The LAVA Flow | Libertarian | Anarcho-capitalist | Voluntaryist | Agorist

I had no idea how far back the history of asset forfeiture goes. Find out all about it in this episode. Also, What's in the News with stories on private disaster relief efforts, cops getting off with murder, Motel 6 is a bootlicker, kindergartner suspended for imagination, and Maine nullifying federal food laws. I also discuss a new contest I'm running that you can win, and a new podcast project I've released for Pax Libertas Productions that you don't want to miss. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

One thing I talk a lot about on this show is government theft. Taxation is theft, but so is forfeiture, both civil and criminal. I didn't realize how far back the history of asset forfeiture went until I found an article in the book I Must Speak Out: The Best of The Voluntaryist that was selected and edited by Carl Watner. There is a link to the free ebook version of this book in the show notes to this episode at thelavaflow.com/71.

I found this book while doing research for my latest podcast project called Essential Libertarianism, which I'll be talking about a bit later in this episode. The article in the book is titled "'Sweat Them at Law with Their Own Money': Forfeitures and Taxes in American History" and it goes into detail on the history of this evil perpetrated by our government. 

In private disaster relief news, there have been numerous accounts of private groups working to help with the disasters created by the various hurricanes we've seen recently, from the Cajun Navy to the Liberty Coalition for Disaster Relief, a group of anarchists working to crowdfund disaster relief and volunteer coordination. Check out their Facebook group. They are a great organization showing "Without government, who would help people in need?" The link is in the show notes to this episode.

On this topic, several cruise companies sent ships to the Caribbean following some of these hurricanes, lending their massive ships to the relief effort, transporting provisions and picking up stranded tourists. 

Interestingly enough, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, uses a private company as a benchmark for how things are on the ground during a disaster.  It's called the Waffle House Index and it's a three-color rating that uses green to denote that the local Waffle House restaurant is fully open, yellow for if it's just serving a limited menu (suggesting that it can't get the supplies it needs), and red for closed (a very rare occurrence for the 24-hour chain).

In screw the government news, mere hours after Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County was ticketing residents for building code violations on their wrecked properties.

In we investigated ourselves news, the US Department of Justice has decided they will not charge six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray. The Department of Justice has been investigating the case since 2015, when Gray, a 25-year-old, black Baltimore resident, died of injuries he sustained while in police custody.

In boot licking companies news, two Motel 6 locations in Phoenix, Arizona are routinely sending in leads to immigration agents when they suspect guests of being undocumented. While an investigation by the Phoenix New Times was unable to get confirmation from Motel 6 headquarters, employees at the motels in question said that collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is standard practice: "We send a report every morning to ICE—all the names of everybody that comes in," a front-desk clerk told the New Times.

But this isn't anything new for Motel 6. In 2015, the ACLU released a statement of other nationwide collaboration with police and the government.

In government indoctrination centers news, a 5-year-old imaginative boy’s parents are speaking out after they say their son was suspended from school for telling a teacher that he had a bomb in his backpack.

In nullification news, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed a Food Sovereignty Bill into law, guaranteeing the rights of Maine towns to regulate food production locally, rather than submitting to federal regulation.

Don't miss signing up for the new October The LAVA Flow contest by signing up at http://thelavaflow.com/email.

I have a new podcast project that just released over the weekend and I think you will want to check it out. It's called Essential Libertarianism and you can get it wherever you get your podcasts including iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and many others. Check it out at EssentialLibertarianism.com.

Essential Libertarianism IS voluntaryism, and that is the basis for this show. A few months ago I picked up an old book from the early 80's called Neither Bullets Nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism by Carl Watner, George H. Smith, and Wendy McElroy. After reading this book, I had a much better understanding of voluntaryism as a whole and it renewed my commitment to this philosophy. I began digging down the rabbit hole of content at Voluntaryist.com, the website for Carl Watner and The Voluntaryist newsletter which has been publishing continually since 1982, which led me to reach out to him about this project. He agreed to let me do it and he is excited about it as well!

Nurses can be heroes too, especially when they stand up to bad cops. What's in the News with stories on the MDMA as medicine, North Korea threats, bullying homeschool families, exposed security clearances, seizure of guns, and Comey on Clinton. And Yet Another Bad Cop segment with four stories of cops who go above and beyond to lie, cheat, steal, assault, and attempt murder. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

Some heroes don't wear capes. Some of them wear scrubs and go to work every day like the rest of us. Alex Wubbels, the nurse assaulted by Salt Lake City Police Detective Jeff Payne, is one such hero. 

In case you've lived under a rock the last couple of weeks, you've heard this story. William Gray was driving a semi truck in Northern Utah when he was struck head-on by a man who veered into oncoming traffic on a highway. The driver who veered into Gray died in the crash. He was fleeing from the police in a high-speed chase after a call about an erratic driver. In order to cover their ass, the cops wanted to try to pin this on the completely innocent Gray who was just driving and minding his own business, so they went to the hospital to try to get a blood draw from Gray, hoping he has some substances in his system. This would, I'm sure they thought, take the heat off of them for starting a high-speed chase that lead to the death of one man and another unconscious. 

In drug war news, the Food and Drug Administration has approved MDMA, better known as ecstasy, as a "breakthrough therapy." The designation should speed MDMA's approval as a prescription medicine, which could happen as soon as 2021.

In the hermit kingdom news, after Kim Jong-un appeared to blink in the prick waving contest with Trump a couple of weeks ago, North Korea has proven that Trump doesn't intimidate them. North Korea test fired a missile over the island of Japan, landing the missile safely in the ocean.

Just a few days after the missiles fired over Japan, North Korea apparently tested a nuclear weapon that was picked up by seismic stations all over the world, and this was their biggest nuclear device test to date. The US Geological Survey recorded a 6.3-magnitude earthquake that was man made. 

In homeschool news, a homeschooling family in Kentucky decided to use the solar eclipse as a learning experience for their children and did this as part of their school time. This action was allegedly reported by an unknown source to the local school district, which in turn sent an official to question the family about their field trip.

In watching the watchers news, thousands of files containing the personal information and expertise of Americans with classified and up to Top Secret security clearances have been exposed by an unsecured Amazon server, potentially for most of the year.

In unfit to exist news, the U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma. 

In more Second Amendment news, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed what is being called the nation’s most pro-Second Amendment law. The Second Amendment Protection Act exempts all guns that were made in Kansas and have not left the state from all federal gun control laws.

In they investigated themselves news, former FBI Director James Comey drafted a statement exonerating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for running her government emails through a private email server before completing the investigation, according to two Republican senators. Comey prepared the draft exoneration for Clinton before conducting interviews with top Clinton aides who were offered immunity for their cooperation.

Some episodes there are only one or two bad cop stories to go over. This time there are way more than I could do in just the news so I wanted to bring back this segment to really dive into these, on top of the one that was rustling my jimmies this week.

First on the list is an article about police in Massachusetts. Three years ago they seized more than $107,000 from a married couple who they suspected of a crime. But now, three years later, no charges have ever been filed and the couple has still not been returned their money, which they claim was earned legally.

In 2013, Proano was caught on a police dashboard camera opening fire on a stolen car just seconds after arriving at the scene of a crime. He continued shooting as the car attempted to back away from him. Two teens in the car were injured.

Not wanting to be left out, Officer Shaun Jergens assaulted a man having a medical emergency.

And, finally, in another attempted murder by cop, a newspaper photographer was shot by a deputy after the deputy mistook the man's camera for a weapon, reports say. 

I've seen too many "libertarians" lately against price gouging, so let's talk about the economics and ethics of price gouging. This is episode forty-nine of The LAVA Spurt, The Economics of Price Gouging.

Unfortunately, war is still rustling my jimmies, but not the same war as the last episode. What's in the News with stories on internet information seizures, gun rights, more Silk Road trial corruption, a judge who said a man can't sleep with his wife consensually, bad cops, and digital camera searches. Finally, The Next Generation on schools teaching conformity over education. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

Last week war was rustling my jimmies, but it was the impending war with North Korea at the time. I was very concerned, as were many people, that the rhetoric on both sides was reaching levels never before seen and that we were headed to an all out war. Thankfully, Kim Jong Un blinked. Conservatives are calling it a victory for Trump in that he stood up to Kim and didn't back down, instead, causing Kim to back down. Of course, the truth is a bit more nuanced than that, with China saying they would not back a first strike by North Korea being a huge factor in North Korea backing down.

But, I'm confident that Trump wanted war and I would be willing to bet that he was pissed when Kim blinked, because, within days of Kim backing down, Trump laid out his plan to send even more troops to Vietn... I mean Afghanistan. Yeah, this is just what we need, expanding the longest war in American history with more troops. Before long, Trump will begin sending Troops into Afghanistan that weren't even alive when the war began. Let that sink in for a minute.

Trump laid out a plan that included five key pieces to it. The first price is troop levels. Trump has given the Pentagon the authority to ramp up troop levels in Afghanistan by several thousand. The US currently has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, and US military generals have said that a few thousand more troops would help the US break the current stalemate against the Taliban. Bullshit. In 2010 we had over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. Did that win the war? Of course not. And neither will this few thousand troops.

I suggest you find out the truth about the Afghanistan war from Scott Horton, host of The Scoot Horton show and the writer of the new book, Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. You can get it in paperback or Kindle format from Amazon.

In unfit to exist news, the US Department of Justice demanded files on anti-Trump activists that visited the website DisruptJ20.org, a website created by one of its customers to plan and announce actions intended to interrupt President Trump's inauguration.

In more unfit to exist news, the governor of Oregon signed gun control legislation that would allow authorities to strip firearms from law-abiding citizens. This bill was supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

In investigating the investigators news, new charges have been filed against a former Secret Service agent who previously pled guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin during the US government’s Silk Road investigation.

In what the actual fuck news, a British man with Down Syndrome was prevented from having sex with his wife, whom he married 2010, until he received special training from the government on sex.

In politically correct is incorrect news, ESPN decided to pull an Asian college football announcer named Robert Lee off the William and Mary at University of Virginia college football game because they were concerned that having a football announcer named Robert Lee would be offensive to some viewers, apparently because of Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

In watch the watchers news, cops attacked a man in a Detroit gas station, confiscated the store surveillance video, and lied about what happened, at least until cell phone video proved they were lying. 

In some good news, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that digital cameras can't be searched without a warrant. 

THE NEXT GENERATION

Schools now feel they have a mandate to tell you what they are truly for, and it's not education. It is about conformity and compliance, molding good citizens.

At Deer Park Elementary School in Pasco County, Florida, signs appeared last week showing a hierarchy of behaviors from good to bad. “Democracy” was at the top, “Anarchy” was at the bottom. While there are many issues with these posters, beginning with the fact that public schooling is far from democratic, the one causing the most outrage among parents is the desire for children to exhibit “Cooperation/Conformity.”

Charlottesville, Virginia saw some really strange sights such as fascists and communists going to war again. Strange times we live in indeed. This is episode 48 of The LAVA Spurt. Fascists and Communists.  This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

There were a couple of pretty controversial issues last week that I have been asked by several of my awesome listeners to address. I tackled Libertarian Racists earlier this week in episode forty-seven of The LAVA Spurt that you can get to at thelavaflow.com/tls47. This episode we're going to talk about communists vs. fascists and the Charlottesville, Virginia idiocy.

We haven't seen such a battle between communists vs. fascists since World War II over seventy years ago! Strange how the more things change the more they stay the same.

The initial rally by the alt-right was meant to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The city of Charlottesville voted to remove the statue earlier this year. The lineup of speakers included Richard Spencer, most famous for getting punched in the face, Augustus Invictus, most famous for drinking the blood of a goat, and Christopher Cantwell, most famous for, well, this riot in Charlottesville. The rally was billed as a Unite the Right rally, but there were almost no mainstream right-leaning people there. It was full of the alt right and Nazis and many other forms of racists. 

Of course, the racists were met by a large counter-protest comprised of Antifa, communists, and other leftists. 

Let's be clear, both sides of this situation were the very fringes of the left and the right, not the mainstream of either group.

Are there secret libertarian cabals of racism in the liberty movement? This is episode forty-seven of The LAVA Spurt, Libertarian Racists. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

There were a couple of pretty controversial issues last week that I have been asked by several listeners to address. I will tackle one of the topics in this Spurt and I will tackle the other topic in a Spurt later this week.

Today we will be talking about the bashing of certain libertarians because they are suspected of being racists or Nazis. I want to preface all of this first with a caveat. There is nothing in libertarianism that is incompatible with racism. Let me say that again. There is nothing in libertarianism that is incompatible with racism. There is also nothing in libertarianism that is incompatible with being an asshole. And sadly, I know some racist libertarians and I know some asshole libertarians.

Libertarianism means simply that you do not believe in the initiation of force or fraud against another person, nothing more. You can believe that other races are inferior to you, which is the definition of racism, and believe that no one should initiate force against those races. This is entirely compatible. This doesn't make racism right in any way, though, please don't mistake that. Racism is horrendous. To collectivize and hate a particular person because of the color of their skin is disgusting and immoral, period. This should never be in question.

Having said that, there have been many questions about some prominent libertarians out there and whether or not they are racist. This started a couple of weeks ago when Jeff Deist gave a speech at the 2017 Mises University. He ended that speech with a catchphrase that is most commonly associated with Nazism, "blood and soil." This phrase was used before Nazism, but it always meant a sort of extreme nationalism and even racism in some respects. This was a very unfortunate choice of words for Jeff Deist and, personally, not words I would have ever used.

War - what is it good for? Slaughtering people, and nothing more. What's in the News with stories on Federal Reserve Bitcoin, national cannabis legalization, ICE injustice, Stingray bans in NH, cops walk free - again, and filming cops. And, How to Live a LAVA Lifestyle on a town that lost all of their cops. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

Just like the song says, war is good for nothing, yet we have found ourselves in a perpetual war in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lybia, and Somalia. And this doesn't count our domestic wars against drugs, poverty, etc. We have been on a war footing for decades now, and it is only getting worse, not better.

Recall during the election between Trump and Clinton, so many people, even some libertarians, chose to vote for Trump because he would keep us out of World War III. I wonder what those folks think now that Trump is inching us closer and closer to a war with North Korea every day. Of course, I can't lay all of the blame on Trump, as Kim Jong-un has certainly been pushing buttons left and right, firing 14 missiles already in 2017, including one at the end of July that apparently has the ability to cover the entire land mass of the United States.

In End the Fed news, a former Federal Reserve employee was sentenced Friday to 12 months probation and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty in October to installing unauthorized software on a computer server at the U.S. central bank.

In cannabis news, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, introduced a bill that could legalize marijuana nationwide, removing marijuana from the federal scheduling system completely. 

In unfit to exist news, a US citizen who was held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for three years was denied compensation by an appeals court. 

This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

In New Hampshire, It's like this, too news, New Hampshire is the latest state to ban the use of Stingrays to track the location of phones and sweep up electronic communications without a warrant in most situations became law without the governor’s signature. The new statute not only protects privacy in New Hampshire but will also hinder one aspect of the federal surveillance state.

In government investigates itself news, exposing the double standard between police and civilians, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that no criminal charges will be filed against the eight LAPD officers responsible for nearly killing an innocent woman and her daughter when they "accidentally" fired 107 bullets at them. 

In film the police news, contradicting the rulings of six others federal courts, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals annihilated free speech rights in upholding a district court decision stating citizens do not have the right to film public officials — politicians, police, and others — in public.

One way to choose to live free is to move. I've talked a lot about moving to New Hampshire, which is what my family decided to do to help achieve liberty in our lifetimes, but there are other places you can move as well to lower your coercion level. Case in point: Sand Point, Alaska, is an Aleutian island town of about 1,000 that swells by several hundred people during the summer commercial fishing and processing season. Until mid-July, it had a police force of three officers and a police chief.

The entire police force of Sand Point quit in July, leaving the town without any law enforcement presence. 

The Baltimore police department has found themselves in a bit of trouble thanks to body cameras. What did they do now? This is the forty-sixth episode of The LAVA Spurt, Baltimore Police Are On Crack.

Twice in two weeks, the Baltimore public defender's office has released police body camera footage showing police officers planting drugs at scenes and then finding them. The first time the actual act of planting the drugs was caught on the camera because the officer clearly missed the briefing where he was told that the cameras were always on record but, when the record button was pushed, it kept the 30 second prior to the time the button was pushed. In that 30-second window, the officer planted drugs in a back alley and then walked out to the street with his cop buddies. He then pushed the button to start the recording and proceeds to go search for the drugs that he happens to find exactly where his camera showed him planting them. Imagine that shit.

The second video shows officers allegedly placing drugs in a car. The officers searched the scene, they said, after they supposedly witnessed a drug deal. In the video, the officers are shown thoroughly searching a car — apparently finding nothing. The cameras are then turned off. But they turn on a bit later, showing an officer squatting by the car. After a while, the officer backs off. Then 30 seconds later, another cop searches the same spot the officer was squatting at, and — suddenly! — finds a bag of drugs.

As of August 2nd, 41 cases have been dropped because the credibility of these involved officers is now in question. Apparently, over a hundred more are being reviewed, all of which are criminal cases that would have relied on testimony from the three officers that have been caught red-handed framing innocent citizens. The cases that have been dismissed involved drug-related felonies and weapons possession.

One of the three officers has been suspended and the other two were placed on administrative duty. 

Charlie Gard has died, and it is the state's fault. Do you hate the state yet? What's in the News with stories on losing the right to freedom of speech and guns, paying child support for someone who is not your child, e-cigarette regulations update, and Trump on police brutality. Also, and Ancap App segment on an update on Swarm City and a The Next Generation segment on homeschool savings, but not for homeschoolers. This episode is brought to you by Tom Woods's Liberty Classroom, helping you to become a smarter and more informed libertarian than ever before, for just 24 cents a day.

In a Charlie Gard update, sadly, Charlie has died, just days before his first birthday. Charlie’s mother, Connie Yates, said simply: “Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you, Charlie.”

And, based on every available account, it didn't have to be this way. An American doctor at Columbia University Medical Center has agreed to help this baby, and the family raised more than $1.6 million to take him there and have him treated. But, a British High Court judge ruled that the doctors could turn off Charlie's life support, because apparently the judge, in his infinite wisdom, knew that death was better for Charlie than the chance to live.

But what chance did Charlie really have if he had received this treatment in America? According to Charlie's mother, "We want people to realize that we have been speaking to parents whose children were just like Charlie before starting treatment and now some of them are walking around like normal children. We wanted Charlie to have that chance too." 

The Independent Payment Advisory Board

As Murray Rothbard so famously asked in his article in the Libertarian Forum in July of 1977, "Do You Hate the State?"

In unfit to exist news, a group of 43 US Senators — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats — want to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country’s decades-old occupation of Palestine. 

In come and get them news, 3D-printed gun designs are selling on the dark web for only $12. 

In what the actual fuck news, a Texas man has been ordered to come up with more than $60,000 in back child support for a girl he did not biologically father and met only once in his life. 

In smoke 'em if you've got 'em news, the FDA has given the e-cigarette industry a regulatory reprieve, for now.

In come and get them again news, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleges the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) violated the gun rights of foster parents.

In finally, some good news, President Trump's administration, on orders to kill two regulations for every new one, ripped up the playbook during its first six months, eliminating 16 old rules for every new one, according to top officials.

What a wild ride it's been for Swarm City. First, I was bullish on Arcade City when it was first announced, then after several delays and very damning information came out about the founder, Christopher David, I became much more skeptical. Then, Swarm City takes over, gets rid of Christopher David, and makes some huge strides, so I was bullish all over again! They even sponsored ads on my show and I bought a bunch os Swarm City tokens. And, while I'm still bullish on Swarm City, I am a bit cautiously concerned after the latest hump on the roller coaster ride that is decentralized, crypto-backed peer-to-peer trading.

In case you haven't heard, Swarm City was involved in an exploit, called the Parity Multisig Wallet Exploit, that cleaned out their primarily Etherum wallet where they held their operating funds for developing Swarm City. This was the money they made from their token sale last year and this was the money they used to pay for developers, marketing, and the like. The total amount taken was 44,055 Ether, worth, at the time of the theft, $9 million. In total, over 150,000 Ether was stolen from three different companies using these multi-sig wallets. What a multi-sig wallet does is it requires multiple people to sign off before any funds are removed from the wallet to keep the funds safe. This prevents any one person from taking all of the funds. Well, unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.

As you guys know by now, my wife and I have homeschooled our children since birth. We've been fortunate that my 9 and 11-year-old sons have never spent a day in government indoctrination centers, much to the chagrin of my public-school teacher mother-in-law. But, we don't regret a single minute of it, and we are thrilled to be setting our children up for the future by teaching them things they really need in the real world, like entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, how to find the answer instead of telling them the answer, and a love of learning.

Who knew, though, that while doing this I was saving the state money, which is a fucking shame since I am still paying the same amount in taxes as people who send their kids to public school. 

Apparently, those savings are pretty large too. For example, based on state spending per student multiplied by the approximate number of homeschoolers in each state, California is saving $1.8 billion a year thanks to homeschool families, and yet that state is still in massive debt. Go figure. Other notable states include North Carolina at $1 billion, New York at $1.7 billion, Texas at $1.2 billion, Florida at $729.8 million, and Illinois at $798.6 million. Even little bitty New Hampshire is saving $80.7 million per year.

I had the pleasure of being on the Felony Friday podcast with John Odermatt recently, and we played, "Is it a crime?" Thank you for joining me on the forty-fifth episode of The LAVA Spurt, Is it a Felony?