Anyhow, on one of these videos, I saw in the comments:

anti-flag loves the USA they just disagree with the bush administration and its policies, and also with previous evils committed in the name of america, however they are all for the freedoms and rights which america was founded on, dont place your hatred on the usa as a whole but rather on the hi-jackers who are trying to turn this country into a police state

They’re all hijackers. Let me rephrase that: Every government ever known in the annals of human history has been a hijacker of man’s individual freedom. Every government, by definition, is a police state to one degree or another.

These comments (e.g., Anti-flag loves the USA) are indicative of a complete lack of independent thinking. People are confusing the so-called American ideal, with the band’s messages of liberation and freedom. If these ideals resonate with you, it’s a mistake to identify them with any particular brand of nationalism or patriotism.

Anti-flag doesn’t love the institution of “America”, but one can identify many of their messages with some forms of the so-called American ideals of life, liberty and equality.

If you are going to fly a flag today, and you acknowledge these ideals, of freedom and prosperity and liberty and equality (setting aside that whole “slavery” thing) you might consider making the statement by flying it with the union down^#.

This is a sign of distress, flown for anyone who will listen.  The people who don’t throw bricks through your window will probably be inexplicably angry with you. Ask them why they’re mad, that is, if a police officer doesn’t break in to your house, choke you, and then arrest you for assault and “desecrating” the flag. They’ll say something like, “You hate America” and they’ll conclude that you must also hate all the things which they associate with America.

But “America” is a conceptual package deal.

this country named “america”, is built on graves
of the natives who lived here before, genocide took place
the word “america” means “freedom” - as in, “free to kill the free…”

don’t fly those stripes, those stars-and-stripes for me

You can’t just sit there and look lovingly at a 232-year old parchment that declares freedom, and ignore the rest of the historical record. It’s possible to love and practice the ideals of equality and freedom, while hating the government to which most people mistakenly attribute these notions.

I love my freedom, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want more of it.

#US Code Title 4 Section 8 Paragraph (a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

Reflexively I side with the state’s position in this case as long as the practice is disclosed…

Or I could be totally wrong and the state’s engaging in shady practice. I seem to be in the minority in thinking the state shouldn’t be in the gaming business, to say nothing of imposing a monopoly. Maybe I’m also being a silly here in thinking the contract is the contract.

[ Insert Libertarian rant contra State Lotteries, here. ]

To the extent that the State is involved in the gaming business, it should not have a monopoly on the practice. Honestly, isn’t a monopoly on violence enough for anyone, anymore?

Although I concur that the State shouldn’t be in the gaming business, I think the rest of Tony’s analysis is wrong.

I’m going to simplify for the sake of argument, and assume that there are no lesser prizes to be awarded. I think a game like this, aside from being an oppressive instrument of the State, is at best a pseudo-contract for a couple of reasons: Because one winning ticket is known to exist ex ante, there’s no lawful consideration given by the State to the vast majority of participants whose true “odds” of winning were 0:n from the get-go. This problem is compounded by the fact that such an instrument is necessarily a deceptively ambiguous adhesion contract.

Each individual ticket does not have an equal probability of winning. It could be argued that each individual purchaser has equal probability of buying the winning ticket; but these things aren’t quite the same, since this condition only holds when late-comers are unaware of the changing odds. In a free market, the odds are the same for everyone, regardless of when they enter the game.

In a normal draw lottery, where a winner is chosen at random from a pool of participants, the amount of the prize is determined by the number of tickets sold, and the odds of winning that prize are determined primarily by the number of participants. This game, on the other hand, can only generate profit when all tickets are sold, which can only be done when participants are kept in the dark. Imagine going to a high-school football game, or church social, or Elk’s Lodge meeting, and being asked to participate in the 50/50 raffle, only to find out that Jim from Accounting had already been declared the winner.

A simple question could be posed:

Would you play the lottery if you knew that your odds of winning were 0?

Of course, you would not. All else being equal, knowledge of the winning ticket having already been sold, the odds are (no pun intended) that nobody would buy the remaining tickets, the game would be constantly under-funded and go bankrupt as a result. Once the winning ticket is sold, the proprietor has an obligation that can only be met by selling more tickets, but there should be no willing buyers.

No, they tell me, If I don’t like being stolen from, I should just leave. If I try to defend myself from the thieves, they’ll shoot me. You see, the penalty is always death. This is what passes as a legitimate method for solving problems: if you don’t like it, we’ll fucking kill you.  Yeah, that’s mature.

But this argument has been exposed as absolute bullshit for some time^#. The U.S. government has levied, or attempted to levy taxes on wealthy expats, for some statutory period (I think 5 years) on the presumption that they are expats solely because they are trying to avoid paying U.S. taxes.  This strikes me as a pretty suspect argument, insofar as it violates the two most-commonly cited justificatory arguments in favor of one’s obligation to pay taxes.

1. The justification for taxes is usually: the government provides these things which you should pay for because you use them.
2. Sometimes the justification is more sophisticated: if you didn’t pay for them, they wouldn’t be provided at all; it is necessary for all to pay so that some may benefit, the greater good and what-not.

For starters, does it matter why someone renounces citizenship? As a matter of equity and fairness, it ought not. A non-citizen is not using the government, is not “protected” by the government, and so on.  But, whatever. I’m not going to belabor the merits of these arguments at present.  I’m just going to conclude that for years, the government has essentially been saying that they don’t have to justify any level of taxation with even a pretense of benefit or obligation. (How’s that for “progressive”?)

If that hasn’t got you all worked up by now, it’s about to get a lot worse.  If you don’t like it, maybe you should leave.

Except, you can’t.

You probably didn’t notice this little provision inserted into the Heroes Act of 2008, passed by Congress on June 17.

[A]nyone voluntarily giving up his or her citizenship will be taxed on ALL of his assets as if he or she had sold them — paying capital gains on assets that have increased in value, even though they have not been sold!

Does anyone still disagree when I say that Taxation is Theft?  Can anyone, anywhere, honestly explain how this amounts to anything more than ransom for permission to live?

We don’t need a Berlin Wall to keep people enslaved.  The government can simply expropriate their properties (a practice generally admonished by “civilized” politicians) and take whatever they damn please.  This government, the Land of the Free government, has finally  succeeded in erecting an imaginary wall that keeps everyone imprisoned. You can’t really leave, not anymore.

+++

1. The not inconsequential question of why one is obliged to move, simply because he does not like what others are doing to him, without his consent, and
2. As others have noted, pretty much every territory on earth is controlled by one state who wants to steal from me, or another, and is populated by citizens cut from the same cloth as the idiot who tells me to get out of this particular country.

But I’m fairly convinced that these machines are saving Meijer stockholders a boat-load of wage expenses. Installing a dozen more U-Scan registers was probably a substantial initial capital outlay, but it’s also eliminating a number of low-wage employment opportunities. Because the minimum wage is in the midst of a 40% hike, which came as no surprise to anyone, a number of people who were making $10 an hour (plus incidental benefits, taxes, etc.) scanning groceries are now unemployed (or about to be unemployed) and watching a machine scan groceries that they can no longer afford to buy without welfare assistance. When the wages due to labor are held artificially high, a few lucky employees are able to reap the benefits, but the rest of them are out of luck as labor-substitutes like capital equipment are made artificially more attractive from a profit-and-loss POV.