The Libertarian Party and Current Candidates

I keep checking in on the people running for presidency as Libertarian, and each time I am disappointed. It seems more like it is being taken over by moderate democrats or just plain idiots. There is support for things like open borders, medicare for all, and even restrictions on guns like requiring training courses. While some may argue that open borders are okay, I disagree for reasons around private property. There also to be some banking on the idea that they can simply dissolve bits of the government away with little to no transition outlined. It almost seems like the only sane person running is Vermin Supreme.

I did see on Arvin Vohra in his mention of removing all restrictions on immigration he also mentions eliminating social welfare programs. That deals with a big problem a lot of people have, but it still ignores the obvious security problem of some people just hate other people and want to do harm for next to no reason. It would be nice if we lived in a perfect world where people only did things for incentive. The fact of the matter is, we don't.

If I had to pick a Libertarian candidate, it would probably be Arvin Vohra based on his stances on issues. I won't though, because I highly doubt any of the candidates have real solid plans for what they can accomplish. I'm more inclined to vote for Trump, mostly as a big middle finger to all the stupid pandering going on. I may disagree with a lot of what he does, but I don't think we're done shaking things up yet.

As for the Libertarian party, I don't know if it was taken over by the homeless moderate dems, or if that is just a target group they are trying to get support from to gain more recognition. Either way, it is annoying. Before the gatekeepers of who is libertarian and who is a fakertarian/lolbertarian try to say I am not really libertarian, here's a quick shot of my results from isidewith.com.

I'm a fairly right wing libertarian, but a libertarian nonetheless.

Maybe next presidential election, people will get their heads out of their backsides and actually gain some perspective. I think for now we are stuck because the DNC is having its own internal war between the career dems and the socialists, leaving many politically homeless with no place to go on the left.

The Wall and Borders

I have had a lot of frustration lately around the topic of walls and borders. In the Libertarian spaces I poke around, there is this general idea that having a wall and enforcing borders is against NAP (Non Aggression Policy). It took me a while to formulate why this is a load of shit, so now I'm going to try to explain.

Let us start by evaluating what is meant by aggression. In the context of NAP, it refers to the initiation or threat of force against an individual or their property. This would be like threatening to jail someone if they do not give up money or taking land from someone, forcing a sale, anything where resistance to the act would result in some form of harm or repercussion. Sounds reasonable so far.

The problem arises around property rights. Assume I own a plot of land. I have more land than I currently use. Someone rolls on up and starts setting up a home on the unused land. Since it is my property, I have the right to remove them from the land I own. Of course I have an option to sell or rent the land, but that does not mean I should or have to. I as an individual doing this would be fine. Even if I threaten them, it is fine because they have already violated my rights by trying to take my land without permission.

So now let us assume we have a community of people. This community of people all own various plots in a region of land. They decide they do not want certain people coming into their region without vetting them to their standards. They even go so far as to deny passage through the region without some form of vetting to ensure their own safety. This is the concept of a country having borders. If someone attempts entry or passage by attempting to circumvent these rules the owners of the land put in place, that is a violation of property rights. The only difference right now is it is private citizens doing this rather than elected officials.

Continuing on with the same idea, the people now create a militia to patrol the land and make sure people everyone has agreed need to be vetted before entry are actually either vetted or not within the region. Are we still good? After all, it is people protecting their private property. I still say yes, this is perfectly fine. People have a right to protect their property, even as a group.

So now the militia finds someone their that should not be. They own no property, which means they are on someone else's property. They refuse to leave, so the militia forces them off private property. We still good? If you think we have gone too far, just remember we are assuming everyone is under a unanimous decision and rather than functioning as an individual they are instead just a group with the same idea helping each other out. If an individual can do it, so can a group all working towards the same goal.

Now imagine that someone in the middle with no bordering land decides that they want to let everyone and anyone in. As a result, an individual decides to trespass to get to their destination. This still violates rights of the other landowners who did not consent to that travel across their land. Is it okay to use force to stop their travel? Sure. It is still a violation of rights and people protecting their own rights. What happens if they make it to the individual within who said it was okay? Well, this is the whole sanctuary city conundrum. If the militia goes onto that person's land to extract the violator and throw him out, are they not in turn violating now two people's rights? Well, the trespasser already violated the rights of others. To allow a person that commits a crime to go free so long as where they stay is okay with it is the same as endorsing the crimes themselves. Upon violating the rights of another person, in my opinion you already forfeited your own rights. In the same turn, to violate the rights of someone else who did not do anything wrong in action does not seem right. We could end up with a group imposing their will over the individual. Some may consider trespassing to not be a big deal, so why pursue it. That sets a precedence of there being a certain condition that could be added to make it okay. Perhaps they murder or rape someone along the way. This creates reactionary laws and conditions that messed up a lot of our judiciary system in the first place. Simple black and white, the person committed a crime and those who were wronged have a right to have it made right to them. So my conclusion is it is still okay to extract the person who trespassed.

After all that, the bordering people and majority of internal supported in the region decide, let's build a wall. If we wall off the region, it will be harder for people trying to trespass to actually trespass. Sounds good, right? Since it is their land, they can build whatever they want. Walls, fences, moats, or a billboard that says "Go away, <derogatory term>!" It is their property, so it is their choice.

The US is similar to this. The difference is the border land and points of entry are government owned, so every citizen in a sense owns it. Right now we have people saying open up all the borders, people saying shut it down, and the majority of people saying we need to reform the entry criteria and evaluate border security. As the majority of the country is not for open borders, it makes sense the borders are not open. To impose the will that they need to be open would be to violate all the stakeholders that disagree and under current contract with how the governments work. True, we never actually agreed to it, but there is a little caveat in law people seem to disregard even though it is pretty much common law as well.

Implied Consent is the idea that you clearly see the requirements for something and by continuing or proceeding, you consent. This is why a place like Disney does not need you to sign an agreement to search you before entering their parks, they have police out front and searching equipment while at the same time you are under no obligation to enter. Implied consent is used quite frequently, like when you are in an area with a sign that says there are security cameras, you are consenting to being recorded. Living in a country falls under pretty much the same idea. As you continue to live here and proceed with life, you are implying consent to the laws of the land. While there may be the case made that it is because there is no where else to go for what you want, that would be like complaining you cannot buy land because all the land is already owned. Touch luck.

This does not mean I think everything is fine and dandy or that we should not fight back against the things we disagree with. This is purely the reason that I think right now the best option is to be diplomatic about things. As it stands now, it seems like the majority at least leans in my direction of enforcing borders to protect private property to some degree. When it rolls in the opposite direction, I will fight it. I just would not claim someone to not be libertarian just because they don't want to check people entering the land or if they want more screening.

My point is, whether I protect my property as an individual or a group, it is still a protection of private property.

The Current State of Virginia

I have only been following from afar the news in Virginia about the proposed gun laws and Second Amendment sanctuary cities. Personally, I do not know much about Virginia or its current or past political dealings. From what I understand is that it is primarily Democrat run and now there are a few proposed legislation gearing up for 2020 that would severely damage gun rights. When I say damage gun rights, we are talking about possible waves of confiscation and registration for what are perfectly common use firearms. There have also been threats of the National Guard being called in, sheriffs being removed, and the obvious talk of the Big Igloo aka boogaloo aka a real recreation of events of 1776.

From my understanding, the Democrats want to not only restrict the guns, but also parts, and even militia groups. This is astounding to me, we are a country that was formed and fought for by militia, I should clarify the term militia even back then was used to refer to a civilian formed military group. If you aren't aware, there are still many active militias across the US, and if you want to join one you can just look online for militias in your state or even form your own. Some may wonder why they form, and they all have different reasons. They're not usually all crazy and gearing up for war, but can even be as simple as people maintaining readiness to act in an emergency or disaster. A militia exercises our rights to not only the second amendment, but the right to assembly (peaceful, anyway) in the first amendment. As long as the group is not violent, a militia is covered by the first and second amendments of the US Constitution. So from my understanding, the Virginia government is stepping on both of those rights.

The alarm is real and I don't think people fully understand the gravity of the situation and what it presents. While people focus on the second amendment violations, of which have occurred and people seem to accept some infringement there for whatever reason, they are also stepping on the toes of the first amendment. To then threaten the involvement of the National Guard is elevating a state issue to a federal issue, which shouldn't occur unless there is a federal reason, such as violation of the constitution, in which case the National Guard should be going against the state and not the people. Then you have the state trying to step on the rights of the cities and counties by threatening to remove their elected officials.

What we are witnessing in Virginia is more than the reason for the second amendment. It's the reason we set up so many layers of checks and balances and distribution of power. This was going to happen sooner or later. I do not know if it is better this is happening on a state level as opposed to a federal level. The reason is that I believe this is the kick in the stomach people needed to see exactly what kind of a road they decided to venture down. I just don't know if it is enough to bring that realization to the whole country. This is because people said it was okay to have some restrictions. The Constitution had the line drawn and it got blurred. Now we are heading further and further down a dangerous path.

This isn't about gun rights. This is about all rights. This is about the rights of the individuals, their rights to assemble, their rights to protect themselves, their rights to their property. I hope this is the start of people waking up. I hope this all turns out for the best. I fear it may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Gun Rights or No

The topic of gun rights should very easily be headed off at the very beginning when the question of do we have a right to private property gets answered. We have a right to private property, guns are property, therefore why would we not have a right to it?

The arguments over restrictions are based around the idea of inherent dangers posed with said property. Examples of this are all over the place like buying a car, heavy machinery, explosives, chemicals, and anything else people see as dangerous. Despite this, some items do not have the same scrutiny. I can harm or kill someone with a baseball bat or a hammer, yet I do not need a background check or an age check to purchase such things. These are glaring inconsistencies that the numbers and stats around should show we should be doing the exact opposite. This is because there are a combination perceived dangers set by information or lack of, and another thing people often overlook that we in the IT world, and people in the business world, know as "risk appetite."

Risk appetite is the amount of risk or inherent danger/uncertainty that is considered acceptable to leave to risk. It is a term I had to become very familiar with in exploring IT security. When considering risk, the potential dangers are presented. We determine which ones are acceptable risks to take with our risk appetite. We can see examples of this in everyday life. Simply driving a car where we know the statistic chances we could be injured, have problems, or even die yet we accept the risk to drive because the benefits of it exceed the risk. When driving we may choose to speed because of our risk appetite, putting aside the dangers or potential ticket as an acceptable risk. Usually once the consequences hit, there is obvious regret because the decision of acceptable risk was made without the apparent glaring consequences we thought we could either ignore or avoid.

In life as individuals we constantly make choice after choice, weighing risks or choosing to ignore them. As a result there are plenty of examples of what can go wrong reported on despite most of the times things turning out okay. People more conscious of things going wrong will see more risk than those exposed to things going just fine without many, if any, consequences. People can live to a ripe old age smoking every day of there life and others may have smoked only a few times and ended up with cancer. With all the potential outcomes, very few things could be considered for certain.

So why would we take the risk if there's even a chance of something going wrong? Because there are also consequences to not doing something. Choosing not to drive a car could cause you to lose out on all the potential. Even more so, simply walking around could cause you to be hit by a car where the person inside the car with all the safety features walks away unscathed. There are many sides to every arguments and every possible decision.

So now the real core of the matter, guns. Personally, I feel no need to make a justification for any type of private property I own. I own a handful of different guns and I have never viewed it as a problem. I have also never had a problem with someone who chooses not to own a gun and if they want to stay away from them I support that and feel everyone who is uncomfortable around a gun should not own one until they can feel comfortable and safe with it. I also have no problem with others owning guns, concealed carrying, or open carrying. My problem never arises with the guns, but the actions people do when they have a gun.

When a person owns a gun, the risk varies depending on the individual. For example, if a person has children they run the risk of accidental discharge or misuse by the child without proper precautions. If a person is reckless, they may cause an accident with the firearm. Risks to people surrounding them are also apparent. Much like walking along a road, the safety of those around the road depend on the drivers as much as those around a gun owner depend on the safety and responsibility of the carriers. Considering how far we have come as a society and how little actually goes wrong compared to how many people are on the planet, I do not see that as problematic. Most areas with a lot of guns are perfectly safe.

So what if we do not have any gun ownership among private citizens, then what? Realistically most places maintain the same safety as before and the government does whatever regardless of potential threats or lack there of to them. There still is plenty fo fear mongering that goes on with both sides of the argument. There are potentials of mass shooters, there are potentials of government taking too much power, we see it happen. The potential on both sides is real and realized around the globe almost every day. So why should we pick a side?

Here's what the real truth is. In our individual lives we will face many individual things that may justify needing a gun or never at all. It is our choice what property we own. Letting the government tell the ultimate authority, the people, what they can and cannot privately own is the danger. It is the slippery slope we are sliding down now. I own a gun because I want to protect myself, my family, and my property from any external threat, people or government. I have a right to own a gun not because I'm over 18, not because I am responsible, but because I can acquire it. Take the sale of guns away, the people will make their own or find a way to get them. By regulating it, the only thing that is done is more criminals are made. We should all accept the risk of freedom and never sacrifice freedom for safety.