraintist camp, and I think that all libertarians who care about being effective should join me.

    The Ineffectiveness of Deferentialism

    When viewed from a simplistic and static point of view, Deferentialism and Restraintism achieve the same thing. Should the government implement a law implementing some social goal? Deferentialism says no because the social goal may be right for some people, but it may also be wrong for some people. Restraintism says no because even if the social goal is good, the government overstep of its authority is evil, and the ends don’t justify the means.

    However, Deferentialism is ineffective in two ways. First, people, even Deferentialists, tend to have a line drawn in the sand where they shift from relativistic deference to the individual to a more absolutist stance. For example, Cosmotarians tend to be Deferentialists up to the point where their particular identity politics ox is gored. Second, Deferentialism gives no answer to Cultural Marxism. Deferentialists are either forced to kowtow to the virulent left, or they end up drifting authoritarian.

    http://www.talkativeman.com/img/Deference_to_Authority.jpg
    This image seemed oddly appropriate.

    In contrast, Restraintism handles both of these issues differently. Restraintists have absolutist stances for everything, so there is no line drawing to be done. Any failure to properly act libertarian on a certain issue is a failure of moral restraint, not a philosophical deficiency. Similarly, Restraintism isn’t hampered when facing off against Cultural Marxism. While Restraintists would never strip away the rights of Marxists, they’re free to criticize, ostracize, and attempt to curtail the creeping growth of Cultural Marxism.

     

  • Our National Conversation is a ‘Shit Hole’: A Rant

     

    So which one of you is this?

    I am fed-up with the nonsense that dominates our political discourse.  Nothing substantive is discussed at all anymore.  We have the establishment media still throwing a hissy fit over a presidential election that they lost and it is becoming impossible to discern between the Democratic Party, CNN, the New York Times (sorry, but Stossel is right about the ‘old grey lady’), the Washington Post, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS anymore.  The stupidity of our current national conversation is no more evident than the fact that on January 16, 2018, the US Senate voted to end debate on the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017, thereby preventing an attempted filibuster by Senators Rand Paul, Ron Wyden, and Mike Lee.  This act renewed (since its passage is nearly certain now, as of this writing), for six years, the federal government’s authority to gather communications between people from the United States and foreign nationals, without a warrant.  Though the legislation has always been presented as ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation, the law also allows the FBI to peruse these communications to identify a crime. Thereby thoroughly gutting the 4th Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

    But, it doesn’t even matter what the particulars of the law are.  What is more important is that there was no national conversation about the renewal of such an expansive piece of legislation.  Instead, in the days leading-up to the Senate vote, our national media was fixated on ‘shit hole’-gate.  Did the president refer to some countries as ‘shit holes’ in a private conversation in the White House?  Truly gripping stuff.  And, as if in an attempt to go full retard, our national media then began dissecting the president’s physical and mental health (because it’s totes cool to ask those questions now).  And when the media’s speculation was rebutted by a navy physician that also served the previous president, they doubled down on stupid.  These stories were more important than debating whether or not the federal government should be allowed to eavesdrop on your personal conversations without a warrant?

    Democrats vs. Republicans

    Where are the grown-ups today?  In years past, we had commentators like Christopher Hitchens, William F. Buckley, Gore Vidal, Mike Royko, and HL Mencken, to name a few, who cut through the minutia and focused on bigger issues.  Today we have this ass hat,  a bag of dicks, and shit for brains.  And when our imbecile pundits aren’t ignoring important issues like unreasonable searches and seizures by our government, they are actively attacking commentators who do warn against such actions.  Meanwhile the bulk of our political class is just as buffoonish, asinine, and unclever as the ass hats, bags of dicks, and shit for brains that cover them.  There are some exceptions within our political class, and to their credit, more Republican Senators voted against renewing FISA under a Republican president than Democrats who voted against renewal under a Democratic president.  And for that, I would grant Republicans a participation ribbon.  This ribbon is as useless as the Republican Senate and redeemable at the midterm elections for one “I will never vote for you worthless assholes again” from me, with love.

    The worst part is that the cause is most assuredly over.  If a universally reviled and unstable president cannot convince Congress that the executive wields too much authority, than nothing will.  FISA is permanent now.  The next time renewal comes around, I doubt even a mention will be made.  The State will continue to erode away at the Fourth Amendment and will continue to chip away at other parts of the Bill of Rights.  All the while, our chattering class will be fixated on the latest faux outrage committed by whomever occupies the title of “literally Hitler” at the moment.  Nothing is sacred anymore. This is a lost cause now.

  • Tactical Libertarianism

     

    The FBI agents arrived as expected, though they took up a few of the parking spaces for my own young troops that were working shift that day. When I looked out of my office window I sighed and thought to myself, “typical government agents.” I had deliberately marked those spaces off and told the agents they needed to park next door before their arrival. I strode outside and calmly but firmly asked the first agent I saw to get their guys’ gear packed up and moved over to the next parking area so my own people could use their own parking lot. I received a dark glare in response, but he grudgingly moved his two dozen or so agents, their heavy weapons, armored and unmarked SUVs, and the various listening and breeching devices they had to the next lot over.

    Christ, what an asshole.

    I’ll be damned if I let some dipshit civilian agents take up the parking spaces of my own troops. I’ve already got a chip on my shoulder from reading you lot’s opinions about law enforcement, and being a LEO myself, it’s hard not to get that nagging feeling that if I’m going to be principled about this then I’ll make sure every other prick I’ve got to work with is too.

    It isn’t long before the rest of the FBI equipment starts arriving. Blackhawks, armored carriers, and a few other odds and ends that would make the tinfoil hat wearers’ skins crawl. This, of course, is all happening within the United States. I voice my displeasure to my boss, who is well aware of my leanings, and he just shrugs and says that we aren’t involved, we’re just letting them use our parking lot.

    Most days, that’s the best answer I can get.

    I must preface the rest of this by saying that military law enforcement is not like civilian law enforcement. My jurisdiction ends at the gates except under extremely special circumstances where there is an immediate danger to life or national security. There are very, very few circumstances where that is the case and for the most part we are quite content to sit on our own little plot of land and protect our assets and the other military personnel, their families, and the support civilians who use them. There are a lot of other differences related to military law and the various responsibilities of commanders and such. That’s not really what this post is about though. It is kind of a two-for-one post about police reform and using tactical leadership to live out libertarian principles.

    As much as I hate to do so, I try to follow the police shootings that make the news. I am not a legal eagle. I can only make judgments based on what is shown to me by the extremely biased news and I can only look at so much news before I have to find something else to do that doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with a wooden spoon. Every single shooting on the news in recent memory makes me cringe.

    You see, the thing I dislike most in life is a person who is unwilling to reflect on their own weaknesses or shortcomings. I don’t hate them, it’s more like pity, and nothing fills me with more pity than watching some untrained lackey in a uniform tap dance around the fact that they fucked up. They fucked up real bad and it cost someone their life when there are clear (at least to me) alternatives. Worse, I listen to the excuses of their defenders…their bosses, the public, the families. It is here that I need to remind the readers that there is a lot that goes on in the background that we may not hear about, but I can tell you from a law enforcement perspective that not enough occurs for it to make a meaningful difference. When I see the excuses being made to the public, what I see is what is happening behind the scenes. The chiefs are raging about image and the lawyers are making up public releases. The other cops are busting the balls of the shooter, maybe even shunning them. At the end of it all, “cooler heads prevail” and someone decides that we can’t let the public see us admitting a mistake because it emboldens our enemies and weakens trust.

    That’s all total horseshit. If it were up to me, Attorney General Mustang, I would put every cop on trial that fired their gun and they would be subject to the same rights, prosecution, and defense that every other civilian is entitled to. I want them to consider every round before it leaves the chamber and I want to eliminate, no, decimate every police union that has ever existed. Grind it up into dust and scattered to the winds with their union bosses (metaphorically) strung up for the world to see that if you become a law enforcement officer, you had better be the best, and you had better be prepared to defend every action you take ON YOUR OWN, just like every other human being you are supposed to be protecting. I would not oppose doubling the punishments against law enforcement officers for committing even the smallest offense.

    A secondary part that you are all familiar with is reducing the number of laws that officers must enforce. This is a huge deal. There is no possible way to effectively police every law on the books and it doesn’t matter how much money is in the budget. The task that goes hand-in-hand with this item is the elimination of funding from tickets. A military law enforcement officer may write tickets on base, but not one cent goes towards the unit’s budget. That this isn’t the case for civilian law enforcement is so perverse that it needs to be at the top of the list for criminal justice reform. Furthermore, not everything even needs a damn law. This is pretty well covered on a daily basis around here, but it is sufficient to say that the state of law in this country is an abhorrent mess…is it any wonder that a cop can’t make an effective judgment call if they can’t even understand the law they’re supposed to be enforcing?

    A third item worth addressing is the standards for recruitment. They’re abysmal. Special forces applicants undergo extensive psychological testing to determine their ability to make decisions under pressure and accomplish the mission. It would be perfectly acceptable to subject law enforcement applicants to a standard that is at least as rigorous without the emphasis on destruction. In fact, I propose the opposite of destruction. Whereas special operators are expected to mete out absolute death in the circumstances they are ordered into, we should establish a system for law enforcement applicants where they are expected to mete out absolute life so that the citizens they are protecting can be assured that when an officer responds they are going to do everything within their power to keep people alive. Here’s the real catch that will send current officers into a frothing mess: law enforcement officers must do this for people who are actively breaking the law. If a perpetrator dies, officers should be subjected to a trial wherein it is determined whether or not the officer did everything in their power to keep the perpetrator alive. An officer who has passed a mental exam reserved for special operators but who would die to protect a victim and a perpetrator would be an impressive officer indeed.

    Officers must remember that they are a part of the community, even if they are coming from far away. This is something I have to remind my own troops of on a regular basis. It never fails that there is always at least one “supercop” who feels it is their absolute duty to ticket any and every offense to the maximum extent. At my last assignment, I had an individual who would line the cars up on the streets as they passed by and go down the line writing tickets. I quickly put a stop to this. It is complete and utter nonsense and hurts the community far more than it helps protect them. At every assignment I’ve been to I’ve had to rein in “supercop.” I’ve often heard the rebuttal “the law is the law” and to some extent that is true, however, I often find myself applying the NAP to decide on the application of the law. Often, this results in me simply turning someone around who may be bringing an illegal substance into my jurisdiction.

    I’ve also been hit square in the face with the realization that it’s not just the “supercops” who fall victim to the idea that cops are the only thing standing between civilization and anarchy. On at least one occasion, an individual I was well acquainted with and who was a director for another unit came up to me one day and asked if it was normal for my officers to place their hands on their weapons when approached. I was a bit taken aback. This has never been standard practice since I’ve been in. In fact, we are specifically taught to keep our hands in front so as not to escalate a situation. The director informed me that during his usual early morning walk through his supply yard, coffee cup in hand, he was approached by one of my officers who had his hand on his weapon and was demanding ID. While I don’t expect the officer to recognize everyone on base, I do expect them to compose themselves in a professional manner when they are out in the community. Upon calling up my training section and initiating more focused efforts on community relations (and basic fucking police tactics, like don’t hold your gun like a scared little twerp), I quickly found out that all the “war on cops” rhetoric in recent years was weighing on my very young group of officers. I created a brief presentation on the actual statistics on violent crime and police deaths, one which was well received and proved to be a relief for my officers.

    Here is where I can tie in the use of body cameras. I believe they are a wonderful tool because in my limited experience, the officer will never tell the whole truth. I do not necessarily believe that they intentionally lie at all times, however, an uneducated individual that was hired using poor standards might be inclined to forget incriminating circumstances or less likely to take in the entire set of circumstances they find themselves in. The public should demand body cameras for all their officers and not only that, there must be a punishment associated with not using them. We use fail safes in many other professions to learn what went wrong and apply those lessons in the future. If these officers have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to fear. Standard libertarian disclaimer: I don’t believe this saying applies to private citizens. It absolutely applies to government employees.

    I wish I could say that it’s just bad apples, but that would be a lie. As a young officer, this became apparent to me very quickly following a meeting I had with local police chiefs. I was asked to provide my antiterrorism expertise for an event and, having never done something like this before, I was eager to talk about the subject. It wasn’t long into the meeting that I found out they weren’t really interested in terrorism. There was only a passing interest in looking for backpack bombs or something else of that nature. No, the real threat was that a group of gun rights advocates were preparing to attend the event as well with their firearms in full view. The discussion quickly turned away from spotting the real threats to this “extremist militia.” I attempted to bring the discussion back around by pointing out that anyone who is open carrying and minding their own business is going to be the least of your concerns when looking for terror threats, but to no avail. I left the discussion at the first break, disgusted by what I had learned.

    It is with this little bit of background that I came up with a subject called “tactical libertarianism.” I know some of you will cringe at the concept of applying military terms to this philosophy, but it’s how I think and it’s what works for me. The idea stems from my training as a Special Reaction Team leader (a kind of SWAT) and from some experience overseas. The basic premise to me is that each individual that makes up a team must be responsible for themselves, first and foremost, so that the team is not carrying them in life threatening situations. How does this apply to libertarianism?

    Every person, whether we like it or not, is a part of a team. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but in general, most of us can look around and see the team framework all around us. It could be a family unit, a group of friends, coworkers, etc. As libertarians, we often joke about being antisocial, the tiniest of political minorities, insignificant on any stage worth noting. I believe, however, that that is not the case. To me, there is nothing mightier than an individual who recognizes their own self-worth and can apply that to a team construct.

    A fire team encourages each other. They bust each other’s balls. They push each other in the gym and help each other through tough times, but ultimately, they all know that the individual must make the conscious effort to be the best they can be for the team. An individual who doesn’t measure up, who drags the team down, is dropped.

    In normal society, however, we can’t just drop someone because they drag us down. We have obligations to each other for various reasons (no, this isn’t some social contract fuckery, I’m just talking about the ties we have with the individuals around us that we voluntarily create). As libertarians, we tend to be stronger mentally because of our unceasing desire to better ourselves as individuals. We constantly look inward, challenge ourselves to find cracks in our armor, seek out knowledge and arguments, and look around us to better understand the world we live in.

    Tactical libertarianism is the idea that when we, as libertarians, recognize our being part of a team, we can push the entire team forward to become stronger than it was before. You push yourself to be healthier, stronger, more financially stable, more educated, and more individualistic because of your unwavering support for the libertarian philosophy. If you model libertarianism and stand on principle within the framework of the teams you are a part of, you might find yourself able to lead the team forward because of what you have pushed yourself to do. In fact, I actively encourage that leadership. The joke is often said here that anyone who seeks a position of power is exactly the type of person who shouldn’t have it. I agree. The difference here is that by consciously acknowledging the corrupting effect of power in a position, and then making the decision to give up that power upon the expiration of your time in that position, you have already proven that you are in some way qualified to hold those positions. George Washington did not seek to be President, but he did not hide from that duty either.

    An example of tactical libertarianism I will use has to do with active shooter scenarios. As the person who is considered the authority for all things violent crime-related on base, I am tasked with teaching the local populace the best way to handle a situation where someone has opened fire around you. Beyond the usual “run, hide, fight” stuff you may be familiar with, I have taken the liberty of adding violent crime statistics from the FBI into my training to show the real trend of shootings (it’s going down, regardless of how they screw up the definition). I pushed to have “run, hide, fight” clarified by my chain of command so that people understand that it doesn’t have to be in this order. You must decide what is most advantageous to your survival and follow through.

    I emphasize in my training that the individual must decide how they will behave before being confronted with these dangerous situations. I’ve been given feedback that this has helped people in other situations, not just dangerous ones, where they prepare themselves ahead of time to act and it is easier to follow through later. While this may seem obvious, it is often taken for granted. This is something of a new concept in the world of stopping violent crime (especially the fight part).

    As part of my training, I also began advocating that people carry a firearm whenever possible. In the context of an active shooter scenario, it is very easy to show how modern firearms are a great benefit to the individual. I have gone so far as to push for concealed carry on base (for some reason this is controversial…). A briefing that I gave made its way up and convinced some important people to allow concealed carry in certain circumstances on the installation. It’s a small step in the right direction. This is how I’ve chosen to lead my little corner of the tactical environment based on the libertarian principles of individual responsibility (deciding beforehand) and self-defense.

    You may find that as you place yourself into positions to assist the team at a tactical level, leadership roles will be placed on you because of your ability to stand up and look around to see what needs to be fixed. Someday, that tactical libertarianism may expand to an operational level, or even a strategic level, but it starts right back with the fire team…the small group of individuals we each helped to move forward.

    The point isn’t to propel libertarianism into some political wave to sweep the nation. It isn’t to turn it into some militaristic shadow of its former self. The point is to help your family. It’s to help your community. In doing so, you take part in and enjoy explaining the principles behind what makes it all work, the team building and organization that stems from individuals working together, without government assistance, to prove what they can do. No politician can withstand a principled individual and no government could ever hope to withstand a principled team that is the foundation of a principled community.