Documenting the stupidity that is the TSA, OHS, and related other bureaucratic bunglements.
Warning: learning just how f'ing stupid the government is may cause hilarity, depression, or both.
This is government's message to industry: if you do business with us, we will rip you off. Same goes for consumers and citizens.
Yep! I figure if a starry-eyed young Socialist like John Stossel can go from believing that the Government should protest people, to believing that only private enterprise can protect people... well, there may be hope for us.
As state monopolies always do sooner or later, the school system in question finds it most expedient to deal with this situation by stealing resources from those who have traded freely with it up to that point.
I expect this kind of behavior out of socialist states like Venezuela, Brazil, and the People's Republic of California. Which is one of the reasons I emigrated from CA to the Free State of New Hampshire.
Honest question: Is the federal government going to pay as much attention to this New Hampshire law as it does to California's medical marijuana law?
Correct.
The thing is, the medical MJ laws involve citizens doing something the Feds view as illegal. So they send in their armed thugs. In the case of Real-ID, the Feds simply won't accept a NH driver's license as "identification." So, if you need to show your ID to enter a Federal building, airplane, or whatever, you'll either need to produce a passport, have an alternate option (ie, "secondary search"), or simply be denied entry. The legislature is fully aware of this and debated it at length. It's considered to be a small price to pay.
Yeah, The Free State Project is going to work. It's going to make our government listen to us again.
I'd say getting "us" elected and becoming the government is the only realistic way that will happen... and that's exactly what we're doing, on the local and state level. (Well, and on the national level too if Ron Paul wins -- see Ron Paul at the FSP Liberty Forum)
Compared to a theoretical ideal, New Hampshire is abject tyranny.
Compared to states like Massachusetts, Illinois, and California, it is shockingly free.
Compared to states like Texas and Alaska, it's a matter of debate and personal tastes -- whether, say, taxes piss you off more than marijuana laws, or vice-versa.
One last time: the assertion is not that New Hampshire is free; it's that it is amendable, by virtue of both culture and legislative structure, to being made free.
Oh yeah, and for 2nd-amendment types... the whole state is open-carry without any license, and concealed-carry licenses are on a "shall-issue" basis. Here's the NH Gun FAQ; and more entertainingly, here's what happened when some do-gooders in the Senate tried to make even the tiniest change to that shall-issue concealed-carry law. More video of that fun day is here
Oh yeah, and a few weeks ago NH became one of only 4 states in the USA to allow same-sex civil unions. We are the only state to have done so purely on the initiative of the legislature, and not as the result of any lawsuit.
Well let's see... NH has no sales tax, no income tax, is the only state without a mandatory seat-belt law, is constitutionally prohibited from using eminent domain for private developments, has far less regulation on trades than most other states, just a few weeks ago passed an industrial hemp bill, and a few weeks before that came within 7 votes of passing a medical marijuana bill in the House of Representatives.
But all that is missing the point; it's not to say that NH is already "free"; if it were, there'd be no point in a Free State Project, now, would there? The point is that the structure of government here is amazing open and accessible, and the culture is already liberty-oriented.
If you'd like some details about why NH was a good choice as the target state, I suggest you read this PDF.
Well, there were over 1,300 bills considered by the NH State legislature last year. What is "a few" volunteers? We had 50 people read all of those bills and rate them on a standardized liberty score.
We then had people attending the public hearings of the highest-impact bills, and basically acting as pro-liberty advocates (or "unpaid volunteer lobbyists", if you like)
The next step of course is to get tens of thousands of copies of the Report Card printed and have them placed by nearly every polling place in the State in Nov 2008.
I maintain you just can't do that effectively with just 'a few' people. There really is a lot of value-add in having a concentration of people who appreciate freedom all in one place.
In New Hampshire, target of the Free State Project, it is not just about money. The Federal government can dump as much cash on us as they want and we still are bound by law not to comply.
The exact wording of the bill that Governor Lynch is expected to sign this week or next says: [T]he public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America. Therefore, the state of New Hampshire shall not participate in any driver's license program pursuant to the Real ID Act of 2005 or in any national identification card system that may follow therefrom.
By the way, if click on the generalcourt.org link above, you'll notice that each legislator has a "liberty grade." Just like in school, from "A" thru "F" -- the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance rates each and every one of the 400 State Representatives, based on how the actually vote on freedom-related bills, every year. Just one of the many things that become possible as a critical mass of pro-liberty activists concentrate on a single state.
By the way... one of the sponsors of the bill, Rep. Winters, is a Free-Stater -- check his acceptance speech
I love Perl and have coded in Perl almost exclusively for nearly a decade.
I think Perl has failed to deliver on Perl6/Parrot. Perl5.x has some great features, but they're pretty hacked-up.
Perl has pointers (references), structs (hashrefs), is extensible (XS) and OO (close enough for government work).
If you want something portable, and you find that Java is inflexible, resource-hungry, and has all the comfort of a well-worn straightjacket, use Perl and you'll do great.
I wonder how many people will give up their secret security freeze number to phishers?
Bingo! Laws don't fix problems. No amount of words on paper will make phishers go away. No penalty, no matter how draconian, will change the fact that some people will attempt to defraud others. All more laws do is create more red tape, more bureaucracy, and necessitate that more taxes be spent.
The problem is, legislators and the average voter don't understand this about laws -- they think that the world can be made a batter place, if only we put just the right words on paper. It's a vicious cycle of laws and more laws created by clueless politicians empowered by clueless voters.
In my opinion, the only realistic hope for breaking out of this vicious cycle is to concentrate people who understand this in one place. People who believe laws should not be enacted to protect us from ourselves. Which is why I moved to New Hampshire.
Here's the deal:
Laws don't make criminals go away. Ever.
All this proposed law would do, is shut out the small-time criminals, and ensure that only large operations with (say) $50,000 to spend and a front organization can do the phishing.
The hard fact is, the free market is the only long-term way to ensure that criminals are outed efficiently.
Actually the "prequel" Dune books by Brian Herbert are really good. To my surprise, I liked Buterian Jihad, Machine Crusade, and Battle of Corrin a lot. Highly recommended. The cymeks are cool >:)
(pre-) Teen-agers. Surprisingly, these are NOT the overwhelming majority.
Corporations hoping SL is "The Next Big Thing". In some places, you can hardly find an actual person, for all the corporate entities. They open "virtual" stores to enhance their brand. They also have casinos and porno complexes where you can watch "real" pornos. All of which are aimed at trying to make SL virtual-money ("Linden dollars"). Kinda wierd.
Geeks. People like me. They usually are either just killing time, or have a "message" they want to get out, and hope SL is a good medium.
To the latter end, there is the Gimme Liberty Bar (here is the SL teleport URL). There's also a listening party there every night except Sundays, 7-10PM Eastern time. Pretty whacked-out. You can also pick up some free (as in beer) clothes and virtual pets there, and watch freedom-oriented videos.
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I couldn't have said it better myself. Then again, actions speak louder than words -- I moved all the way from California to New Hampshire, for similar reasons.
Here in the Free State of New Hampshire, we recently enacted a law banning automated license plate scanning. That, in conjunction with the fact that we just opted out of the Federal Real-ID program (video), makes New Hampshire a pretty good place to go if you're concerned about privacy.
And for those in California, there's the VERY cool CA Extreme show, coming up August 11-12.
Documenting the stupidity that is the TSA, OHS, and related other bureaucratic bunglements.
Warning: learning just how f'ing stupid the government is may cause hilarity, depression, or both.
Two words:
Government Program
Yep! I figure if a starry-eyed young Socialist like John Stossel can go from believing that the Government should protest people, to believing that only private enterprise can protect people... well, there may be hope for us.
I expect this kind of behavior out of socialist states like Venezuela, Brazil, and the People's Republic of California. Which is one of the reasons I emigrated from CA to the Free State of New Hampshire.
Correct.
The thing is, the medical MJ laws involve citizens doing something the Feds view as illegal. So they send in their armed thugs. In the case of Real-ID, the Feds simply won't accept a NH driver's license as "identification." So, if you need to show your ID to enter a Federal building, airplane, or whatever, you'll either need to produce a passport, have an alternate option (ie, "secondary search"), or simply be denied entry. The legislature is fully aware of this and debated it at length. It's considered to be a small price to pay.
Check the speech that was given on the NH House floor. I swear, it gives me goosebumps!
I'd say getting "us" elected and becoming the government is the only realistic way that will happen... and that's exactly what we're doing, on the local and state level. (Well, and on the national level too if Ron Paul wins -- see Ron Paul at the FSP Liberty Forum)
Compared to states like Massachusetts, Illinois, and California, it is shockingly free.
Compared to states like Texas and Alaska, it's a matter of debate and personal tastes -- whether, say, taxes piss you off more than marijuana laws, or vice-versa.
One last time: the assertion is not that New Hampshire is free; it's that it is amendable, by virtue of both culture and legislative structure, to being made free.
Anyway, use your favorite map tool to check Portsmouth, NH
May your chains rest upon you lightly.
You're required to have car insurance, if you have a car, in every state I know of
Car insurance, like seat belts, are really good ideas but are not mandated by law in New Hampshire.
Oh yeah, and a few weeks ago NH became one of only 4 states in the USA to allow same-sex civil unions. We are the only state to have done so purely on the initiative of the legislature, and not as the result of any lawsuit.
But all that is missing the point; it's not to say that NH is already "free"; if it were, there'd be no point in a Free State Project, now, would there? The point is that the structure of government here is amazing open and accessible, and the culture is already liberty-oriented.
If you'd like some details about why NH was a good choice as the target state, I suggest you read this PDF.
Well, there were over 1,300 bills considered by the NH State legislature last year. What is "a few" volunteers? We had 50 people read all of those bills and rate them on a standardized liberty score. We then had people attending the public hearings of the highest-impact bills, and basically acting as pro-liberty advocates (or "unpaid volunteer lobbyists", if you like) The next step of course is to get tens of thousands of copies of the Report Card printed and have them placed by nearly every polling place in the State in Nov 2008. I maintain you just can't do that effectively with just 'a few' people. There really is a lot of value-add in having a concentration of people who appreciate freedom all in one place.
The Federal government can dump as much cash on us as they want and we still are bound by law not to comply.
The exact wording of the bill that Governor Lynch is expected to sign this week or next says:
[T]he public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America. Therefore, the state of New Hampshire shall not participate in any driver's license program pursuant to the Real ID Act of 2005 or in any national identification card system that may follow therefrom.
By the way, if click on the generalcourt.org link above, you'll notice that each legislator has a "liberty grade." Just like in school, from "A" thru "F" -- the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance rates each and every one of the 400 State Representatives, based on how the actually vote on freedom-related bills, every year. Just one of the many things that become possible as a critical mass of pro-liberty activists concentrate on a single state.
By the way... one of the sponsors of the bill, Rep. Winters, is a Free-Stater -- check his acceptance speech
One day, everybody will have a digital ID
Not in the Free State of New Hampshire!
Whenever you buy an item at Amazon.com without using an affiliate code, you're throwing money away
Unless, of course, you own AMZN shares ...
I love Perl and have coded in Perl almost exclusively for nearly a decade. I think Perl has failed to deliver on Perl6/Parrot. Perl5.x has some great features, but they're pretty hacked-up. Perl has pointers (references), structs (hashrefs), is extensible (XS) and OO (close enough for government work). If you want something portable, and you find that Java is inflexible, resource-hungry, and has all the comfort of a well-worn straightjacket, use Perl and you'll do great.
Bingo! Laws don't fix problems. No amount of words on paper will make phishers go away. No penalty, no matter how draconian, will change the fact that some people will attempt to defraud others. All more laws do is create more red tape, more bureaucracy, and necessitate that more taxes be spent.
The problem is, legislators and the average voter don't understand this about laws -- they think that the world can be made a batter place, if only we put just the right words on paper.
It's a vicious cycle of laws and more laws created by clueless politicians empowered by clueless voters.
In my opinion, the only realistic hope for breaking out of this vicious cycle is to concentrate people who understand this in one place.
People who believe laws should not be enacted to protect us from ourselves.
Which is why I moved to New Hampshire.
Damn I shoulda checked the links better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
Laws don't make criminals go away. Ever.
All this proposed law would do, is shut out the small-time criminals, and ensure that only large operations with (say) $50,000 to spend and a front organization can do the phishing.
The hard fact is, the free market is the only long-term way to ensure that criminals are outed efficiently.
This is old news to 'net heads, anarcocapitalists, and Free Talk Live listeners.
Actually the "prequel" Dune books by Brian Herbert are really good. To my surprise, I liked Buterian Jihad, Machine Crusade, and Battle of Corrin a lot. Highly recommended. The cymeks are cool >:)
- (pre-) Teen-agers. Surprisingly, these are NOT the overwhelming majority.
- Corporations hoping SL is "The Next Big Thing". In some places, you can hardly find an actual person, for all the corporate entities. They open "virtual" stores to enhance their brand. They also have casinos and porno complexes where you can watch "real" pornos. All of which are aimed at trying to make SL virtual-money ("Linden dollars"). Kinda wierd.
- Geeks. People like me. They usually are either just killing time, or have a "message" they want to get out, and hope SL is a good medium.
To the latter end, there is the Gimme Liberty Bar (here is the SL teleport URL). There's also a listening party there every night except Sundays, 7-10PM Eastern time. Pretty whacked-out. You can also pick up some free (as in beer) clothes and virtual pets there, and watch freedom-oriented videos.