http://news.yahoo.com/…

When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn’t done anything wrong.

But proclaiming innocence wasn’t going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.

“I sat in the jail and thought … how could I prove this? What could I do?” Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.

As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club’s cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers’ arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case.

But the drug corruption case isn’t alone.

On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants.

The revelations in New York have triggered internal affairs inquiries, transfers of commanders and reviews of dozens of other arrests involving the accused officers. Many drug defendants’ cases have been tossed out. Others have won favorable plea deals.

The misconduct “strikes at the very heart of our system of justice and erodes public confidence in our courts,” said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.

Despite the fallout, authorities describe the corruption allegations as aberrations in a city where officers daily make hundreds of drugs arrests that routinely hold up in court. They also note none of the cases involved accusations of organized crews of officers using their badges to steal or extort drugs or money for personal gain — the story line of full-blown corruption scandals from bygone eras.

Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agrees the majority of narcotics officers probably are clean. But he also believes the city’s unending war on drugs will always invite corruption by some who don’t think twice about framing suspects they’re convinced are guilty anyway.

Prohibition creates a black market and a black market creates a distorted market situation waiting to be exploited. And those who are most incentivized to exploit it are those closest to it with the most power to cover up their actions.

http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/…

A couple of people have asked me:

FSK frequently criticizes anarcho-capitalists as pro-State trolls. Aren’t anarcho-capitalism and agorism the same thing?

I consider “agorism” and “free market anarchism” to be equivalent. Agorism and real free markets are the “One True Version of Anarchy”.

The fallacy of “anarcho-capitalists” is that they fail to answer “How will the State be eliminated?” They assume that the State will gradually shrink and then voluntarily shut itself down. This will occur by voting, which is the usual (L)libertarian fantasy.

How is a failure to answer “How will the State be eliminated?” make it fallacious? There is no assumption, just no explicit component to the philosophy. Perhaps because to claim any one method is the surest or only way is highly suspect and limiting. Agorism provides a set of steps which if carried out could bring about a the State’s destruction. Little more than libertarian black market, Fabian strategy style. Agorism is more then anything a tactic. One of many theoretical means to ending the State. An explicit means to an preexisting end.

And to lump Libertarianism and libertarianism into a single basket is just as fallacious as claiming the “usual” fantasy of those isms is to vote away the State. Lowercase ‘l’ libertarianism applies to a rather large range of philosophies. Both anarchist and not. Propertarian and not. Besides a belief in the non-aggression principle (ignoring consequentialist vs. deontological differences) there is nothing more to libertarianism.

Anarcho-capitalists sometimes defend large corporations as a natural free market occurrence. Large corporations cannot exist without State subsidies.

How can the author possibly know that? We can say they won’t have the State subsidies to make them that big, we can say that they won’t be corporations in the way they are now due to state intervention but how can anyone claim to know to what size a business can or can not get to in a freemarket? How can one claim that a business would be unable to provide for their customers so well, through efficiencies of scale and division of labor, as to be as large as some businesses now? They obviously wouldn’t exist in the same capacity or for the same reasons.

Anarcho-capitalists defend the current State. They say “We should obey State regulations for now. In the present, the State has legitimacy. The State is evil, but we need it right now.” Anarcho-capitalism is a pro-State philosophy of anarchy.

I’m glad the author know what all ancaps everywhere think and defend. As an ancap and a friend of ancaps… I have never made such statements or hear such statements as above. Anyone who would is not a libertarian ancap.

An agorist says “The State has zero legitimacy *STARTING NOW*.

As mentioned before an proclaimed ancap isn’t an ancap if they claim the State has legitimacy.

We will ignore all the stupid taxes and laws that restrict our productivity. We will boycott the State as much as possible, but a perfect 100% boycott is not feasible in the present.”

All? Doubtful. It is improbable to get 100% outside the taxation of the state. The second sentence admits as such and therefore the first sentence is negated by it. And what does “as much as possible” mean? A rugged individualist anarcho-primitivist is likely to tell the agorist that using State built and controlled roads is completely avoidable.

An agorist wants the State to get bigger and more inefficient and then collapse, instead of gradually shrinking and disappearing.

I’ve never read that as the explicit goal of agorism. The point of grey and black market agorist action is multifacited. To undermine the state’s “business” by providing alternatives (leading to shrinkage of the State hopefully) and grow successful enough as to provide free market defense against those who would  still call themselves the State. It would seem that wanting the State to grow before collapsing is akin to desiring people to get harmed. You can say that such a situation would work in favor of free market anarchism but to want it is anti-libertarian if we agree that the growing of the State would lead to more infringement of liberties.

If you call yourself an anarcho-capitalist and aren’t a fool, your beliefs will be similar to those of agorists. However, the people who call themselves anarcho-capitalists tend to fall into the usual (L)libertarian intellectual trap.

If you advocate the State you aren’t an ancap. If you are an ancap then of course your beliefs are similar to an agorist. Many, including Konkin, consider agorism to be an evolution of Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist philosophy. Konkin describes agorists as “strict Rothbardians… and even more Rothbardian than Rothbard [himself].”¹

This is the problem with using labels over descriptions. I prefer to substitute definitions for what they actually mean, especially when there could be confusion.

While I don’t completely disagree… labels exist for a reason. They are a shortcut to having to explain everything every time you discuss a topic. When diving deeper into a topic one must always lay down specific definitions otherewise you end up arguing semantics endlessly.

If you aren’t an idiot, when you refer to “anarchy” or “market anarchism”, you mean what I call “agorism” or “really free markets”. I frequently see people calling themselves anarcho-capitalists with pro-State troll false beliefs. Whenever possible, substitute labels for what you actually mean, to avoid confusing.

If you call yourself an anarcho-capitalist and you aren’t an idiot, you’re beliefs will be the same as what I call “agorism”. However, I see a lot of pro-State trolls calling themselves anarcho-capitalists.

Gets a little ad hominem and repetitive here.

Agorism is the only philosophy that answers “How can the State be eliminated?” and “What will the replacement look like?”

I doubt that’s true. I’m sure some Fabian socialists were anarchists. However, even if true I fail to see why a means should to be married to the end or what benefit it provides. It is difficult enough to maintain an idea of an end with changing understandings of life and economy (mutualism for example). Adding to that the need to justify a means seems excessive and unnecessary.

If lots of pro-State trolls start calling themselves agorists, then do I have to find a new name for my philosophy?

If you want to dilute the waters I suppose. Those who wish to minimize your impact and undermine your message will attempt to steal words and redefine them. It’s a great tactics that has been use for hundreds of years if not longer. It is a way to keep you on the run. To make you waste your time with semantics and definitions. There is little that can be done about this tactic but running away from definitions does not seem to me a reasonable attempt at a solution. If a word is misused then make a point to correct that person who does so. I have found it far easier to point out the true meaning of a word and explain that it has been usurped by those who either don’t understand it or are out to discredit it rather then dispel the misunderstanding and introduce a new work in addition to describing it.

http://www.lp.org/…

Libertarians are taking President Barack Obama to task for once again intentionally spreading false information about the source of guns used by Mexican drug cartels and blaming the United States for crime in Mexico.

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States.  More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States,” said Obama in a face-to-face meeting Thursday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City.

That claim, however, is blatantly false.   According to information supplied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) the real number is closer to only 17 percent.

Read More…

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Campaign season is just getting warmed up, but looking back on the primaries we’ve already seen plenty of the usual fare: candidates shaking hands, hanging out at diners, and scaring voters about foreigners who are taking your jobs.

Sometimes the threat comes from China, Japan, or outsourcing to India. Today, it’s NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement—you know, all those Mexicans taking our jobs.

Senator Barack Obama joins the likes of CNN’s Lou Dobbs in decrying NAFTA. So many free trade foes fret about cheap foreign labor, yet they rarely holler about competitors who will work for far less than any foreigner. Politicians don’t pay much attention to it, but—from Terminator to Ice Pirates—Hollywood films have been warning us about humanity’s inevitable war against the machines.

“Now, think about it,” says Reason.tv host Drew Carey. “How are we supposed to compete against something that doesn’t get paid, doesn’t get health insurance, and never goes on breaks?”

Today, we don’t need human workers to book our travel, do our banking, or file our taxes. From factory workers to symphony conductors, countless workers are locked in battle with soulless job stealers known as computers, websites, and robots.

“No job is safe from the robot threat!” warns Carey. Of course, the warning is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. There’s no need to take a sledgehammer to a robot, because, although technology shakes up the labor market, it ends up giving us higher living standards as well as more and better job opportunities.

Like technology, trade gives us more good stuff than bad—yet Americans are likely to cheer technology and fear trade. No doubt TV talkers and White House wannabes will keep stoking our fears of foreigners until voters and viewers stop buying it—or until robots snag their jobs, too.

I don’t like regulated trade but if the alternative is one sided regulation the argument can be made for government treaties but they should not increase any restrictions or provide special treatment. That, however, is incredibly unlikely not to be included and therefore I think better to be safe then sorry and allow the grey/black market work around the regulations.

http://www.townhall.com/…

The other day, reading the New York Post’s popular Page Six gossip page, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: “ABC’S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs”.

I had attended a Marijuana Policy Project event celebrating the New York State Assembly’s passage of a medical-marijuana bill. (The bill hasn’t passed the Senate.) I told the audience I thought it pathetic that the mere half passage of a bill to allow sick people to try a possible remedy would merit such a celebration. Of course medical marijuana should be legal. For adults, everything should be legal. I’m amazed that the health police are so smug in their opposition.

After years of reporting on the drug war, I’m convinced that this “war” does more harm than any drug.

Independent of that harm, adults ought to own our own bodies, so it’s not intellectually honest to argue that “only marijuana” should be legal — and only for certain sick people approved by the state. Every drug should be legal.

“How could you say such a ridiculous thing?” asked my assistant. “Heroin and cocaine have a permanent effect. If you do crack just once, you are automatically hooked. Legal hard drugs would create many more addicts. And that leads to more violence, homelessness, out-of-wedlock births, etc!”

Her diatribe is a good summary of the drug warriors’ arguments. Most Americans probably agree with what she said.

But what most Americans believe is wrong.

Myth No. 1: Heroin and cocaine have a permanent effect.

Truth: There is no evidence of that.

In the 1980s, the press reported that “crack babies” were “permanently damaged.” Rolling Stone, citing one study of just 23 babies, claimed that crack babies “were oblivious to affection, automatons.”

It simply wasn’t true. There is no proof that crack babies do worse than anyone else in later life.

Myth No. 2: If you do crack once, you are hooked.

Truth: Look at the numbers — 15 percent of young adults have tried crack, but only 2 percent used it in the last month. If crack is so addictive, why do most people who’ve tried it no longer use it?

People once said heroin was nearly impossible to quit, but during the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers became addicted, and when they returned home, 85 percent quit within one year.

People have free will. Most who use drugs eventually wise up and stop.

And most people who use drugs habitually live perfectly responsible lives, as Jacob Sullum pointed out in “Saying Yes”.

Myth No. 3: Drugs cause crime.

Truth: The drug war causes the crime.

Few drug users hurt or rob people because they are high. Most of the crime occurs because the drugs are illegal and available only through a black market. Drug sellers arm themselves and form gangs because they cannot ask the police to protect their persons and property.

In turn, some buyers steal to pay the high black-market prices. The government says heroin, cocaine and nicotine are similarly addictive, and about half the people who both smoke cigarettes and use cocaine say smoking is at least as strong an urge. But no one robs convenience stores for Marlboros.

Alcohol prohibition created Al Capone and the Mafia. Drug prohibition is worse. It’s corrupting whole countries and financing terrorism.

The Post wrote, “Stossel admitted his own 22-year-old daughter doesn’t think [legalization] is a good idea.”

But that’s not what she said. My daughter argued that legal cocaine would probably lead to more cocaine use. And therefore probably abuse.

I’m not so sure.

Banning drugs certainly hasn’t kept young people from getting them. We can’t even keep these drugs out of prisons. How do we expect to keep them out of America?

But let’s assume my daughter is right, that legalization would lead to more experimentation and more addiction. I still say: Legal is better.

While drugs harm many, the drug war’s black market harms more.

And most importantly, in a free country, adults should have the right to harm themselves.

He may be preaching to the choir but it’s still nice to have a man like him in his position. I nearly went to the MPP event last week and it saddens me that those who did go paused when he advocated full drug re-legalization. Must not have been many libertarians there.