Rick Sanchez

This is a very frequent pattern. A mainstream media personality says something forbidden. Then, he is fired and blacklisted and never finds another job.

If you're a mainstream celebrity, that's a very cushy job. You're a replaceable cog. If you deviate from the script, you're fired and replaced.

Rick Sanchez' forbidden statement was "Jewish people have disproportionately large influence in the mainstream media."

It seems that Rick Sanchez was going to be fired anyway, due to a management change at CNN. It's much better to say "We fired him for being racist.", because that fits in with the theme of State censorship. If CNN wasn't planning to fire him, he would have been allowed to apologize and the incident wouldn't have been incessantly hyped.

Mainstream media discussion of racism is an evil fnord designed to promote racism. Now, some people might say "Rick Sanchez was fired by anti-hispanic Jews."

Journalists and celebrities are employees, not owners. They are dependent on a handful of insiders for access to their audience. If they disobey, their career is over.

Whenever a mainstream media journalist/celebrity is fired for saying X, that's a good indication that X reflects a forbidden truth.

Gold Bubble?

A lot of State comedians are saying "There's a bubble developing in gold." They can't acknowledge inflation, so instead they call it a bubble.

Compare gold hype to stock market hype:

Compare

The price of gold just went up a lot. It's too late to buy! There's a bubble!

or

The price of gold just went down. That proves that gold investors are idiots.

to

The stock market is rising! Buy before you miss the opportunity!

or

Stocks are cheap now! It's a good time to buy!

State comedians denigrate gold investors at every opportunity.

If you consider the FRN-denominated price of gold (gold/$), it's risen rapidly. If you look at gold/silver, gold/copper, gold/oil, gold/corn, or gold/wheat, then there's much more price stability.

In fact, corn and wheat have risen substantially faster than gold so far this year!

It's much more accurate to say "The value of the dollar is crashing!" than "There's a gold bubble!" State comedians can't acknowledge dollar hyperinflation, so they make up excuses.

Copyforbid

Statists give noble-sounding names to evil ideas. One example is "copyright".

Really, "copyright" should be called "copyforbid". Copyright allows the owner to forbid other people from making copies.

Copyright is a State-created right. It doesn't exist according to natural law. Copyright is enforced via a lawsuit. Copyright lawsuits are legal extortion.

Copyright has its origins in censorship. When the printing press was invented, it was seen as a threat to the king's authority. The solution was that the king's censors read the proposed book. If approved, the author was given a license to print it. This later was translated into giving the author exclusive printing rights. In the present, most copyrights are owned by corporations and insiders.

In the present, intellectual property laws are used for extortion. Via copyright, patents, and trademarks, insiders extort from non-insiders. Insiders use copyright to restrict the freedom of non-insiders.

When debating statists, the words themselves have a pro-State bias. Terms like "copyright" and "intellectual property" have an inherent pro-State troll bias. They should be called "copyforbid" and "intellectual unproperty".

Colbert And Congress

Stephen Colbert testified before Congress. He was talking about "illegal immigration". He participated in the "Take Our Jobs" program, where people were offered the chance to take a farming job normally held by "illegal immigrants".

I don't see how working on a farm for a day makes him an expert on "illegal immigration". Watching his show, he was joking around and not working seriously.

It was obviously a publicity stunt, both for Steven Colbert and for Congress. Some Congressmen complained that Colbert disrespected them by telling jokes during the meeting.

Why would they be surprised? Steven Colbert offended people at the White House Correspondents' dinner, by pointing out some of the bad things they do.

The correct answer is "Congress deserves no respect. They're a bunch of terrorists."

However, Steven Colbert didn't really challenge Congress. By going to Congress to testify, Steven Colbert implicitly acknowledges Congress' legitimacy.

Steven Colbert represents the "debate ceiling". A celebrity can't show less respect for Congress than Colbert, and still keep his job. Colbert didn't say "All taxation is theft! Your authority is not legitimate!" He only partially disrespected Congress.

This seems like an entirely manufactured scandal. Congressmen should not be surprised that Colbert joked during the hearing. Colbert only made minor criticism, rather than questioning government's legitimacy.

"Best of FSK" - September 2010

According to Google Analytics, my most popular posts in September were:

1. Who's the Richest Man in the World? (314)
2. The Hunt Brothers' Silver Corner (303)
3. Did the USA Declare Bankruptcy? (283)
4. BMI/ASCAP/SESAC Legal Extortion Scam (257)
5. The Compound Interest Paradox (162)
6. Ruby on Rails Sucks! (160)
7. Real GDP Is Crashing, 2000-2009 (133)
8. The Federal Reserve Caused the Great Depression (115)
9. Satanic Death Hospitals (113)
10. Premium Text Messaging Fraud - 91097 and 654654 (105)
11. Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2008 (100)
12. The Gold Lease Rate is Negative! (92)
13. Righthaven vs. Charles Johnson (RadGeek) (87)
14. Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2007 (80)
15. The Pat Tillman Conspiracy Theory (79)
16. Verizon LG enV Touch, Bitpim, and Open Source (73)
17. The Black-Scholes Formula is Wrong! - Part 1/12 - Overview and Background (68)
18. The Fluoride Conspiracy Theory (68)
19. Calculating Vega and other Greeks in Black-Scholes (66)
20. The Gold and Silver Taxation Scam (60)
21. E-Gold Founders Plead Guilty to Money Laundering (59)
22. The Five Levels of the Economy (48)
23. Gold and Silver Buyer's Guide (48)
24. How Well Does GLD Track Gold? (46)
25. Oracle Sues Google Over Java/Android (46)
26. Death Note and Code Geass Fnords (43)
27. Congress Killed Superman (43)
28. Agorist Philosophy Overview (42)
29. Concerned Citizens And Parents Against Voluntaryism (42)
30. Economic Police State (42)
31. Your Strawman Corporation (41)
32. StackOverflow Sucks! (40)

If you only consider posts published in September 2010, the most popular posts were:

1. Righthaven vs. Charles Johnson (RadGeek) (87)
2. Oracle Sues Google Over Java/Android (46)
3. Congress Killed Superman (43)
4. Concerned Citizens And Parents Against Voluntaryism (42)
5. Economic Police State (42)
6. Parking Ticket Death Penalty (36)
7. Auto IRA (34)
8. Philadelphia Blogger Tax (33)
9. Treasury Debt Default? (33)
10. Are State Parasites Getting Scared? (31)
11. The Florida Bar Association Works For the IRS? (31)

Windows Vista Reinstall Update

I had to reinstall Vista after my USB devices stopped working. Everything is finally working properly.

When I did a fresh Vista reinstall, everything worked. I installed SP1, and my USB devices stopped working. After SP2, they started working again. It definitely was a Vista issue.

I noticed that SP2 has a release date of August 2010. Windows Update didn't install it for me. I wonder if that virus "Antivir Solution Pro" disabled Windows Update?

I finally got everything working properly on my PC. You have to periodically do a "full OS reinstall" to keep a Windows PC working properly. I'm still annoyed at Microsoft. I should make my next PC be Linux.

Nazi Social Contract

Statists say "By living in the USA, you consent to the social contract. If you don't like it, then leave."

The fallacy of "If you don't like it, then leave!" is that other countries are just as bad or worse. There are international treaties. There are laws restricting immigration. State insiders in various countries collude to keep the slaves in line.

If you take an extreme example, you could say "The Jews living in Nazi Germany consented to their own murder. The 'social contract' in Germany allowed it. By not fleeing, the German Jews consented to being murdered."

Similarly, you could say "The people murdered in the Soviet Union or Communist China consented to it. The 'social contract' allowed it."

In his "war crimes" trial, Saddam Hussein said "I was the absolute dictator of Iraq. By definition, everything I did was legal." If you support "social contract" theory, you should support that argument. The social contract in Iraq said "Saddam Hussein is dictator."

A statist would say "Those are extreme examples. The USA isn't that evil." The fact that the USA is not as evil as other countries, does not justify the bad things that happen. That's like saying "I'm a good husband. I only beat my wife once per week. Other husbands do it daily."

There is no "social contract". If you take an extreme/accurate view, then a "social contract" can justify any evil. In the USA, I probably won't be sent to a death camp based on my blog. The State steals more than half my labor/life via taxes. There are many laws restricting my freedom and my choices.

For example, it's difficult/illegal for me to buy raw milk, even if I think it's better than pasteurized milk.

It's illegal for me to work as a doctor, because I don't have a State permit. Even though I don't want to work as a doctor, the AMA licensing cartel restrict my choices. I pay higher prices and get lower quality medical care, due to the State medical cartel. Under the guise of "protecting patients from bad doctors", State parasites protect insiders. A bad doctor does not suffer from market competition. Generally, a bad doctor keeps his State license, unless he really messes up or offends State insiders. The State licensing cartel protects bad doctors who managed to jump through the hoops and get a license.

The fact that the USA is more free than other countries does not justify evils that do occur. Unfortunately, the trend in the USA is towards less freedom rather than towards more freedom.