Category Archives: Keep it Metal!

Black Sabbath, Freedom, Intellectual Property, Property, Self-ownership

Your freedom ends (where my property rights begin)

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Your freedom ends where my nose begins.

Various permutations of this quote have been incorrectly attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it was actually written by Zechariah Chafee (pictured above).

Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (December 7, 1885 – February 8, 1957) was an American judicial philosopher and civil libertarian. An advocate for free speech, he was described by Senator Joseph McCarthy as “dangerous” to the United States.

In June 1919 the Harvard Law Review published an article by Zechariah Chafee, Jr. titled “Freedom of Speech in War Time” and it contained a version of the expression spoken by an anonymous judge.

Each side takes the position of the man who was arrested for swinging his arms and hitting another in the nose, and asked the judge if he did not have a right to swing his arms in a free country. “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”

According to the Quote Investigator, the genesis of this adage can be traced back more than thirty-five additional years. Several variants of the expression were employed by alcohol Prohibitionists. For decades the saying was used at pro-Prohibition rallies and meetings. Such is the colourful history of this libertarian adage. But I digress.

Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.

Your freedom ends where my nose begins.

Consider the meaning of these sayings. They tell us about property rights. Libertarians are huge fans of private property rights. Libertarians own. Be it self-ownership, ownership of tangible goods or even ownership of so-called intellectual property. Private property is essential to libertarianism. But what is the essence of private property? Restrictions on your rights and freedoms, that’s what. Your freedom ends. How very unlibertarian!

Back in 2002, Winona Ryder was convicted of shoplifting $5,500 worth of merchandise from a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. According to the Onion, one of the terms of her probation was

May no longer walk into stores and just take things.

This is also one of the terms of living in a libertarian society. Kiss goodbye your freedoom to walk into stores and just take things!

Libertarianism is all about sacrificing some of our rights and liberties—e.g., the right to swing our arms and the liberty to walk into stores and just take things—for the security of private property rights.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both.

See also Libertarians are Huge Fans of Initiating Force.

Intellectual Property, Judas Priest, Property

Libertarians are Huge Fans of Initiating Force

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neverminddog

Suppose I copy a blog post that a libertarian claims is his intellectual property. Suppose I contend that people cannot own pieces of writing because copying is not theft. God creates. Man makes alternative arrangements. There is nothing new under the sun.

In my copying the blog post, I do not touch the libertarian or threaten to touch him in any way. Nonetheless, the libertarian proceeds to initiate force against me or calls the police to get them to initiate force against me (or, at least, bloviates in my general direction). Libertarians are fine doing this and therefore libertarians are huge fans of initiating force.

The initiation of force or the threat to initiate force is the mechanism that underlies all private property claims.

It’s a terrible thing that some libertarians can be driven to initiate force—even deadly force—because of bad metaphysics.

In part one of my series of what libertarians are huge fans of, the topic was coercion. They loves them some coercion. In today’s episode, we will discuss libertarian’s second great love: the initiation of force.

Yesterday, Reason ran a post by Sheldon Richman, who–as Sarah Burnside points out–bears a striking intellectual resemblance to twitter user 1st year Phil major. In the post, Richman explains that most people already agree with libertarians. How so?

It’s quite simple. Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They, too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and property.

This is something libertarians like to say, especially the Ron Paul Internet ones. But it’s not actually true. Consider the following hypothetical scenario.

Suppose I walk on to some piece of ground that a libertarian claims ownership over. Suppose I contend that people cannot own pieces of ground because nobody makes them. In my walking on the ground, I do not touch the libertarian or threaten to touch him in any way. Nonetheless, the libertarian proceeds to initiate force against me or calls the police to get them to initiate force against me. Libertarians are fine doing this and therefore libertarians are huge fans of initiating force. The initiation of force or the threat to initiate force is the mechanism that underlies all private property claims.

Now a libertarian will see this and object. They will say that, in fact, violently attacking me for wandering on to some piece of ground is not the initiation of force. It is defensive force. Aimlessly wandering on to ground is actually the initiation of force. I am the force initator because, despite touching and threatening nobody, I set foot on some piece of the world that the libertarian believes belongs to him.

But at this point, it’s clear that when the libertarians talk about not initiating force, they are using the word “initiation” in a very idiosyncratic way. They have packed into the word “initiation” their entire theory of who is entitled to what. What they actually mean by “initiation of force” is not some neutral notion of hauling off and physically attacking someone. Instead, the phrase “initiation of force” simply means “acting in a way that is inconsistent with the libertarian theory of entitlement, whether using force or not.” And then “defensive force” simply means “violently attacking people in a way that is consistent with the libertarian theory of entitlement.”

This definitional move is transparently silly and ultimately reveals a blatant and undeniable circularity in libertarian procedural reasoning. Libertarians like Richman claim that they think we can determine who is entitled to what by looking towards the principle of non-aggression (i.e. the principle of non-initiation of force). But then they define “non-aggression” by referring to their theory of who is entitled to what.

So in the case of the libertarian in the hypothetical who attacks me, here is how the libertarian line goes. The reason the libertarian is entitled to that piece of land is because they are being non-aggressive. The reason the libertarian’s attack on me is non-aggressive is because he is entitled to that piece of land. So their claims of entitlement are justified by appealing to non-aggression and their claims of non-aggression are justified by appealing to their claims of entitlement. It is truly and seriously as vacuously circular as that.

Basically all theories of economic justice believe it is wrong to use force that is inconsistent with the theory’s view on what belongs to who (labeled “aggression”) and believe it is OK to use force that is consistent with the theory’s view on what belongs to who (labeled “defense”). But only libertarians have made the apparent mistake of thinking that calling things “aggression” and “defense” can actually tell you what belongs to who in any non-circular way. While other theories correctly realize that those terms only derive their meaning from a theory of entitlement, many libertarians bizarrely think that those terms form a theory of entitlement (Read more on this point here. Seriously, it’s good and fairly short.).

In reality, all systems of allocating scarce resources that lack totally unanimous consent operate off of coercion, violence, and the initiation of force. This is a function of scarcity. You wont ever get around it until you make matter and space itself non-scarce. Like every other theory of how to justly allocate scarcity, libertarians are huge fans of using coercion, violence, and aggression to make people who disagree with them conform to their views regarding who should get what. What they do to try to appeal to the dim is simply pack their view of who should get what into their very specialized definitions of coercion, violence, and initiation of force in order to be able to say they aren’t triggering those specific words. It is truly remarkable to watch the number of minds captured by what amounts to a fairly transparent word game.

The real debate between theories of economic justice is always and anywhere about who should be entitled to what. Appealing to non-aggression when people disagree about what belongs to whom does nothing in the debate whatsoever. We only know what is and isn’t “aggressive” after we have determined what belongs to whom. It is a word that gets its meaning from our theory of entitlement. So taxing someone, for instance, is only aggressive if you think the amount being taxed belongs to the person being taxed. But if you believe the amount being taxed belongs to whomever the money is going to (say a retired person), then it isn’t aggressive. The force involved in extracting the tax when someone resists is simply defensive force.

So to Richman’s point that everyone is already basically libertarian, the question to ask yourself is whether everyone basically agrees with the libertarian view of who should be entitled to what. And the answer to that question is clearly no.

There is no overlapping consensus.

There is no consent of the governed.

To justify their violent governmental inclinations, minarchists must look elsewhere.

ALCP, Cannabis Corpse, Jihad on Drugs™, Prohibition, Vested Interests, Vote 2014

Prohibition works

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Cui bono.

Follow the money.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (KJV)

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (KJV)

“Prohibition doesn’t work.” You’ve heard it before. I’ve said it before. (See here and here, e.g.) You’ve probably said it before, too. It’s any libertarian and/or drug law reformer’s mantra.

Prohibition doesn’t work. If it did, there wouldn’t be 400,000 New Zealanders who currently use cannabis, and people like Smith to supply. Prohibition has not reduced demand or illegal supply of cannabis. Only a sensible drug policy, such as that promoted by the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, can do that.

Vote ALCP – End the War on Drugs™.

But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the claim that Prohibition doesn’t work.

Prohibition doesn’t work. Now think for a moment about that. Prohibition doesn’t work… OK. So, what would it be like if Prohibition did work? What’s Prohibition supposed to achieve? What’s Prohibition for? Prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Now, ask yourself, why on earth would you want to do that? Is it any of your business if people are taking drugs? How are you going to stop them?

What’s Prohibition for? The official line is that prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Prohibition manifestly doesn’t do that! That’s why I’m sticking to the official line when I give election speeches. Prohibition doesn’t work!

But what is Prohibition really for? We can find the answer to that by asking what an adaptationist evolutionary biologist would ask when trying to determine the biological function of a phenotypic trait. What has Prohibition done in the past that best explains why we still have it?

Prohibition is for protecting vested interests. Prohibition works.

Prohibition’s time is up. It’s throw a spanner o’clock.

Freedom, Motorhead, State Rape

State rape culture?

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policerecruitment

The top image is a real NZ Police recruitment ad. It ran for about two weeks in late December 2010. It was pulled just before the release of a report prepared for the State Services Commission in the wake of the commission of inquiry into police conduct. The report said the culture within the force seemed to have reached a plateau and fundamental change was needed.

That was three years ago.

The bottom image is a parody ad created by Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury, editor of the Daily Blog, in response to the NZ Police inaction against the Roast Busters. The police contacted Bradbury and threatened him with 6 months imprisonment and/or a $5000 fine unless he pulled the parody. But Bradbury won’t back down.

Rape is a serious crime. So is false allegation of rape. But the concern of this post is the casual manner in which the NZ Police repeatedly attempt to rape our most important freedom, upon which our democracy depends, freedom of speech.

I’ve seen a similar attempt before, up close.

Two years ago the NZ Police made a clandestine ultra vires attempt to take down Billy McKee’s Green Cross website. The webmaster made sure the website stayed up.

Good on Bradbury for not backing down. Freedom of speech is not negotiable.

Every time you speak to me,
Makes it plain that you don’t see,
What’s really happening here,
You just confuse respect with fear,
Lawman, I think you’re a poor man

Black Sabbath, Isaiah

Let It Die

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Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past. (NIV)

Everything is breaking,
No mistaking,
It’s all changing,
Tear it down,
Watch it all start burning

All that’s done is done just
Let it lie

It’s a revelation,
Celebration,
Graduation,
Times collide,
Watch the world awaken

All the past regrets from days gone by,
Let it go,
Let it die

Ephesians, Job, Metallica, Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings

Hidden in Plain Sight #2: Don’t tread on me

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1985

I used to be a huge Metallica fan. (Doesn’t Kirk have lovely hair? I used to have hair like that.)

Over the summer of 1986/87 I played Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets back-to-back, non-stop.

I wore out the vinyl.

Metallica.Cliff Burton.by Ross Halfin

I cried when Metallica’s bass player Cliff Burton died in a bus accident in September 1986.

But Burton’s death was nothing compared to the tragedy that Metallica were to bring upon themselves five years later, in 1991.

Metallica-Em-All

Metallica were the Gods of thrash metal. They defined the genre. And they used to sing about wholesome things like mass murder (Kill ‘Em All, 1983), dying in the electric chair (Ride the Lightning, 1984), cocaine addiction (Master of Puppets, 1986) and governmental corruption (… And Justice for All, 1988).

But then … they sold out. Big time.

The second definition of selling out refers to putting aside musical quality or original intentions in favor of commercial success, where a distinction is made for those who achieve success without changing their original sound. The difference between the two is often subjective. Whilst artists may change their musical direction for commercial reasons, such as pressure from major labels who require songs to appeal to mass markets a change in sound may also be part of a natural progression of creative maturity.

An example of an artist being accused of selling out is the band Metallica, whose 1991 eponymous album has been considered as the turning point in the band’s musical direction, and have been called the “poster boys for musical un-integrity” after the band’s attempt to sue fans downloading their music through Napster. The album, known as The Black Album, saw critics and Bob Rock, the album’s producer, acknowledge that there was a move away from the band’s previous sound. Rock claimed that the change stemmed from the band’s desire to “make the leap to the big, big leagues”, whilst some fans blamed Rock himself, going as far to eventually create an internet petition demanding the band cut their ties with him. However, other fans did not consider the change in sound to be significant enough to be considered selling out and others accepted the change as part of a natural evolution of the band’s style. Ultimately The Black Album became the band’s most commercially successful, going 16x platinum, but the differing reaction by fans to the album is an example of the difficulty in labelling an artist as a sellout objectively.

Was the release of the Black Album “part of a natural progression of creative maturity”? No. There is no difficulty whatsoever in labelling Metallica, circa 1991, as a sellout objectively. They sacrificed their musical integrity on the alter of commercial success. And what unparalleled commercial performance! The love of money is the root of all evil.

I used to joke that the members of Metallica had been abducted by aliens and replaced by Bieber-like body snatchers for who-knows-what nefarious alien purposes. One similarly aggrieved fan wrote an entire comic strip premised upon the abduction of the real band members and their replacement by simulacra. (I wish I could now find it.)

True Metallica fans don’t mince words.

I remember driving one morning just after I had received my drivers license. I was 16, it was summer in Minnesota, and the local radio station was about to debut the new Metallica song, Enter Sandman. Life was great. I was so pumped and nervous as I’d been a fan since before Justice was released. The song came on…and so began one of the worst days of my adolescent life, and I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered. Serious life-bummer. I was more let down than the first time I got dumped by a girl. To my credit, I kept it together and didn’t plow my car at high speed into a huge tree to spare myself the pain I was feeling.

The biggest piece of shit ever written by Metallica! I dont know if it is because they enlisted Bob Rock (WANKER) to ptoduce this album or if it is because they got lazy. Real dissappointment. I Know many people like this album and defend it but it is a pice of shit. Sorry all u Metallica die hards out there. I’d rather listen to myself take a shit than have to listen to this garbage.

I was an atheist in those days. It’s only now that I realise that Metallica did far more than sacrifice their musical integrity on the alter of commercial success. They sold their very souls to Satan. This fact is hidden in plain sight. Let’s take a closer look at the Black Album.

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The first thing to notice about the Black album is … it’s very black. Metallica’s logo can just about be made out in the darkness of the top-left-hand corner. Black is the devil’s colour. (Sure, it’s also New Zealand’s national colour, but Metallica sure weren’t thinking of the All Blacks when they squeezed this one out.)

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (NIV)

In the bottom-right-hand corner is a stylised, coiled serpent, that bears an intentional likeness to the rattlesnake on the Gadsden flag.

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Notwithstanding that “Don’t tread on me” is a libertarian slogan and the Gadsden flag rattlesnake is a libertarian icon (I have no idea what happened to the missing apostrophe in ‘dont’) let’s see what happens when we take the snake, flip it horizontally and tip it on its side.

let_me_take_you_down

Now we see the true nature of Metallica’s mascot. It’s a serpent, its coils spelling out 666—the Number of the Beast of Revelation—and shaped into a slide to take you down on a one-way trip to never never land. This is snakes and ladders but with no ladders. Snake, rattle ‘n’ roll!

That’s the album art, it’s pretty clear.

What about the lyrical content?

Well, the very first track is Enter Satan. (Or, rather, Enter Sandman, but we all know who Sandman is.)

Say your prayers little one
Don’t forget, my son
To include everyone

Tuck you in, warm within
Keep you free from sin
Till the Sandman, he comes

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We’re off to never never land

Nek minnit, you belong to Satan.

Sad But True.

Hey
I’m your life
I’m the one who took you there
Hey
I’m your life
And I no longer care

I’m your truth, telling lies
I’m your reasoned alibis
I’m inside open your eyes
I’m you

Holier Than Thou

Little whispers circle around your head
Why don’t you worry about yourself instead?

Who are you? Where ya been? Where ya from?
Gossip is burning on the tip of your tongue
You lie so much you believe yourself

The Unforgiven

Never free.
Never me.
So I dub thee unforgiven.

You labelled me,
I’ll label you.
So I dub thee unforgiven.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us? Nope. I dub thee unforgiven.

Wherever I May Roam.

And I’ll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

…and the earth becomes my throne

It’d pretty clear who this song is about.

The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Don’t Tread On Me

Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail
Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail
Never begins it, never, but once engaged…
Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage

Don’t tread on me!

OK, so I can’t really knock this one. 🙂

The exception that proves the rule? It’s a half-decent song, great lyrics! (But it still plods like no speed metal I ever heard.)

Through The Never is a trip through never never land with your new friend, the Sandman.

Twisting
Turning
Through the never Never

Nothing Else Matters is hardly an improvement on nihilism, the doctrine that nothing matters.

Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters

In God we Trust? No, apparently it’s in man we trust and God doesn’t matter.

Of Wolf And Man

I hunt
Therefore I am
Harvest the land
Taking of the fallen lamb

Off through the new day’s mist I run
Off from the new day’s mist I have come
We shift
Pulsing with the earth
Company we keep
Roaming the land while you sleep.

More roaming the land, going back and forth on it. While you sleep. (Never mind that noise you heard. It’s just the beast under your bed, in your closet, in your head.)

The God That Failed

Pride you took
Pride you feel
Pride that you felt when you’d kneel

Trust you gave
A child to save
Left you cold and him in grave

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by deepened nail

Follow the god that failed

There are two further tracks but I can’t go on. It’s a desperate, dire, demonic album.

And, quite apart from that, it’s a steaming pile of the proverbial. So watch your step.

dont-tread-on-me

ALCP, Black Sabbath, Fratello Metallo, Gospel music, Pastor Bob, Ronnie James Dio

Hidden in Plain Sight #1: El Diablo

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clinton_hand_signal

“People that are Christians now, but were satanists, recognized President Clinton’s signal at his inauguration as a sign of Satan. That seems fairly cut and dried, and it is. Clinton communicated what he wanted to the people to whom he wanted to communicate. The whole affair with him flashing the satanic hand signal took only a couple of seconds.”

– Fritz Springmeier, Blood of the Illuminati

This is the first of four (maybe more) blog posts.

Manuela’s mother says she was, however, increasingly disturbed over her daughter’s lifestyle. Especially when Manuela had two teeth removed and had metal vampire fangs implanted. She was also taken aback by her daughter’s tattoo—an upside down cross on her scalp.

But the hand sign? “Well,” she said, “I thought it was like the sign the deaf give, meaning, I love you.”

“I often heard Manuela say she was not of this world and was a satanic vampire,” recounted her mother, “but I figured it was just so much silly talk. Just another way of living. After all, not every Goth vampire ends up sacrificing victims to Satan.”

My hypothesis is that Satan leaves his calling card hidden in plain sight.

devil-horns-metal

Keep it metal! \m/

This post concerns the sign of the horns. Apparently, it was popularised by the late Ronnie James Dio.

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Ronnie James Dio was known for popularizing the sign of the horns in heavy metal. He claimed his Italian grandmother used it to ward off the evil eye (which is known in the Italian culture as malocchio). Dio began using the sign soon after joining the metal band Black Sabbath in 1979. The previous singer in the band, Ozzy Osbourne, was rather well known at using the “peace” sign at concerts, raising the index and middle finger in the form of a V. Dio, in an attempt to connect with the fans, wanted to similarly use a hand gesture. However, not wanting to copy Osbourne, he chose to use the sign his grandmother always made. The horns became famous in metal concerts very soon after Black Sabbath’s first tour with Dio. The sign would later be appropriated by heavy metal fans under the name “maloik”, a corruption of the original malocchio.

BlackSabbath19720012200.sized

Terry “Geezer” Butler of Black Sabbath can be seen “raising the horns” in a photograph taken in 1971. This would indicate that the “horns” and their association with metal occurred much earlier than Ronnie James Dio suggests. The photograph is included in the CD booklet of the Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 1970–1978 compilation album.

I can’t find the photo.

three_versions_el_diablo

The “El Diablo” hand sign often is confused with the deaf’s signing of the phrase, “I love you.” While at first this appears an odd resemblance, we register an “ahh, I get it!” emotion when we discover that the person who invented, or created, the hand sign system for the deaf, Helen Keller, was herself an occultist and Theosophist. Did Keller purposely design the deaf’s “I love you” sign to be such a remarkable imitation of the classic sign of Satan? Was Keller saying, basically, “I love you, Devil?”

Frato Metallo uses it. (The sign language version.) But is it metal? Is it of God?

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Even Pastor Bob defends the use of the “devil horns”.

Personally, I don’t feel comfortable with the use of the devil’s horns symbol.

I think the devil’s horns symbol symbolises the devils’s horns. Call me old-fashioned.

If I’m at a metal concert – or anywhere else that I mean business – what’s wrong with a fist thrown in the air?

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