Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Opinion

Borders and immigration: a view from Romania

To start, I do not write from the perspective of an American. My country has more of a problem with emigration than immigration, and it is not out of the question that I might want to leave myself. So I can see myself on the other side of the border to many from the States. I live under a sort of double jurisdiction, Romania and the European Union, and of a nationality that has been often the object of attack and mockery as immigrants in Western Europe. We are all lazy thieves, beggars, gypsies, wanting to take both the good jobs and welfare of the British chav. I have been bullied on this very website by, to my greate shame, Canadians of all people. I am aware of the collectivist generalization most Western Europeans are prone to – despite the fact that without Eastern European doctors and nurses, their fabulous state medicine would have collapsed a while ago. And if you want trained doctors and engineers, some riff raff will inevitably come along. Although, after influxes of immigrants of late, Romanians no longer seem so bad.

The Picts payed for this

I am a reasonably moderate libertarian, in that I am a bit of minarchist plus. So I do not write or think from an an-cap perspective. I am also the kind of libertarian who believes you have to advocate for both ethical, principled libertarian positions – regardless of their chance of being implemented – and policies that are fit for purpose, good enough, and move things to the right direction while being more palatable to others. I see little point to the “Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus” of libertarians, purity to the exclusion of everything else, who only recite philosophy and ignore the real world. And I am well aware of the danger of compromise but find it acceptable when the alternative is nothing. To complete, I am not a nationalist, I am not a patriot and dislike patriotism in most cases, and I do not feel any particular affinity for certain people over others just because there is a border between us. I can see I have more in common with the fine people on this fair website than with the vast majority of Romanians.

So I am starting with what I consider to be some basic facts: states and governments exist. Debating whether they should is meaningless at this certain point in time, for the purpose of this discussion. These governments have jurisdiction over state borders and have citizens and residents and temporary visitors, with the former having additional prerogative and responsibilities, especially in politics. Governments more or less (usually less) are – should be, to be more accurate – accountable to the citizens. Governments, having jurisdiction inside certain borders, have powers over and responsibilities towards people inside those borders. The US government should uphold the rights of people – including temporary visitors – in areas it has jurisdiction over – by libertarian standards this is its only job – and not the people of, say, Romania. The exceptions to this are American citizen abroad, towards which the government has certain responsibilities.

So a government treats insiders differently than outsiders. The question at hand is in what way the latter should become the former. Has government the right to control who crosses the border? My view is yes, up to a point.

The most often libertarian view for open borders is, paraphrased, the state has no right to impede peaceful people from traveling where ever they wish on public property, and to where ever they are invited on private property. The state has no right to stop people from freely associating. It is the right of humans to travel where they choose. Or to go bleeding heart about it (which I do not recommend), we should care more about humans than borders.

This is all very feel-good, but has some issues, in my view. I would in first instance. replace people with people under the jurisdiction of said state. In my view when talking about rights – freedom of speech, assembly, religion in the context of government – we are talking first and foremost people who happen to be within those border. In a better, non-interventionist world, government should not be able to influence non-residents, outside letting them in or not.

From a pure libertarian an-cap / minarchist point of view, many immigration issues would not be issues at all. With most property private and fully protected, the issues of public lands / areas would be minimal. With no government support at all for immigrants and refugees and with the perspective of being shot if you aggress the locals, a good number of problems would not appear. But that is not the world we live in.

There are several utilitarian reasons for some immigration restrictions. There is a risk posed by a large number of people with radically different values moving into an area, if these values can lead to breaking the Law. Any area has limited capacity to absorb newcomers and exceeding this will cause conflict. Police doing their job plus an armed citizenry could be a reason this problem would not appear in certain societies, but overall it can be unpleasant to have constant conflict in a community that needs to be addresses with violence. How about deontological ones?

Lines are important

Libertarians who do not want to become caricatures understand liberty is not defined as do whatever you want, but within limits. First and foremost, your fist my nose, as the saying goes, but even beyond, there are certain elements of living in a society that will curtail liberty – just the difficulty of defining boundaries between my liberty and yours, and compromises necessary to live in a community.

The libertarian argument is this should be as little as possible and for very good reason. It is, of course, a vulnerable argument, like all arguments in politics – where to draw the line. (Bugs step over this line.) This always applies to human dealings and there should be a constant attempt to swing things in libertarian direction, err on the side of freedom and all that. Even anarchic communities have rules about behaviour, written or not, and probably debate them. But in the end, the community needs a very good reason for any intervention. That is the basic argument.

I usually ignore the every square inch of land privately owned school of libertarianism. This is not the case. Not how humans function. Commons always exist, the village green was rarely privately owned, many roads and lanes likewise.

While no libertarian would deny the right to associate on your property – as long as you are not doing something to affect others’ property – you will not have an immigrant solely on your property (except that 15 year old Russian girl you buy on the dark web and keep in your basement, but this is an exception). The community will have a role in deciding what happens in the commons. So unless you can teleport people onto your private property and then teleport them away, immigration will not be a solely private property issue.

Similarly there is not always an absolute right of free association. I cannot associate with convicted murderers whenever I choose. So here I go back to an earlier paragraph “the state has no right to impede peaceful people from traveling where ever they wish”. So I would say a state can at the very least restrict access to non-peaceful people.

Let the right one in

I talked above about Romanians in Europe. To be completely fair, plenty of Romanians went West with mischief on their minds and some locals were rightfully annoyed. Especially in small towns and villages in which people were not used to rude, loud foreigners making a mess and stealing whatever they can. Romanians eating sunflower seeds and drinking beer on the street while spiting the seed husks is not something a Swiss mountain town wants to see – although these can be mere tourists, not immigrants. So the problem here can be simply of generalizing immigrants, not all immigrants. Some Romanians are, I assume, good people.

So I can say that a government may restrict access of people with high probability to engage in violent or illegal acts, or deport those who do engage. Another class of people with restricted access beyond the violent may be the very diseased. A government may refuse access to people with dangerous, contagious diseases.

I find it difficult to make the freedom of association argument for completely open borders, let any and all in just in case I might want to associate with one of them. One solution to the freedom of association standard might be a resident should vouch for immigrants he want to associate with, a member of community with skin in the game and possibility of redress of wrongdoing.

In a world of government welfare – which I am not happy about the locals getting but there at least is some limit to them – and in which government does not properly protect the locals from immigrants, open immigration will not work. A main argument against this along the lines of two wrongs do not make a make right argument, or just because we have welfare does not mean we should restrict immigration. I do not agree with this argument. If a needs b to work, then you can’t have a before b, is my view. So yes, in libertopia immigration self regulates. To a point. Rapist and thieves may want to come anyway, but they would be dealt with without all the politics involved in current governments. We do not live in libertopia.

To be clear, I am not saying build a wall or kick all immigrants out. I am for as much immigration as possible within limits of safety, with some clear rules. No criminals would be a basic one. You cannot really bring the thieves of the world to your country. It is not in order to protect jobs, not racial or cultural purity. Just keeping a certain control of dangerous criminal elements is not too much to ask. You can still get all the good people you need while restricting the very violent. And I would also add no government aid to new immigrants for at least a couple of years in which they earn income and pay taxes. Giving no aid at all is not an option.

Ok, thoughts? Let me have it in the comments. (I did write this post because my last few were kind of light on the comments, and it is sort of an experiment to see if I can get an good old fashioned argument going like on you know which site.)

February 14, 2018
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.

There 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.

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.

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.

February 13, 2018
It works every time.

Every once in a while, I draw inspiration from the audience. None of you have steered me wrong.

This is my review of Earthquake High Gravity Lager…

Okay. One of you did. I’m not about to start pointing fingers, because its more fun for me to wait until the end.

A primer on Malt Liquor: Brooklyn, the 1970’s

This is a dream, man. A man’s dream. A man named Don Vultaggio At the time he had nothing but a VW, an underserved market, and a dream.

“Vultaggio began delivering malt liquor. This was a dangerous job — so dangerous, in fact, that the breweries’ own truck drivers refused to do it, which is the opening Vultaggio wanted to exploit. He braved stickups and shoot-outs. He hauled cheaper product from upstate wholesalers back into the city, because gas was 30 cents a gallon, and the hassle paid well.”

Relax, this gets better.

“One little fly-by-night distribution operation became a $2 billion beverage empire that now makes everything from malt liquor and flavored malt beverages, to beer, to — wait for it — AriZona Iced Tea.”

True story. Arizona Ice Tea is not a product of Arizona. Actual people from Arizona, that is, the 10-20% of the population that are actually from here, are fully aware it is made in New York. Like that terrible salsa from San Antonio, and their sales pitch– New York City!

You probably know where this is going.

“Ultimately, marketers failed to convince the white bourgeois that malt liquor was the new drink of the white bourgeois. But they did convince someone, albeit unintentionally. The word bubbled up the supply chain, from corner store, to distributor, to brewer, and finally to marketing departments: malt liquor is selling well in black neighborhoods. No one knew exactly why. It wasn’t cheaper than regular beer (that would come in the late ’80s, when Schlitz, then the market leader, undercut the competition and triggered the whole category’s slide from premium to bottom shelf). And the messaging was still white as all hell — in fact, a marketing study from the era suggests that malt liquor’s upper-class packaging may have been a contributing factor to its appeal to black customers, though this is no easy thing to corroborate.”

Alas, I could continue to give you excerpts of this article. I am not going to do that. Am I that lazy? Yes. This article though should be of interest to anyone that values capitslism. After all, it never matters who you sell it to. It matters that you sold it.

“malt liquor’s fortunes have been entangled with America’s sorest social bugbears, from race, to class, to poverty, to whether or not capitalism ought to give a shit about any of those things.”

In spite of the halfhearted attempt to SJW, this article is actually pretty good. Read the whole thing.

So how is Eathquake? It pretty bad. I’m not about to indulge myself in its flat body. Its bitter sweet taste and its nose that reminds me of the bathroom in the gas station. There is no redeeming quality about it. It’s made with enzymes that break down the malt to allow the industrial grade yeast to process the sugar as a monosaccharide. This is depression, and squalor in a can. If it were possible to take being a New York Jets fan, distill it, bottle it, distribute it, market it and ultimately sell it–I imagine it would taste like this. Ultimately, everyone will need a drink from time to time, and at least this one it honest enough that all we will know is that it will do its job–and nothing else. Earthquake Malt Liquor 1.5/5.

This is your fault. I blame you.

Hat Tip: This sick, twisted man.

February 10, 2018
The Party is Over in Illinois

Things are not good in the Land of Lincoln and believe it or not, they’re only getting worse. Illinois already has the lowest credit rating of any state in the union (BBB- according to S&P and BBB3 according to Moody’s), along with having the dubious distinction of being the only state in the union to ever have a credit rating so low. Coupled with this, the State continues to run deficits (with its deficits representing roughly 10% of its total revenues), along with having a backlog of bills in the hundreds of billions (for comparison, the State’s total operating fund revenues total roughly $60 billion), and having several woefully underfunded pension plans (the liabilities are conservatively estimated to total $100 billion). Despite all this, though, recent news suggests that today may be remembered as better times in the State’s history.

Most likely future state of the State

The State is now floating an idea to issue $100 billion in new bonds in order to shore-up its pension plans. Essentially, the State is hoping that it can issue taxable debt (pension bonds are not tax exempt) and invest it in stocks and corporate bonds (which are the bulk of the underlying assets in a pension plan) and achieve a return greater than the interest payments on that debt. This is utter insanity.

At the State’s current rating category, the taxable bond interest rate on such debt would be roughly 4%, which is a lazy estimate and assumes that the issuance of such debt would not automatically trigger rating agencies to downgrade the State to ‘junk bond status’ (the State’s BBB- and BBB3 ratings are currently just one step above ‘junk’). More likely than not, the State will have to pay an interest rate well above 4%, particularly since such a large debt issuance would only attract a very small segment of the market (more supply than demand equals higher interest rates for the issuer). But, even assuming a 4% interest rate, the State will have to come up with roughly $4 billion in interest payments each year (again, this is a lazy estimate and does not account for several factors and the interest payment will likely be larger). Remember, the money from this debt issuance is suppose to be invested in its pension plans, therefore even if the returns on this investment exceeds 4% on a yearly basis (which is likely in the near term) that money is just reinvested into the plans- the State cannot access those funds. Additionally, the State is hoping that its interest payments will be less than the annual pension contributions that the State is required to make. At a 4% interest rate (which, again is a very conservative estimate) the interest payments would be slightly less than the required annual pension contributions, however the State will have no flexibility with regards to making these interest payments. With annual pension payments the State has the ability to reduce or not make such payments (which has occurred too often in the past and has resulted in the underfunding of the pension plans), but interest payments cannot be missed. So in order for the State to ensure adequate revenues to make regularly scheduled interest payments it must raise taxes.

Last time, we swear!

The State of Illinois just raised its income tax rate in 2017. The City of Chicago, the State’s largest municipality, has also been on a tax raising spree and will be raising taxes even more going forward. And on a completely unrelated note, I’m sure, while these tax increases have been occurring Cook County (the second most populous county in the country and home to Chicago) has been losing more residents than any county in America; the City of Chicago has been losing residents (more than any other major city in the country), and the State of Illinois has been losing residents (more than any other state in the country). People vote with their feet and they’re leaving the Land of Lincoln.

Many seem to take this road, lately…

Not to worry, though, while the State’s financial position spirals out of control Republican governor Bruce Rauner and the Democratic majority in the General Assembly have been focused on the important issues (cosmotarian moment!, because reduce government spending, but not woke spending) What’s the point of bankrupting a State if you can’t approve more spending on culture war issues? Somehow, I don’t think this spending will improve the State’s population decline.

Whether these pension bonds are issued or not, the fact that the State is floating such an idea suggests that cost cutting reform is not being considered. This means that Illinois is irrevocably broken. No change in political leadership, whether in the legislature, or in the executive, can salvage the situation – this problem has long festered under both Republicans and Democrats. This is a tragedy of the State’s own making, more than anything. And though I fully expect Congress to discuss an ‘Illinois bailout’ within the next ten years, this misery should only be borne by the Illinois electorate and the poor decisions that it continued to make in the voting booth. Let this be a lesson to the rest of the country.

February 7, 2018
Wessen Bein Muss Ich Bücken?
Even though I don’t particularly care for this style, perhaps there should be more to this series than what I like. So recently, I came across this:

Hold up, I have a pair of Under Armour leggings I used to wear when I ran outside in Colorado, let me see if they still fit.

*squeezes into tight pants*

No. You GTFO.

Then this happened.

That’s not a knife, this is a knife!

Then things predictably got out of hand.

*orders knife*

This is my review of Wessterhuffenphasterphallenhoffeersheissen’s Hefeweissbier.

HT: DEG, MikeS, Q Continuum and Hayeksplovises

M’am

Hefeweiss is the predominant German style wheat beer. There are other varieties of course, depending on the region, but for most of us this is the one that comes to mind when the term, “German wheat beer” comes up in conversation. People like this, apparently. I am not one of those people. Why?

It tastes like banana. I don’t like bananas. The semi-sugary taste, the texture, the fact that none of my kids can open the damn things and will go through a bunch of them in a day. This sentiment was developed well before the CHM 235 Organic Chemistry course taught by what I later found out to be a really awesome professor. Think (((special forces))) awesome, but wouldn’t give anyone a definitive answer. For the lab part of this course, my lab partner and I were given several bananas. The project was to extract and isolate an organic compound called an ester from the fruit.

Most of it involved smashing up bananas into a paste, then putting the paste into a press. Then squeezing the liquid out of the paste. Then vaporizing the liquid multiple times through a distillation column, to extract a weapons grade distillate of Isoamyl Acetate–or Banana Oil in English. It went fine until my lab partner managed to spill the vial on me. The grad student in charge of the lab saw the whole thing so I didn’t lose any points for failing a simple distillation. Not that there was no other way I could prove it was spilled on me. The bad part was when I went to work immediately after the lab. At the time I worked the sporting goods counter at the local Wal-Mart. The clientele was the predictable group of rednecks.
- “Hey kid, why do you smell like a monkey?”
- “Mother of Christ.”
- “Can you write that that mountain lion tag for yesterday?”
- “I’m not gay or anything, but you smell really nice.”
- “We fielded a few complaints. Were going to go ahead and pay your remaining hours for the day. Go home.”
Predictably, this tastes like every Top.Men-compliant hefeweizen out of Germany: banana with a twist of lemon. If you’re into that, have at it. Wessterhuffenphasterphallenhoffeersheissen’s Hefeweissbier 2.0/5

Not to be outdone, others have tried to take this style to new and interesting places. Only one on this list was available in my area:

If you are looking for a traditional Top.Men approved ale, keep looking. It has significantly less body and you’ll probably say they over hopped it and should apologize to the German people for such an atrocity. For me, it doesn’t taste so much like banana, so it’s not so bad. Lagunitas Little Sumpin Ale. 2.2/5
February 3, 2018
State of the Union Open Thread

It’s no secret that I’m somewhat less than enamored of Donald Trump as a person, and not terribly impressed with him as a president (‘better than Hillary” is not exactly a glowing encomium). But there’s ONE thing he could do which would cause me to admire him. Yes, not give a SOTU speech, complete with props (human and inanimate) and stagecraft, but revert back to the previous custom of literally mailing it in. But keeping Trump away from the spotlight is akin to getting between Gloria Allred and a TV camera, so that’s not going to happen.

So, given the inevitable, here’s a chance for you, the wise and always entertaining Glibertariat, to give your thoughts beforehand and as it happens.

Virginia Postrel would be proud.

January 30, 2018
Lindemann’s Kreik Lambic

In my family, real estate is sort of a big deal. Since we all know what happened to the housing market in 2008, we began doing something every year for Christmas: we drew names. Ultimately this meant I only had to buy a single gift but it did mean I was also receiving a single gift. This year, my brother got me and while it really was thoughtful of him to get what he got me–I already had one. Semper paratus as they say, he had the receipt handy: Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Shit. At least they sell beer in the “beyond” section.

This is my review of Lindemann’s Kriek Lambic.

Lambic is among the oldest styles of beer, but do not confuse this to mean these are in any sense of the word, primitive. On the palate these are as complex as they come, with several diverse sub-styles. To get a good idea of how old these may be, the painting below titled, Peasant Wedding from around 1567 suggests, people have been enjoying Lambic for centuries.

It’s a style believed to have originated in Belgium around the time of the Roman conquest. The Germanic tribes viewed the wine made by Mediterranean cultures to be effeminate, which even now seems to be an opinion held by many, though not me personally. The earliest known account was from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, while travelling to the region he ordered a pitcher at a local pub. He took a liking to the lambic and had several servings from the pitcher, and apparently harassed the blonde waitress. Man of the people, he was.

But like everything else these days, there seem to be conflicting reports. According to this guy, there is no specific evidence that lambics existed before the 18th century. There is nothing medieval about this beer other than the stoneware Belgians used. It is a myth perpetuated mostly by lazy beer writers who don’t know what they’re talking about and sure enough, the misconception is the story that stuck.

The commonality between the stories is what I can assume isn’t fake news. What is common? Lambics are a type of sour beer that is defined by its spontaneous fermentation. That is, the brewers will put the casks outside to allow and even siphon wild yeast and bacteria into the wort to do the dirty work. Modern lambics are not made with a biochemist on staff with some GMO yeast strain in a test tube. It’s as natural as it gets without isolating a strain from a brewmaster’s hipster beard (Rogue), or even a yeast pulled from some lady’s yoo hoo.

No, seriously. A lab in Poland swabbed and isolated the strain from a Czech model. If I told you they swabbed her, would you drink it?

Much like wine and whiskey (or whisky for your Canadians), lambics are often blended with other lambics to allow for varying levels of complexity. Charles V himself was likely served a blend with a sweeter variety to make it more palatable. These can be served like champagne, and the sour varieties are great to pair with food because they do well to cleanse the palate. This one is made with sour cherries, hence the name Kreik. Others made by Lindemann include strawberry, raspberry (framboise), black currants (cassis), and peaches (peche). This one is more tart than sour and is very light. If you happen to like cherries, you’ll like this one. Lindeman’s Kreik Lambic 4.0/5.

January 27, 2018
Firearms Friday: SHOT Show MEGAPOST
I have returned, brave glibs! Certain real life circumstances have kept me away from the site, but know that I am always here, watching, waiting, and ready to talk about guns for hours on end. SHOT Show finished off today. For those that don’t know, SHOT Show is the biggest firearms trade show on earth. It is where all the big (and small) manufacturers gather to show off their newest toys. Unfortunately, my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail so I was not able to attend in person, but I have been scouring the tubes looking for the biggest gun news to share to you, our loyal shitposters. So, without further delay, here are the biggest stories from SHOT 2018:
- Probably the biggest shakeup of the show was Franklin Armory’s debut of a gun they call ‘The Reformation’. It’s an 11.5″ barreled fully functional AR with a stock and does not require a NFA tax stamp. People were freaking out about this thing for at least a week before the show. It turns out that the secret is a pretty big let down: it has a straight rifled barrel. This means the bullets don’t come out spinning. For those wondering, yes, that gives it terrible accuracy. They claim something like 4 moa at 50 yards before it starts keyholing. They also claim they are working with ammo manufacturers to create finned bullets specifically for this design. If it works, we could (possibly) see a major change in firearms production as companies make special non NFA sbrs with straight rifling. Most likely scenario? This thing becomes the gyrojet of the 21st century. Only time will tell.
- On a significantly less disappointing note, Ruger has come out swinging with their ‘new’ PC Carbine. It’s a traditional looking rifle chambered in 9mm that can take either SR series magazines or Glock magazines with a simple adapter change, and the adapter is included. The gun is fully reversible for right or left hand operation, and it even breaks down into 2 parts for transport and storage. Those of you that have been around guns for awhile probably remember Ruger making a very similar gun called the police carbine, hence the quotes around new. This is basically an updated version of the same gun. This thing is a real winner, and there is a very good chance I will be picking one up in the near future.
- IWI dropped a bombshell this year by debuting it’s new TS 12 bullpup 12 gauge shotgun. It has a fixed 15 round magazine consisting of three separate 5 round tubes that can be loaded from either side. Once the selected tube is empty, simply rotate the magazine and snap the next 5 rounds in place. Not a perfect solution but it might be good enough. It’s going to be an expensive AF shotgun, but we will have to see if it’s worth the coin. Between this and the new Tavor 7, I might have to sell some of my concubines.
- It has finally happened. A company has made a housing for the P320 FCG that turns it into a sbr style pistol. Called the EXO ONE, it is sure to put me even further into debt.
- Century has decided to jump on board the 9mm gravy train with it’s new Draco NAK9 pistol. It is a blowback 9mm AK style pistol that takes Glock mags. Do want.
- Not to be outdone, CZ has come out with the Scorpion Micro. Sporting a 4 inch barrel and a collapsible ~~stock~~ brace, this looks like quite a nice little, uh… ‘pistol’ for your truck or other tight space.
- This is quickly becoming the year of the 9mm and the 12 gauge. Mossberg and Remington have both come out with magazine fed 12 gauge pump guns. The Mossberg ones are slightly more interesting seeing as how the magazine are actually double stack. This allows them to hold considerably more ammo without sticking out freakishly long below the gun. Is the era of the tube fed shotgun coming to an end? Could be…
- Strike industries has developed an AR magazine that will eject itself on the last round fired. I can see this becoming the go to standard magazine for 3 gun matches. No word on pricing or availability yet. I am anxiously awaiting their arrival.
- Palmetto State Armory is going into production with an AK pattern 9mm carbine that takes… MP5 magazines? Huh. Well A for originality on that one. They also plan on releasing a 5.56 AK that takes AR mags and a 9mm AK that accepts Glock mags, proving that they haven’t completely lost their minds. Much more interestingly, they also are working on producing their own in house MP5 clones; however, those will not be available anytime soon.
- However, PSA might be out of luck on their MP5 clones cause PTR just beat them to it.
- Sig has officially announced you will be able to buy the M17 on the civilian market, ensuring a steady consumer base of up and coming Call Of Duty neckbeards for generations. They also introduced a slim frame subcompact 9mm with a 10 round capacity called the P365.
- Attention Canada: You can now purchase Glock 19s! The Canadian legal Glock 19 has a slightly longer barrel to comply with your retarded barrel length laws. You’re welcome.
- And last, but not least, my favorite handgun company Walther has finally release the PPQ Subcompact. Took you guys long enough.
That is all for now, my loyal readers. As for when I shall return, I cannot say. But know this: When the future is darkest, when the world needs me the most, I shall return. Until then, I will always be watching through my magnified red dot.
January 26, 2018
What Are We Reading – January 2018

Riven

Well, I sort of stalled out on The Skinner by Neal Asher so I could read this instead. It’s very exciting and so far it’s taking up all my valuable Zelda playing time. Just kidding–I make time for the important things, and saving Hyrule is pretty far up there. But don’t ever study for the FINRA exams, kids. Not even once. At least I have this to read for leisure, thanks to a certain Swiss Servator who drew my name in the Christmas gift exchange. It’s actually been very interesting in the first four chapters, as there has been no mention of schtupping yet, nor any guides or the like. Truly, it’s all philosophy in the first four or five chapters; namely, the importance of that particular aspect of your life. There was an entire chapter on what women should learn (and continue to learn with the consent of their husbands, once they use these skills to attract and retain one), and it was definitely not what you would expect. “Magic (sorcery), carpentry, architecture, chemistry, knowledge of war, the art of cock fighting,” and many more that you really would expect–singing, danging, playing instruments, and doing all three at the same time, for examples. I’ve not finished it yet, since is strictly “wind-down-before-bed-after-abusing-my-eyes-with-S65” material, but based on what I have read so far, I’d say it’s worth picking up. Get yourself an illustrated guide and give it a look! (Who knows, you might even read it one day.)

Gojira

I’m currently reading The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers, and The Three Imposters, by Arthur Machen. I picked up this fantastic annotated volume of Lovecraft, and was in the mood for more weird fiction. Seriously, if you love Lovecraft, this is the one you need. The annotations are so detailed you sometimes lose yourself reading several pages of run-on notes and forget where you were in the actual story. And the forward is by noted magician, author, anarchist, and complete maniac Alan Moore!

Old Man With Candy

I’m reading a slick piece of non-fiction called Metalworking Fluids, by Jerry Byers. This shows you what an exciting life I lead. The chapter about anticorrosion additives warmed my heart, but I found the chapter on contact dermatitis somewhat irritating. Beg, borrow or steel a copy.

Joe Haldeman rarely disappoints, but The Coming did. When you get to the surprise ending, you’ll think, “That’s what I figured out on Page 10.” It’s set in Future Florida, where everything is fucked up because of global warming and has a few interesting characters tossed into a totally formulaic story. Haldeman does a cute writing gimmick bypassing of the POV between characters in a sequential way (i.e., A has the point of view and interacts with B, the next chapter has B’s POV as he or she interacts with C, and so on). Not enough to rescue a limp effort.

And guilty pleasure: I hadn’t read The Sum of All Fears in about 20 years, so I thought, “Let’s see how this has aged.” Not well. Still, it’s a technical gem from an assembly standpoint that must have taken a massive effort to plot out and in true guilty pleasure fashion, I admit that I’m enjoying it.

JW

I’ve branched out in my reading and am now including fruit juice jars. OMWC sent me a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap, but after 5 minutes or so, my lips got tired.

SP

I’m working semi-diligently on learning Italian. HM pointed out that I already learned one language, so I can, in fact, learn a new language…in spite of my previous failures to learn a second language. I’m using Duolingo. It seems to be working. I no longer need to translate the social media posts from my Italian art-world friends and I have recently found myself dreaming in Italian.

So this month I’m reading Italian Short Stories for Beginners. The first story is about a businessman who frequents saunas after work.

I’m also tackling the chaos in the non-public areas of my home. Again. This time, I’m trying the advice of Real Life Organizing: Clean and Clutter-Free in 15 Minutes A Day. It’s inspirational, really. “You don’t have to actually be an organized person to live like one.” Most horrifying tip: take “before” photos of your space to really see how bad it is since we become inured to the reality over time and block stuff out. This is eye-opening. And, did I mention, horrifying? I’m making some progress, though!

Also dipping into Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, 2nd Edition prior to starting GlibFit next week. I really like co-author Ray Cronise and read pretty much everything he writes. So, this will be my second try at a plant-based way of eating, for health reasons. Hope it sticks this time; it really did help me feel somewhat better the last time I was doing it. (This is not medical advice of any kind. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one online. YMMV.)

mexican sharpshooter

At the suggestion of another Glib (HT: Sour Kraut) I picked up How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It. Sorry about insulting the Scots. Honestly, if they didn’t want to be insulted, they wouldn’t talk so funny.

jesse.in.mb

Accidentally read a cursed scroll of confuse monster over Thanksgiving weekend, and will be functionally illiterate for at most another 32 turns.

SugarFree

I worked my way through the massive, exhaustive Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen Since the 1960s by Kim Newman. Updated twice since its initial publication in 1984, Newman’s deep dive into horror, thrillers and hybrids like SF-horror eschews well-examined films like Alien and Halloween to focus on smaller niche moves and grindhouse fare. Newman’s prose is breezy yet not flippant and keeps the sub-genre focused chapters moving along to contextualize and critique styles like giallo and Hammer Films gothic horror well-enough for even a casual horror fan to understand. Much like his Apocalypse Movies: End of the World Cinema (1999), I came away with dozens of movies added to my watch list and just as many to re-watch. Newman does come at horror from a British perspective; for a more American (and especially grindhouse) focused work, try Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents by Stephen Thrower.

January 26, 2018
Nothing. Left. to. Cut.

I have this ongoing conversation with the wife. She works for the federal government here in Canuckistan, and I’ve worked on a few government contracts over the years. I walk the delicate line of telling her that, while I respect what she does, there’s no reason that the government should do it. Which is not to say that it should not be done, just that it could be done through other means.

At least it wasn’t unintentionally left blank…

I’ve posited that you could cut the size of the federal government here by 60% and hardly anyone would notice. How would I do it? First, cut the 20% of programs that no one will miss. I’ve worked on some of these projects in the past. On one, I was working on a public-facing website to provide data ostensibly for “the public good”, at a cost of millions of dollars. One day, one of my colleagues got the idea to pull the website statistics to see how often and from where it was being accessed. Turns out, in the previous year, it had been accessed exactly twice from IP addresses outside of the department. Hardly anyone would miss that program.

Second, I’m sure that there’s 20% savings to be found by cutting bureaucratic overhead. When the wife tells me about her day, most of it relates to how she’s working against the bureaucracy to try to get her job done. In my small consulting business, I’ve increasingly moved away from doing federal government contracts – the overhead is just too much. It’s much cheaper and faster to find and perform work for private clients.

Third, I’d cut 20% of the people. If you look around your own workplace, you can identify a certain percentage of people who don’t pull their weight, or worse, contribute negatively. You know, the ones who are constantly at cross-purposes with the rest of the team, or the ones who spend all of their time commenting on Glibertarians.com, or the ones who just aren’t good at their jobs. I once led a team on which I didn’t have the authority to hire and fire (yeah, it sucked). I spent inordinate amounts of time trying to get contributions from non-performers. Then, one day, I just stopped. I ignored them. And, you know what? Our productivity went up. Strange, that. It happens everywhere, but the existence of public-sector unions exacerbates this situation.

I wouldn’t do it all at once. I’d do it gradually, say over 12 years. I think that doing it more gradually would lessen the degree to which people would notice it (which is, hardly at all).

Anyhoo, in the case of the U.S. federal government, I came across this neat-o website that breaks down U.S. federal government spending (I’m actually shocked that it’s a .gov website because it’s pretty well done). According to it, the U.S. government spent $3.85 trillion last year. I started looking at it like a minarchist softball coach, and here’s what I came up with:

Social Security: $916.1B (23.0%) – CUT

National Defense: $595.3B (14.9%) – CUT to $584.6B
I opted to keep national defense spending, except for “Defense-related activities”, which sounds an awful lot like a slush fund for defense contractors. If you eliminate foreign interventions and limit spending to national defense, this number should be much lower. Since I’m not getting that fine-grained in this analysis, let’s leave it for now.

Medicare: $594.5B (14.9%) – CUT

Income Security: $514.7B (12.9%) – CUT to $144.8B
Here, I’ve eliminated everything except federal employee retirement and disability. If you’ve already made those commitments to your employees, then you’ve got to keep them.

Health: $511.3B (12.8%) – CUT

Net Interest: $240.7B (6.0%) – KEEP
You gotta pay the bank. Although there’s something to be said for the government skipping out on loan repayments and tanking their credit rating so that they can’t borrow any more. Picture your favorite congresscritter walking into a pawn shop or payday loans joint.

Veterans Benefits and Services: $174.5B (4.4%) – CUT to $167.2B (4.2%)
Here, I cut “Other veterans benefits and services”, because it sounds like more government cheese for contractors. In general, I think that you should look after military vets, to the extent that they can be injured during their service, but I’m sure that there’s more here to cut. For example, the largest slice of this category is $86.8B for “Income security for veterans”; most of the veterans I know are eminently employable.

Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services: $108.1B (2.7%) – CUT

Transportation: $92.9B (2.3%) – CUT

Administration of Justice: $57.1B (1.4%) – CUT to $52.1B
This is one of the fundamental roles of government, although if you end the war on drugs, I’m sure you could cut a bunch here, too. I did cut $5.0B for “Criminal justice assistance”, which is described as transfers to state and local governments for something or other.

International Affairs: $45.3B (3.5%) – CUT to $13.9B
Here, I’ve cut out everything except “Conduct of foreign affairs”. The rest looks like cash that will end up in the pockets of the Mugabes of the world.

Natural Resources and Environment: $37.8B (1.0%) – CUT to $26.6B
Honestly, I don’t know what most of this actually is. Maybe it’s within the domain of government, and maybe not. But “Other natural resources” (slush fund) and “Recreational resources” sure aren’t.

General Science, Space, and Technology: $30.2B (0.8%) – CUT

Community and Regional Development: $21.2B (0.5%) – CUT

Agriculture: $20.1B (0.5%) – CUT

General Government: $18.6B (0.5%) – CUT to $11.9B
Here, I’ve cut “General purpose fiscal assistance” and “Other general government” as slush funds.

Energy: $3.7B (0.1%) – CUT to $0.2B
Here, I’ve cut everything except “Emergency energy preparedness”.

So, let’s add everything up here. Let’s see … carry the 1 … Sweet Feathery Jesus, it’s worse than I thought. We’re down to $1.28 trillion, or to about 33% of the current budget. And, I’m fully aware that there’s still lots of waste in there.

Earlier, I stated that most people wouldn’t notice if you cut the government by that much. Sure, some of the things that I’ve cut here would be noticed by people, but this is analysis is really only about cutting program spending, not eliminating bureaucracy and ineffective people. You know what people would notice? More money in their pockets. You’re welcome! I’m sure your rebate checks are already in the mail.

January 23, 2018