Category: Kent For Liberty

“Tax Debt”

Kent McManigal

There’s no more ridiculous a phrase than “tax debt”.

You can no more have a “tax debt” than you can be in debt to a mugger who didn’t get all the money he wanted from you during the mugging.

Or in debt to a rapist who didn’t get to violently dominate you exactly as he wished.

Or in debt to a disappointed would-be murderer because you didn’t die after he stabbed you 37 times. You don’t owe him your life.

You are not in debt to any archator who didn’t get all he wanted from you. To claim otherwise is insane.

“Taxation” IS theft! Even if you don’t like hearing it and don’t want to admit it. The only debt involved in “taxation” is owed by those who “tax”, not by their victims.

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Statist Misrepresents Laissez-Faire

Kent McManigal

Here’s another statist lie, paraphrased for brevity:

“Sorry, libertarians. You are wrong. We know laissez-faire doesn’t work, because it means there are no rules. You have to have some government, just not centralized control, because that doesn’t work, either.”

Yes, I heard one make that argument recently. He’s wrong.

All government is centralized control. Yes, there are differing amounts. But if there is no centralized control it’s not government as people understand government. It would be something else. Centralized control– any and all centralized control– is cancer. There’s no way to keep it from metastisizing.

Laissez-faire doesn’t mean there are no rules. The rules are just not imposed by a coercive, thieving gang of molesters. Control, in this case, is provided by social interactions. By the market. By self-interest. “Bottom-up” (which works) rather than “top-down” (which doesn’t).

To make the claim the statist made is terribly ignorant. He probably believes himself to be very enlightened.

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You Can’t Have Civil Rights Both Ways

Kent McManigal

It’s interesting to me how many people want their own rights respected, while also wanting other people’s rights to be violated.

People who want their rights as gun owners respected often advocate a massive government welfare program, carried out through taxation and land theft, in order to build a border wall, which violates the right of association and the right of people to move about freely. They also demand a police state where you can be stopped and checked for your papers.

To justify these violations, they’ll insist it’s necessary because of other kinds of welfare and because of laws that all but criminalize self-defense and the uninterrupted possession of the proper tools with which to carry it out. To abolish any violations appears unthinkable.

On the other hand, those who oppose a rights-violating border wall want to continue to violate everyone by funding government handouts and usually want the rights of gun owners to be violated more than they already are.

Then you have those who seem happy to violate themselves. They’ll demand their right to marry whoever they want to marry, but want government permission — even licenses — to do so. Or they want to have their right to use cannabis respected while they beg for this right to be violated through taxation and regulation.

Did I say it’s interesting? I meant disappointing.

It makes one thing perfectly clear: People either don’t understand rights or they don’t respect them.

People aren’t good at consistency, especially when they don’t realize that all rights are connected so thoroughly they might as well be one and the same. How can you expect your rights to be respected if you refuse to respect the rights of everyone else? How much do you really value your own rights if you’ll let others treat them as privileges?

I want your rights respected, no matter who you are.

I don’t want you robbed to fund things I believe are necessary. I don’t want your real estate stolen for projects I want. I won’t hire armed agents to impose things on you that violate your life, liberty, or property even if I suspect you are up to no good. I won’t impose licensing on you.

If you violate me, I have the natural human right to defend myself. Laws can’t change this.

It’s one reason I will never compromise on gun rights.

I’ll stand up for all your rights, consistently.

Your rights matter to me.

Do they matter to you?

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Worse Than Sexual Predators

Kent McManigal

It seems that every day there’s yet another sexual predator exposed. Good. They need to be exposed and stopped.

The problem is, there’s an even worse kind of predator; a type which doesn’t have to be exposed because so few people recognize what they do as predation that it isn’t hidden. It is carried out in the open, and many people even admire them for it.

Few see it as wrong. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.

Once upon a time, few people saw slavery as wrong. But it was.

These predators of whom I speak are those who use politics “legally”. All of them. They are political predators and they are molesting you and your loved ones right this minute.

Political predators are bad guys who need to be exposed– by having the veil of legitimacy stripped from them– and they need to be stopped.

The thing with sexual predators is that sex itself isn’t inherently wrong. It can be consensual and mutually voluntary. Sexual predators are bad because they skip the consent and use the political means against their victims. Just like other political predators do.

Politics can never be truly consensual and mutually voluntary. Otherwise, politics wouldn’t be necessary. You could simply agree to a relationship. Politics is never like this. Politics is non-sexual (usually) rape. Politics is slavery. Politics is theft. Politics is the realm of the predator, exclusively. Good people use the economic means when dealing with others; bad people use the political means. Anyone who uses the political means is a political predator.

Yes, this means muggers, thieves, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, and all those people are, at the foundation, political predators. But so are people who aren’t considered necessarily bad guys by the public at large. They are the “legal” political predators.

Police are political predators.
Politicians are political predators.
Bureaucrats who work in government are political predators.

Do you want these people around your kids? Or yourself? I sure don’t.

Stop giving political predators a pass they don’t deserve.

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Mistakes and Wrongs

Kent McManigal

I’ve made so many mistakes over the course of my life. And I’ve committed so many wrongs.

Many of my mistakes haunt me when I think of them. Each one undoubtedly set my life on a different course. When I think of them I sometimes want to punch myself in the face and mutter “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

If the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum physics is correct, there are countless versions of me out there who didn’t make the same mistakes I’ve made (they made other mistakes). I wonder what those versions are experiencing as a result. What mistakes did I avoid making?

And when I think of the wrongs I’ve committed… if I believed in punishment rather than justice, as so many do, I would probably kill myself.

I never did anything like robbery, rape, kidnapping, or murder, but wrong enough that I wish I hadn’t done them.

One good thing is that I haven’t committed as many wrongs since my early 20s or so. I’m sure I’ve committed smaller wrongs, but nothing I dwell on. I’ve focused more on making mistakes since then.

No matter what anyone else thinks of me, I’m my own worst critic. But the cats love me.

I do think I’m getting better with the passing years. Coming to understand rights and responsibilities was a big part of that improvement. The best anyone can do is to be a better person than year-ago you was.

I also have to remember that in very real ways, I am not that same person I was. Not only have all my cells been replaced since then, but my mind has other contents. I’m a different person than I was when I was 20 or 30, and certainly different than when I was a teen. At some point you’ve got to let the past be the past and move forward. Remember and enjoy the good parts of the past; let go of and forgive yourself for the bad parts. That will help make you a better person, too.

Now, if I could really convince myself of this and put it into action. It’s a process.

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Disavow and Flee While You Can!

Kent McManigal

I’m no fan of president Trump. It’s sad that I have to say this first for fear of being misunderstood. To be clear: I need no president nor representative of any kind. I don’t need your government or your “laws” or your enforcers. Keep them to yourself if you insist on having them. They are worth less than worthless.

But, back to the point… I just roll my eyes at how it seems to be dangerous to have worked with Trump, for him, or to know him. The Left Statists in government seem determined to punish (and cage) anyone who has been associated with him. They can’t seem to get him, so they’ll go after anyone who has ever been around him for more than 10 minutes.

I can’t take any of it seriously. It’s just a broken-down circus, without anything even marginally entertaining, at this point.

But it makes me glad I didn’t ever meet Trump– I don’t want to have a target on my back.

I wonder if those going after Trump’s associates realize they just look like witch hunters of “Olden Tymes”. I’m tired of them and their clowning and I wouldn’t pay any attention to them, but “news” keeps leaking in.

I wonder how they would have liked it if the “other side” [sic] had gone after everyone who was ever associated with Obama in the same way. (I would bring up Hillary’s– and Bill’s– associates, but they seem to have their own form of “bad luck” that has nothing to do with her opponents.) I guess this means it’s open season on any future president’s acquaintances. From now on. If you know someone with political aspirations, get away from them now!

The Left Statists need to stop acting like sore losers. But that’s kind of the Statist Way, so I don’t see it happening.

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