The Intercept: Facebook says it is deleting accounts at the direction of the U.S. and Israeli governments

ABC News: Artificial intelligence is learning from our encounters with nature–and that’s a concern

Economic Times: The fight for privacy in this connected age

Sky News: Surveillance devices hidden in everyday items

The Nation: Russiagate is devolving into an effort to stigmatize dissent

Library of Economics and Liberty: Bombing makes people mad

Cato: Gasoline on a fire: why arms sales to the Ukraine are a really bad idea

The New Republic: The decline of debate on college campuses

Defense News: 2018 Pentagon priority: Speeding up foreign weapons sales

Reason: Three things to like about 2017

Forbes: Big Data: Back to the future

NY Mag: What the NYT UFO story actually reveals

The Guardian: E-cigs are definitely safer than smoking

Forbes: A trip to Alpha Centauri would change the world

Zero Hedge: Pot industry revitalizes entire Canadian town’s economy

The Sun: Psychedelic drug LSD set for comeback as workers turn to ‘microdosing’ to boost brainpower

NYT: Santa is a psychedelic mushroom Ed: Slightly dated but glorious

Toronto Star: U.S. government’s email surveillance survives years after Edward Snowden blew the whistle

StateScoop: Facial recognition technology deployed by feds at 9 airports draws skepticism

Market Insider: AI meets a shopping mall

The Libertarian Republic: Unsealed court docs show how prosecutors tried to rig Bundy trial

Forbes: Let’s never let the Left live down its absurd ‘Net Neutrality’ alarmism

Antiwar.com: JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Liberals getting back in touch with their authoritarian roots

FEE: Is there a link between ADHD and creative thinking?

Vox: This military explosive is poisoning American soil

Slate: It was a big year for AI

Motherboard: ‘Wormwood’ is an LSD-soaked true crime masterpiece

“There’s a reason we separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people.  When the military becomes both, the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”  -William Adama, Battlestar Galactica

Swatting, the act of calling in a fake hostage situation in order have a SWAT team sent to someone’s home, has been a trend among gamers for year, but it hasn’t gotten anyone killed until last night in Wichita, Kansas.  Apparently, a Call of Duty gamer threatened to swat another, so the threatened gamer gave him an address other than his own.  The first gamer called in a hostage situation, a SWAT team arrived, and as the dad answered the door, one cop gunned him down.  Plenty of heat has rightfully been aimed at the gamers for engaging in such a reckless stunt, but not enough blame has been placed on the idiots who actually show up, jacked up on an out-of-control adrenaline high, and let bullets fly.  The cop who pulled the trigger is a seven-year “veteran” of that particular department.  Simply, he should be charged with murder.  The victim was a 28-year old father of two, for chrissake.  It was not a “mistake”, that “will never happen again”. It was plain, clear-cut, murder.  Police should not continue to get away with gunning down fathers, in the way that Philip Brailsford got away with murdering a sobbing, compliant Daniel Shaver in a hotel hallway.

Police are armed agents of the State.  They hold the power of life or death over all of us; therefore they should be controlled as tightly as possible.  When the armed agents of foreign countries murder their own citizens, we are rightfully outraged.  Why not here as well, when it’s our own country?  When an officer misbehaves, abuses his power, murders those he or she is charged with protecting, they should be punished, and most certainly never allowed near a badge and gun again.  Yet most of the police involved in these types of incidents have a history of abuse of power that slowly increases in magnitude, meaning its easy to predict which cop might end up going too far.  Brailsford had a history of roughing up people for no reason, yet he got to keep his badge.  It’s a virtual certainty that the Wichita cop that murdered the young dad on his doorstep had all the warning signs that were ignored by his department.

And to go slightly off the rails, the SWAT team itself should be abolished.  A police force engaging in military cosplay, but with real machine guns, grenades, and tanks, and has no place in a free society.  This same force descending on the homes of the innocent, and everyone is innocent until proven guilty, is a clear marker of a Police State.  And the automatic defense of murderous police appears to be a clear sign of Stockholm Syndrome.

SWAT teams are deployed over 80,000 times each year within our borders.  This means police, armed with weapons appropriate only on a battlefield, kicking down doors, gunning down pets, and generally letting bullets fly any which way.  And with no accountability. Which means it will continue to happen.  Which means more hideous body cam videos like the one depicting Daniel Shaver’s murder by the psychotically calm Brailsford.  It could end now, if only civilians gained control of their police force, the way it should be in a free society.

EFF: Court challenges to NSA surveillance: 2017 in review

Gizmodo Australia: The great data breach disasters of 2017

China Digital Times: China building DNA database by controversial means

Daily Signal: Invasive new airport screenings may put privacy at risk

Techdirt: Prosecutors benefiting most from police body cameras

Also Techdirt: Hawaiian Supreme Court says the First Amendment protects filming the police

National Review: Masterpiece Cakeshop and the slippery slope of anti-discrimination law

Also National Review: Security theater comes to Disney World Resort

The American Conservative: 2017: The year the Left went into eclipse

The Libertarian Institute: Recommendations for police reform

Gadgets Now: 2017: When artificial intelligence outsmarted humans

MIT Tech Review: 2017: The year AI floated into the cloud

Futurism: NASA expert says this is the ultimate test for AI in space exploration

Quartz: Data shows US inventors aren’t just good at science, they also come from rich families

Science Nordic: Can large objects exist in a quantum state?

NPR: How Caribbean pirates hijacked America’s metric system

Mises Institute: Why we read dead economists

Having an odd habit of sticking with a single writer for weeks at a time has its benefits, mainly due to the discovery of gems that would otherwise go unnoticed.  Reading several Nock essays each day for a week gets you through a large chunk of his work, and one of his best is “Prohibition and Civilization“, an essay where Nock describes the ugly sterility of a society that attempts such feats of social control as alcohol prohibition:

“Prohibition, as a policy, has had a great deal of public attention, but the kind of civilization connoted by prohibition has had very little. This is unfortunate, because the general civilization of a community is the thing that really recommends it. The important thing to know about Kansas, for instance, is not the statistics of prohibition—as most writers on the subject seem to think — but whether one would really want to live there, whether the peculiar type of civilization that expresses itself through prohibition is really attractive and interesting(…)

(…)By far the greater part of the power and permanence of a civilization resides in its charm. It is surely noticeable, for instance, that wherever French civilization once strikes root, it remains forever. The border provinces, the Province of Quebec and our own State of Louisiana, are as obstinately and unchangeably French as ever they were. The reason is that French civilization satisfied the human instinct for what is amiable, graceful and becoming, and men cleave to it. It appeals to them as something lovely and desirable, rather than as something merely rational and well-ordered, which is the chief appeal of the German type. Under the State Socialism of Germany one is continually confronted with the social relations and consequences of practically every move one makes. The principle of prohibition is extended to cover an endless range of conduct (though, significantly, drink is exempt). The home scheme of social fife is ordered with excellent and obvious rationality, but it is devoid of charm, it has no savor, and all its reasonableness cannot make up for the deficiency, cannot make the normal spirit really enjoy it. One feels the same restlessness and perverseness under it that William James declared he felt under the regime at Chautauqua. One doubts whether such smooth-running social order is worth having at the price. I remember some years ago, after a long time spent in observing the ghastly perfections of German municipal machinery, I came home ready to rejoice in the most corrupt, ring-ridden and disreputable city government that I could find in America, if only I might draw a free breath once more and forget the infinity of things that are verboten.

(…)The civilization of Socialism, however, is rational. It has that sound merit, just as civilization of one Latin type has the merit of beauty and amiability. But Puritan civilization has neither. It has all the flat hideousness of Socialism, without the rationality which Socialism has managed to redeem by its contact with great world-currents of thought. Puritanism is essentially a hole-and-corner affair, with its arid provincialism untempered by contact of any kind. Its ideals are grotesque and whimsical; its methods are unintelligent—the methods of dragooning. Mr. Keeler must forgive my plain speaking; it comes of a sincere desire to resolve his doubts about the sanity or integrity of the brute mass of us who look unmoved on the progress of prohibition in Kansas. We cannot accept prohibition without accepting the civilization that goes with it, for prohibition cannot stand on any other soil. To get even the attenuated benefit of prohibition in Kansas, our community-life must become more or less like that of Kansas, and we ourselves more or less like Kansans; and this is wholly impossible and unthinkable.

(…)The advocates of prohibition ought to get a clear grasp of the fundamental objection to their theory, and meet it with something more substantial than feeble talk about the influence of “the liquor interests.” Our objection is to Puritanism, with its false social theory taking shape in a civilization that, however well-ordered and economically prosperous, is hideous and suffocating. One can at least speak for oneself: I am an absolute teetotaler, and it would make no difference to me if there were never another drop of liquor in the world; and yet to live under any regime of prohibition that I have so far had opportunity to observe would seem to me an appalling calamity. The ideals and instruments of Puritanism are simply unworthy of a free people, and, being unworthy, are soon found intolerable. Its hatreds, fanaticisms, inaccessibility to ideas; its inflamed and cancerous interest in the personal conduct of others; its hysterical disregard of personal rights; its pure faith in force, and above all, its tyrannical imposition of its own Kultur: these characterize and animate a civilization that the general experience of mankind at once condemns as impossible, and as hateful as it is impossible.

The American Conservative: Dirtboxes: The newest government tool for warrantless privacy invasion

Rare.us: Rand Paul led the Senate fight against renewing warrantless surveillance and won

The Hill: Europe’s privacy law set to change how personal data is handled around the globe

Coindesk: Privacy on the blockchain: Where are we headed?

EFF: Nation-state hacking: 2017 in review

National Interest: The fentanyl crisis is a reverse opium war

RCP: Did the FBI conspire to stop Trump?

The Hill: Obamacare proves surprisingly resilient

Antiwar.com: Russia says US training former ISIS fighters to destabilize Syria

The American Conservative: Afghanistan: War without a rationale

Reason: Sorry Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg: If Daniel Ellsberg is a hero, so is Edward Snowden

Daily Beast: The secret KGB manual for recruiting spies

Forbes: 2018: The year we see our first black hole

From the few remaining pro-privacy senators. 

Motley Fool: Meet the newest cryptocurrency trend: privacy coins

New York Times: Homeland security increasingly means placing agents outside the homeland

Future of Freedom Foundation: Homeland Security’s multi-billion dollar comedy show

The American Prospect: Big Tech: the new predatory capitalism.  Ed: Interesting article, but its government-enabled “corporatism” at play here, not free trade.

Al Jazeera: The Guantanamo art that makes Washington nervous

Counterpunch: The war on Iraq’s children

FEE: Peace is the keystone of liberty

Washington Times: Why swamp creatures are hard to kill

Mises Institute: Why not private sponsorship of immigrants?

I think it’s natural for people want liberty for themselves, with the term “liberty” here used to describe that system where voluntary interaction among consenting adults reaches as far as is possible into our day-to-day lives.  I think this holds even for those ostensible socialists and “communists” in our midst.  No communist, when planning their militant utopian uprising, expects to be thrown into the Gulag.

As an aside, I’ve often marvelled at the fact that the socialist ideal can only be attempted with the establishment of a totalitarian, tyrannical central government.  That unconscious will for liberty has to be crushed completely in order to move toward any semblance of a marketless society.  The primal “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” is too great.  The desire to form bonds between people that include work, payment for goods and services, has to be continuously stamped by the jackboot of the secret police.  And socialist countries always have a legion of secret police.  Strange, but no coincidence.  Free speech is supressed totally in socialist societies as well.  The level of censorship in a given country is a veritable storm glass for the liberty being either protected or stripped from the civilian class.

Gun ownership as well, because, despite the masses of gun-toting troglodytes reciting the fact, gun ownership is defense against a tyrannical government once it begins coming for your family, friends, coworkers, and generally anyone you believe to be innocent yet are persecuted nonetheless.  Which is why gun registration is an evil.  A government shouldn’t know which citizen is armed and which is a sitting duck.  To be clear, I’m not advocating for the murder of police or any other armed officials.  But did German Jews have a right to defend themselves against a forced train ride to a concentration camp?  A gun at least gives them a say in the matter.  During World War 2, the Allies dropped 25,000 single-shot, .45 handguns, known as the FP-45 Libertor over occupied Europe, with the logic being that, if the secret police had no idea who was armed and who wasn’t, they’d be slightly more hesitant to kick down a door.  No one wants a .45 slug in the gut.  Hence the logic of civilian disarmament.  I say that most current pro-Second Amendment supporters who are aware of the true purpose of the Second Amendment are inconsistent troglodytes because of their blind worship of the police.  When a country descends into tyranny, the police are the ones that will come get your guns, kidnap your people, and shoot you in the head.

Now back to the original purpose of this post.  I think we all carry an inner compass that gauges the level of liberty that exists in society, even if we don’t directly experience it.  We just know that something is wrong with the state of things.  If, due to burdensome regulation or taxation, a would-be inventor fails to produce the next revolutionary gadget or theory, we feel the loss.  If the next Einstein or Feynman drops out of a restrictive graduate program because the barriers to entry are prohibitively high, we know.  Which brings me to another reason for the danger of restricting liberty: we have no idea what future we are killing by restricting the freedom to create, discover, to engage in ceaseless trial-and-error, in order to build a better future than any single person could dream of.

The fight for liberty, as I witnessed it during the Ron Paul cataclysm, was not a catering to the Left or Right, but more of standing back and hoisting a black flag.  It was ideological, and pure, and because of that it planted seeds that will bear fruit if only they receive adequate sunlight and don’t get mired in the weeds of compromise.  Paul’s campaign is proof that it is possible to be ideologically principled, yet successful.

To conclude, I’d like to point out that the majority of my writing will consist of (probably irrelevant) ruminations on the nature of liberty, why its important, the path to achieving it, and what I think it would take to achieve it.  Which probably consists more in finding the next Mises, Hayek, or Ron Paul, more than patching together a grand coalition.  It consists of keeping up morale among the Remnant, keeping the message pure.  Defending liberty is the most urgent task we can engage in, its enemies are everywhere, organized, well-funded.  A burgeoning Surveillance State is being built around us, all the while telling us its for our own protection.  A virtual kill pen, Bentham’s Panopticon reimagined and being realized today.

“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders: no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others.  And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction.  Therefor, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself into the intellectual battle.  None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result.”   -Ludwig von Mises

Ed: Thank you again for the views.  This website is home to the ideal of liberty as felt by those who participated in Ron Paul’s campaigns from 2007 to 2012.  Each day I will post news from a ‘liberty’ perspective, in the sense of a philosophical framework that believes that a voluntary society is an ideal that is achievable in our lifetimes, if we only want it bad enough.  I will also post ramblings that you may or may not read.  Thank you for the time of day.

Techdirt: Facebook transparency report: lots of government surveillance, bad copyright takedown requests

More from Techdirt: FBI celebrates taking down “terrorist” who told undercover agent he couldn’t go through with an attack.  Ed: The sheer desperation for terrorist convictions is pathetic.

Activist Post: NATO rolls out offensive cyberweapons

Popular Mechanics: The 2020 Olympics will be another glimpse into our surveillance-filled future

Washington Examiner: Appeals court says privacy group can’t challenge Trump voter fraud panel

Washington Post: Cities sue Defense Dept. over gun-check system failures

KATC: Police say surveillance boxes not linked to Homeland Security. Ed: More evidence for my belief that the trillion-dollar surveillance infrastructure, built upon the hysterical, post-9/11 fear of terrorism, will be turned entirely to monitoring every US citizen.

Reason: Chicago police union trying to stop new use-of-force policies

TheFreeThoughtProject: SWAT team raids wrong house, holds family at gunpoint–owner makes cops apologize on FB Live

NPR: ‘A hideous milestone in the 21st century’: Cholera cases in Yemen surpass 1 million

Bloomberg: This will be the year when the internet collides with reality

India Times: MIT shows how image recognition AI can be easily fooled by changing just a few pixels

Bloomberg: Russia plans national biometric database beginning next year

Daily Caller: Library of Congress will no longer archive every tweet

The State: Worried about your online privacy? So is SC Congressman Mark Sanford

High Times: Why smoking weed causes you to dream less

RCS: How Western activists prevent Africans from planting a life-saving fruit.

Singularity Hub: How a machine that can make anything would change everything

The Guardian: Former NASA biochemist: “I want to help humans genetically modify themselves”