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It’s been a year since the Internet as we knew it was destroyed.

What? You haven’t noticed?

This month marks one year since the FCC repealed the controversial net neutrality rules. Don’t you remember the warnings of the net neutrality proponents? It was the apocalypse. Let’s take a closer look at what has actually happened in the year since the rules have been abolished.. I think we’ll find the hysterical rhetoric was unnecessary and that the Internet has actually improved since regulations were relaxed.

Let’s look at history first. The Internet has been a household commodity available for public use since August 6, 1991. For early adopters, it might come as a surprise that, according to net neutrality’s most fervent supporters, the Internet didn’t truly take off until February 2015, when the FCC passed and adopted the new rules.

In both the lead up to the vote on net neutrality and its subsequent repeal, mass hysteria ensued in which many people were honestly convinced that without government intervention, all the online services we enjoyed would cease to exist. In an article called “How the FCC’s Killing of Net Neutrality Will Ruin the Internet Forever,” the magazine GQ even went so far as to say:

Think of everything that you’ve ever loved about the Internet. That website that gave you all of the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City cheat codes. YouTube videos of animals being friends. The illegal music you downloaded on Napster or Kazaa. The legal music you’ve streamed on Spotify. …The movies and TV shows you’ve binged on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu. The dating site that helped you find the person you’re now married to. All of these things are thanks to net neutrality.

I know. It’s kind of weird that this sentiment was so widely accepted as truth because every single listed examples existed prior to net neutrality. The only reason the Internet was able to become such an integral part of our lives was that it was left virtually untouched by regulatory forces for two decades. Spontaneous order was allowed to occur and Internet users were blessed with unbridled innovation that brought forth a robust variety of services, which GQ prefers to attribute to government action that wasn’t taken until nearly 24 years after Internet use became the norm.

That reality was ignored by much of the public, and the panic continued. The ACLU joined the frenzy, telling readers that without net neutrality we “are at risk of falling victim to the profit-seeking whims of powerful telecommunications giants.”

We now realize that none of these dire warnings actually happened, reminding us just how absurd the push for net neutrality rules was in the first place.

I think a lot of people don’t know what net neutrality was and maybe that’s part of the problem.

Net neutrality sought to define the Internet as a public utility, putting it in the same category as water, electric, and telephone services. That change made it open to regulatory oversight, specifically when it came to connection speeds and the price providers were allowed to charge consumers for its use.

The new rules mandated that each Internet service provider was henceforth forced to provide equal connection speeds to all websites, regardless of content. Prior to its passage, providers had the freedom to offer different connection speeds to users, including the option to pay more for faster speeds on certain websites.

Examples?

If Comcast noticed that a majority of its users were streaming content on Netflix, it might offer packages that charge extra for the promise of being able to connect to the site at quicker speeds. That’s the market responding to consumer demand. Not everyone saw it this way. Others saw it as an abuse of power by “greedy” internet service providers.

Then-President Obama praised net neutrality, saying:

For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information—whether a phone call, or a packet of data.

Unfortunately for those who think net neutrality rules are a good idea, the railroad industry serves as a perfect example of just how hazardous declaring consumer goods “public utilities” can truly be.

Railroads changed the world by connecting us with people, ideas, and goods to which we did not previously have access. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was created specifically to regulate railroads in order to “protect” consumers from falling prey to the “profit-seeking whims” of the railroad industry. Much like today, the concern was that powerful railroad companies would arbitrarily increase rates or partner with other companies in a way that harmed consumers, just like the aforementioned Comcast/Netflix example. And as a result, the ICC made the railroads public utilities. But the ICC ended up doing more harm than good.

As Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post writes:

The railroads needed ICC approval for almost everything: rates, mergers, abandonments of little-used branch lines. Shippers opposed changes that might increase costs. Railroads struggled to meet new competition from trucks and barges. In 1970, the massive Penn Central railroad — serving the Northeast — went bankrupt and was ultimately taken over by the government. Others could have followed.

Without the freedom to innovate and provide the best possible service to consumers without having to first jump through a series of regulatory hoops, the railroad industry’s hands were tied, and progress was stagnant.

In 1980, the negative impacts became too much for even the government to ignore, and the ICC was abolished. Shortly thereafter, the industry recovered. Not only did freight rates and overall costs decrease, but railroads were also finally able to make a profit again—something that became a struggle in the wake of the ICC’s creation. In other words, the repeal of regulatory oversight resulted in a win-win situation for all parties involved. And it appears the same is true of the repeal of net neutrality.

So, net neutrality went away last year and the sky ought to be falling by now. The Internet should have become obsolete or exorbitantly expensive from the lack of oversight. None of that has happened. Costs aren’t skyrocketing and connection speeds slowing down. Things have actually gotten much better.

According to Recode, Internet speeds actually increased nearly 40 percent since net neutrality was abolished. Uninhibited by government regulations, service providers have been free to expand their fiber optic networks, allowing for greater speed. You’d think there’d be a slew of “oops, we were wrong” articles written by those who worked so diligently to spread fear in the lead-up to the repeal. Not so much.

Wired, which published many articles in favor of net neutrality, did publish an article called “A Year without Net Neutrality: No Big Changes (Yet),” where it admits that none of the scary predictions actually came true, but the reporter is certain that an Internet free from regulation is not truly free.

Whether the naysayers are willing to admit it or not, less government regulation results in better outcomes for both companies and consumers. So the next time we are told that a lack of regulation is going to be the end of life as we know it, we might want to remember what really happened when the government freed the Internet from its grasp.

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I know this has some people really upset – the government shut down – but it didn’t really. Just some functions shut down and, if you look around, you don’t see any mass violence, roads are still functioning, the border patrol is still getting blamed for the choices migrant parents make, the military is still doing what it does. Yeah, if I need to call some federal offices today, they will be closed. Big whoop! Fact is, if the federal government were replaced by a myriad of private companies providing the same services, they wouldn’t shut down because they would lose money and might even go out of business if they showed their customers that they weren’t needed.

The last government shutdown that happened in the summer, Brad and I went and hiked what used to be our favorite hiking trail, before it was shut down by the federal government and we were required to get a permit to hike it. We enjoyed our day in and day out without fear of National Park Service employees harassing us. We hardly noticed there was a shutdown.

Yay, Shutdown! Too bad the employees will get paid for sitting on their hind ends for however long.

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Being a high civil servant subjects man to a dangerous temptation, simply because he is a part of the ruling apparatus. He finds himself caught in the strategy complex. The magic of becoming an executive and a strategist provokes long-repressed feelings of omnipotence. A strategist feels like a chess player. He wants to manipulate the world by remote control. Now he can keep others waiting, as he was forced to wait himself in his salad days, and thus he can feel himself superior. –The Rape of the Mind

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This is the rock solid foundation of liberty. Each individual owns themselves. This is why rape and murder are wrong because they violate the private property of the victim. I am my private property and you are yours.

That is how liberty works. I have the right to act in my own best interests. I may voluntarily help others from my surplus, but I cannot force my neighbor to contribute to the cause and they cannot force me to contribute to theirs.

This is the basis of liberty, which is so rarely practiced today. I don’t actually own myself anymore because my neighbor can obligate me to provide for her care by the confiscation of my income. In liberty, I own myself. In US democracy, I am a slave to my neighbor.

I’m looking for readers who would like to argue this point. Go!

 

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This is Gary Kinghorn’s interpretation, filtered through an anarcho-capitalist lens, of the birth of Jesus. It has a lot of truth as well as some mistaken views, not the least of which is an apparent failure to realize Jesus was God Incarnate.

But, for the good parts, I am posting it for your consideration. Jesus did indeed point to a heavenly hierarchy that stood well above the government of Rome and even the Temple. But Jesus never said we were to be without rules, living in chaos. He revealed that there was a greater, more just, more sane government with God as King than anything Man had created. It was not a government-less society that Jesus pointed to, but a society ruled by God with humans in voluntary association through Jesus Christ. An anarchist society would eventually have difficulty remaining anarchist and peaceful outside of a submissive relationship with God. Lela

 

When Jesus was born, the world was not so different than the western world today.  Rome was the New World Order of that era. Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon decades earlier, and Augustus Caesar had been emperor/dictator for almost 25 years. Rome had become a failing welfare state whose legions relied on exacting tribute from citizens in exchange for benefits in the form of social services. Rome had gone from a free republic to an empire, while starting down a long path of debasing its currency, the known world’s reserve currency. A once independent and self-reliant society had become self-indulgent, apathetic and subject to the will of the dictators, who called themselves “Fathers” and the benefactors of the people.

Rome did not conquer Israel, but was invited in to administer a dispute between two brothers over who should be king. Rome was the world police force of the day, and by appealing to Rome, Israel fell under the tribute of the Pax Romana excise tax and mutual obligations in exchange for Rome keeping the peace of a pending civil war.

“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute.” Proverbs 12:24

Under Pharisee and Roman influence, Israel had become a vast welfare state with people looking to the government to take care of them, as in the days under Egyptian and Babylonian captivity. People were committing the sin of coveting thy neighbor’s goods, while electing benefactors to provide for their needs under the Roman system of Corban. Long gone was the system of government set up under Moses that depended entirely of free will offerings to support the needy, distributed by a system of charitable ministers that served the welfare needs of the society.

Jesus came along to lead his followers out of this ungodly Roman system, preaching an alternative form of government. He spoke of a jurisdiction outside of the Roman state, based on the perfect law of freedom, outside the tyranny of men who would rule over their brothers and neighbors. He unified the early Christian church in a system of charity, hope and respect for the rights of each other, requiring that each person love thy neighbor as thy self in a system of mutual, not governmental support.

Jesus baptized people out of the welfare system established by the Romans and Pharisees and into the charitable system administered by the apostles. The Roman citizen ID stone that was part of their Corban was replaced with a white stone from the Jordan River laid upon the altar signifying the person’s baptism into the free Church society.

The ministers of the early church were to be servants of the people and administer the free will offerings of the community. They were required to take a vow of poverty to ensure they did not abuse their administrative privileges or siphon off the collective treasury. They took vows of celibacy to ensure they did not create heirs that could be entitled to the charitable contributions they ministered over.

Jesus was showing a way to unentangle people from the captivity of the social contracts they had made with the state of Rome and Judea, and the tribute and obligations they had become snared by. He proclaimed to call no man “Father”, as they called their Roman benefactors, but stated that “thou Father art in heaven”. The perfect law of freedom indicated that man’s unalienable rights stemmed from God and nature, and not governments of men. This was a system of anarchy, by strict definition, without the complex system of tribute that led to the decadence and decline of society, and the corruptible force of the state to back it up.

The early Christian church was not persecuted for their belief in a different God or a Kingdom in Heaven, but for their opting out of the mutual taxation system and seeking to live apart from the kings and overlords, the gods many, who demanded their tribute. Governments have no inalienable rights to rule over men. They obtain lawful authority through the consent of the governed. Understanding how that consent is obtained and granted is the key to understanding liberty and your own political status. Anarchy is merely that lack of imposed government, and the seeking of your own independent jurisdiction. According to Brother Gregory Williams, the term “Republic” actually stems from the pre-Caesar words “Libera Res Publica” (Free from things Public, i.e. heavy government). Starting with Augustus, they dropped the “Free” part. (http://www.newswithviews.com/Gregory/williams117.htm)

Having created his government-less society, Jesus  took on the Pharisees, essentially a political party at the time, who had passed an ordinance requiring the temple tax be paid or face the judgment of a civil magistrate of the Judean government. These taxes flowed into the government’s treasury within the temple whether it served the people or not. The central treasury that held the government funds could be abused by a greedy population or a corrupt bureaucracy.

The moneychangers required the temple tax to be paid in the denarii, and took their commissioned cut of the currency conversion for the people to worship. When Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers, he was really threatening the powerful elite’s ungodly way of life. This final insult could no longer be tolerated.

When brought before Pilate, Jesus declared, “My Kingdom is not of this world”. The word “world” was written kosmos in the original Greek, which is defined as “orderly arrangement”, “order” or “government”. What Jesus was really saying was that his Kingdom on this earth was not a part of the government of Rome, and explicitly not within their jurisdiction to rule over him. And Pilate generally agreed that he had no jurisdiction over Jesus’ Kingdom of non-government. Jesus had taken the Kingdom from those who would suppress and subject the people in sloth and servitude, and entrusted it to His loyal followers who were leaders in a Kingdom that set men free in spirit and in truth. Anarchy indeed.

The Pharisees appealed to Rome to get rid of Jesus, but Jesus would not appeal to Rome for protection. Had He appealed to Rome, he would have compromised the sovereignty of His Kingdom on earth.

Today, most of us find ourselves under slothful tribute to an emperor and a system that is not for our benefit. We have coveted our neighbor’s goods in a vain pursuit of “free” health care, education, welfare, unemployment benefits, social security and government protection. We have traded our inalienable God-given rights through social contracts both implied and explicit. Our churches are not ordained by God, but are 501(c)(3) corporations granted status by the state. As we head into this Christmas week, and into what is certainly going to be a volatile 2012, we are going to need to dig down deep and find that anarchist in all of us, with a little more loving thy neighbor as thy self to boot.

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About 5 1/2 years ago, I tuned into local talk radio station KFAR 660 early one Saturday morning and caught Patriot’s Lament. For the first time really, I heard a reasoned discussion of political anarchy, but there was also intelligent discussion about libertarian principles. Now we listen regularly.

I don’t buy everything Josh and his evolving slate of cohosts espouse. I still have questions and doubts. Like all pure philosophies, anarchism is a bit utopian and I’m a pragmatist. That said, they (and world events they don’t control) are slowly bringing me around to their point of view.

They’re no one special. They’re not “experts”. There’s not a political science, history or economics degree giving what they say weight. They’re not elites. They’re well-read … extremely well-educated in the areas that interest them, but also well-read in other areas, as evidenced by their answers when people call in. What I particularly like about Josh is that he lets people speak even when he thinks they’re wrong … and then he rebuts them, but not rudely. I appreciate that he stands on the principles of liberty not just for himself – he pays for the airtime, so he could do that … but for those who disagree with him too.

So, check it out. You can listen to them streaming at this link:

http://kfar660.com/

Look for the Listen Live button at the top right. And there are also digital archives for the many Saturdays they’ve been on the air.

The show runs from 9 am (15 minutes from now) until noon, Alaska Time.

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My mind is certainly filled with apocalyptic visions these days as the characters in Objects in View start to feel the long-term consequences of their situation. You’ll get to read those soon.

It’s coincidental that this summer is somewhat paralleling my fictional world. I alluded to it in Life As We Knew It – riots, food shortages, signs of economic collapse, and general chaos, all bubbling under a veneer of civility.

In the real world, the rose-colored glasses have been ripped away from large swaths of the population all at once. Cops are shooting people for traffic violations and exercising their Constitutional rights. The politicians and media have jumped on the false flag of “race war” in hopes that the newly awakened will be distracted from the blatant corruption in our government.

I think they may be reacting too late. The country has already become a battle zone after decades of abuses of power. The actions of individual cops in certain police departments have made all cops targets for violent retaliation. I know some people will claim that above statement misreads the situations and makes it worse. I don’t think so. If cops weren’t abusing and killing citizens in an abuse of their power, citizens would not be responding with violence.

 

Regardless of what you think about how or why the events of last week occurred, it seems that the potential for violence is spreading across our nation in a pandemic fashion. I think the situation is being manipulated for power and political gain and I believe it’s going to get worse. Last weekend, communication between one of the leaders of Black Lives Matters and some followers suggested a “day of rage” what being scheduled that would have caused widespread disruption in major cities across the country.

Pretending that it isn’t happening or planning kumbya gatherings is not a rational response to the chaos that is building. We need to face reality, accept it and prepare for it.

So, how prepared are you? No, really? How long could you last with the supplies you have on hand? Do you plan to bug out or, like me, shelter in place? Do you have a plan for defending wherever you end up?

My view on this has evolved over the years, so we only did this with our son and our disaster plan is mostly for natural disasters because we live in Alaska, where societal unrest is less likely to happen. If I lived in a city in the Lower 48, I’d really be thinking more about how to survive widepread societal breakdown.

By planning ahead, we avoid the fear, panic, and confusion that leads people to rush to the store and clear the shelves like a horde of hungry locusts. We don’t have to venture out into the angry mobs, the rioters who will use any excuse to steal, and the hungry people who are only thinking about feeding their own kids. A prepared mindset, a defense plan, and a well-stocked home can help to keep you and your family out of harm’s way.

This may not be entirely your choice. Martial law often involves the authorities forcing people to stay in their homes, as we saw in Boston following the bombing at the marathon. Although the directive was supposedly voluntary, but if you ventured outside, you would have SWAT teams pointing guns in your face. Staying home during this martial law was the only option. Some people ran out of supplies the same day. Don’t be one of those people.

When you take out the government factor and consider just civil unrest, your lockdown area may be greater than your own home. In a small town (like Emmaus), far away from riots and protests, your lockdown area could encompass your immediate community. Life might go on as it always has for you, aside from the need to stay just a little closer to home than before.

In a city or suburb, it may become essential to make a decision quickly. Do you lock your doors and stay home or do you bug out?  Only you can answer that question, but don’t contemplate it too long because there’s a rapidly closing window of opportunity. If all your neighbors get the same idea, you’ll most likely be stuck in traffic and trapped in your car. Protesters shut down highways more than once in the last six month just in protest of Trump rallies. Think about what people in a food riot could do? That’s why my plan is to stay home. I can’t think of any place less safe than a car stuck in traffic.

 

In Life As We Knew It, I showed what could happen if you’re not home when terrorism occurs. I’m going to expand that in Objects in View. In a perfect world, we’d all be home, watching the chaos erupt on TV from the safety of our living rooms, but the fact is that some of us will be at work, school, or in the car when unrest starts.  That’s where a “get-home” plan for all of the members of your family is very important.

I’m going to focus on my son’s “get-home” plan from when he was in elementary school. We were honest with him and said “There may be a time when Mom and Dad can’t get to your school. What do you think you would need to get home in a crisis?”

Kyle asked us to walk him home from the school several times so he would know the way on foot. One of those times, we started out in on a lovely day and then got rained on and then the temperature dropped. The Alaska weather taught lessons I had never considered. When he went back to school that fall, he carried a thick pair of socks, gloves, a hat, a flashlight, some Powerbars, and a cell phone charger with him. He also chose to stash 20 1-dollar bills. At 10, he understood the value of being able to give people money. He also had a taxi cab company programmed into his phone. I had pre-paid a trip home from school. But just in case he had to walk, he knew the route that avoided major thoroughfares and he had a laminated map that would allow him to stay oriented should he have to deviate.  We planned ahead for extreme cold weather by identifying places where he could stop to warm up, but he also had a couple of chemical hand warmers in case he had to make the walk without shelter. He knew where the back-up to the back-up key was, could build a fire in the woodstove and had controlled access to the firearms … just in case.

By the way, when his bus broke down that winter and the back-up was slow in coming, he had already calculated his route home when rescue arrived. He planned to just tell the bus driver that he was going and walking in the direction he needed to go. “How could she stop me, Mom? She’s not armed and I’m strong.”

Yeah, okay. Good plan. At 10 years of age, he understood that sticking around in a situation where the authorities thought they were in control was a dumb idea.

Once everyone is safely home, you need to commit to your decision to lockdown. This could last a day, a week, or longer. There’s really no way to predict it. Maybe you’ll have electrical power throughout the crisis, but what if the grid goes down due to rioting or government attempts to gain control of the situation? Yes, in foreign countries, the United States Army has shut off the power to cities to pacify the locals. In a martial law situation, you are the locals. Are you prepared?

What do you need?

• Water sufficient for your family for a month or a supply you don’t need to leave home for. If the second one is your choice, consider how you will filter it. We have a well under our house that is our back-up plan. We live in a suburban area. The water isn’t contaminated, but we don’t trust that it won’t be, so we have filter material ready. It’s just a bucket, some screening, a bag of activated charcoal, a bag of zeolyte, a supply of iodine tablets, and a jug of bleach.
• Food for at least one month sufficient for the entire family including pets.
• An off-grid cooking method. We have the woodstove, a barbecue and the ability to build campfires. Alternatively, we have food that doesn’t require cooking.
• A GOOD first aid kit. Research what I mean by that.
• Lighting in case there’s a power outage. We have lanterns and flashlights.
• Santitation supplies. Trust me, you don’t want to get sick.
• A way to stay warm. I live in Alaska. This is more of a concern for me than it is if you live in Florida, but staying warm is important. Woodstoves work without electricity. Pellet stoves do not.
• Means of communcation that allow you to get updates about the outside world. How many of us actually own a radio with an AM receiver anymore? We should.

If you are completely unprepared for this type of thing, you can pick up buckets of emergency food at Walmart. Stick them in a closet where they will last for 25 years. This is absolutely the fastest way to create an emergency supply. It’s an expensive way to do this, but it’s better than starving in a crisis. We have accumulated about a six-months supply of rice in addition to a lot of canned goods and dried fruit. Don’t forget the toilet paper and laundry soap.

Your best defense is avoiding the chaos. You want to stay under the radar and not draw attention to yourself. Invest in good security before the crisis. I don’t mean a security system — I mean locks and barriers to entry. Remember that a well-lit house becomes a beacon for people looking for shelter or an easy mark. Cover your windows. Don’t answer the door. It’s harder for people to play on your feelings when you don’t talk to them and many home invasions start with an innocent-seeming knock at the door to gain access to your house. We all gather in the living room during a power outage to save on lights, but this is a good idea in a crisis. If someone does try to breach your door, you know where everyone is who is supposed to be there.

Recognize and accept that first responders may be tied up. When my mother held off three soon-to-be rapists when I was a kid, the police were dealing with a huge bar fight in downtown, so the only one protecting me was Mom. In a civil unrest situation, it may be entirely possible that the cops won’t be your friends anyway. There is a federal law that says they can confiscate any food stores you have.

If your property draws the attention of people with ill intent, you must be ready to defend your family. Sometimes despite our best intentions, the fight comes to us. Many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition for just such an event.  Firearms are an equalizer. My tiny little mother defended us against three large intruders because she had a firearm and knew how to use it. Had she only had a kitchen knife, things would have turned out much differently.

When people breach the door of your home, you can be pretty sure they’re not coming in to borrow a cup of sugar. Don’t rely on 911, which may be overwhelmed by the ongoing crisis or may use it as a means to stomp all over your liberty. Be prepared to protect your family because nobody else can do that for you.

Above all, stay home. I love my neighbors and we might coordinate with them to defend the whole neighborhood, but Fairbanks is an odd situation where people are armed any way and the circumstances of severe weather makes us more cooperative in practice. If you don’t know your neighbors, the best way to protect yourself is with strong walls and narrow entry points. Every single time you leave the house, you increase your chances of an unpleasant encounter. Nothing good will be accomplished by going out during a chaotic situation, something I show in Objects in View. Keep an eye out for the publication. If might be worth reading while you wait out the crisis.

Is a Freedom Revolution Possible?

Source: Is a Freedom Revolution Even Possible?

 

NOTE: I am not voting for Trump, but otherwise, I agree with this article. Lela

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Brad and I don’t go to the movies very often, preferring to spend our money on other things, but he’s still resting a tweaked knee so decided not to hike to our cabin site this weekend. Boredom drove him to decide we needed a date night at the movies.

Good movies and television often reflect the attitudes of the times in which they were created. Captain America: Civil War may be one of those great movies that reflect the emergence of some sort of counterculture. Here we are in 2016 where political correctness, state worship, and socialist propaganda have infected higher education and Hollywood to a seemingly monolithic extent, but Civil War shines forth a libertarian theme.

We were forewarned by a reviewer that Marvel Entertainment had “ruined” the Captain American character by making him “uncharacteristically libertarian” and invoking Ayn Rand.

That’s fine with us, but our teenager pointed out that Captain America may have always seemed a defender of liberty to those of us who read the comic books, but that he’s been a rule-breaking anarchist at the movies.

Kyle points out that in the 1st movie, Steve Rogers forged his own forms, defied orders to enter enemy territory and rescued hostages against official orders while in Winter Soldier, he became an enemy of the state. So why is anyone surprised that the character might take a position in oppisition to the US government and the United Nations in the third movie?

 

To be perfectly honest, Captain America is not the poster child for the United States of Power. He has consistently been a representative of individual liberty. You want an example. In the first movie, he was asked if he wanted to kill Nazis. He protested that he didn’t want to kill anyone, but that someone had to stand up to bullies. That’s very much the non-aggression principle that libertarians say is the highest ideal of their philosophy. Self-defense and standing up to bullies is justifiable because someone else iniated the aggression. In the second movie, his fight against Shield’s spy drone had nothing to do with whether people had voted for it, but because the machine’s ability to kill anyone upon collection of data showing them to be a possible threat was a violation of individual rights.

 

So, I’m not going to write any spoilers, but I’m going to suggest you go watch the movie. It had the requisite explosions for Kyle and Brad, but I found a lot of themes to think about as well.

I’ll give you a hint, though. Iron Man provides a foil for Captain America that is quite striking.

 

Sheriff Glenn Palmer and the “Scouring of the Shire”

This is actually a story about the Oregon refuge “standoff”, but what a great link to classic literature.

The Shire had changed dramatically for the worse when Frodo, Sam, and their companions returned from Mordor.

The hobbit-folk had previously enjoyed a society largely free of the affliction called “government.”

Source: The Scouring of the Shire