Culture, Copying, Victimless Crimes, Your Truth, & Social Media (23m) – Editor’s Break 121

Editor’s Break 121 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the difficulty in implementing democracy in a culture not ready for it; why saying “stealing intellectual property” is a misleading euphemism; why your government is not so different than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; the importance of speaking your truth, right or wrong; the government and market forces pushing social media and other companies to deplatform controversial users; and more.

Voluntaryist Solutions to the Public Benefits and Immigration Problem

What’s a voluntaryist, who is a person who recognizes the criminal nature of governments, to do about the problem of immigrants exploiting public benefits? There are several possible solutions to this problem, many of which are consistent with the voluntary principle, that all human relations should happen voluntarily, or not at all, and many of which are not.

Doing Justice to Trump’s “Invasion” Claim

It’s perverse to characterize a migrant “caravan” — a group of civilian non-combatants, many of them women and children, moving from one place to another in search of safety, freedom and livelihood — as an “invasion.” Is the morning commute of millions of workers into every major American city an “invasion?” More than 1 in 10 Americans move each year —  often across city, county, even state “borders.” Are they “invaders?”

“Red Flag Laws”: Rights Can’t be “Suspended,” Only Violated

Hanna Scott of Seattle’s KIRO radio reports that prosecutors in Washington are wrestling with the question of whether or not the state’s “Red Flag law” applies to minors, and trying to stretch it to do so. Under the “law,” Scott writes, a judge can issue an “Extreme Risk Protection Order” to “temporarily suspend a person’s gun rights, even if they haven’t committed a crime.”

Wilson and the USPS

We didn’t get home delivery, but had multi-box units along the highway. He saw the mail carrier stuffing mail in the boxes and stopped to ask her about his missing mail. I wasn’t there, so I really don’t know what was said, or how he said it. He could be a little intense. He suspected she was stealing his mail, and he probably said as much.