1. |
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Stealing land for private use
Trampling rights just like a moose
Like a moose that tramples rights
Look to yourself when calling blights (1)
The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority
(because that’s why governments are instituted among men)
Wants to take a home from a man
Who worked on it with his sweat and tears
He mourned his murdered mother in that house
And they want to take it.
Do you know why?
They don’t.
He asked them in a meeting why they need to take his home
And they said…
You know what they said?
“We don’t know yet.”
Years before, these same rapacious mercantilists
In the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority
Tried to take a widow’s home
To build a parking lot
For limousines
For Donald Trump (2)
You see, according to Kelo v. City of New London, (3)
It’s public use
‘Cause Donald Trump would pay more taxes (4)
Because he’s richer
Because the one thing we can all agree on as Americans
Is that the government should steal from the poor to give to the rich
Notes
1. Removing “blight” is one pretext used to justify eminent domain abuse.
2. http://youtu.be/SmM4ZBoppNQ
3. http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2004/2004_04_108
4. The case with the widow and the parking lot was decided before Kelo. The point we’re trying to make is simply that this sort of theft is attempted and that the standing Supreme Court precedent justifies it. The widow’s case: http://ij.org/case/casino-reinvestment-development-authority-v-coking/
General References
https://youtu.be/RCQM2_nagsM
http://ij.org/images/atlantic-city-eminent-domain/
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2. |
Protect and Serve
01:52
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Wake up in the night, you hear footsteps outside
Tell your wife and kids, “stay here and hide”
Door is off its hinges, you see masked men
Here to protect you: it’s your government!
No knock raids
Protect and serve!
No knock raids
Your rights preserved?
No knock raids
Keep you safe from drugs!
No knock raids
Turning cops to thugs! (1)
Don’t need a warrant just a wrong address
Incompetence and malice; your life is a mess
Shoot your dog, handcuff your daughter
Try to protect them and you’ll get slaughtered! (2)
Notes
1. Read the second page of “And Your Little Dog, Too” (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/340268/and-your-little-dog-too-deroy-murdock)
2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/jose-guerena-pima-county-lawsuit_n_926454.html
General References
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/340268/and-your-little-dog-too-deroy-murdock
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/us/georgia-toddler-stun-grenade-no-indictment/
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3. |
Tsar FDR
02:28
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There’s a Great Depression gripping our country
Millions of people are going hungry
Clearly, food prices are much too low
We must do something to make those prices grow!
We know economics: supply and demand!
So plow that corn back under the land
Slaughter those piglets, for Uncle Sam
Wouldn’t want to serve your country too much ham!
Hail the Tsar!
Hail Tsar FDR!
Japanese American infants sure look dangerous
We can’t afford to afford them due process
He’s issued Order Nine Thousand Sixty Six
To keep them from all their dirty tricks
Don’t you know there’s a war going on?
For your protection, we’ll shred the Constitution
Desperate times call for tyranny
The state will be great, just you wait and see!
Notes
Verse 1 concerns the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
Verse 2 concerns the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent and the FDR administration's general disregard for the constitution.
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4. |
Tyranny
03:12
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Don’t tell me what to do!
I want nothing to do with you!
I won’t hurt nobody
Just leave me be!
Isn’t this the land of the free?
Strange world
That we live in today
Listen up!
Here’s what they will say:
Don’t grow wheat! (1)
You can’t sell those pies! (2)
Your kids wanna make lemonade? (3)
Well they can cry!
Our world is full
Of petty tyrannies
You can’t do
What you please
Listen to
The nanny technocrats
They’re the ones who know where it’s at
Buy insurance! (4)
Subsidize sin! (5)
Give us your children! (6)
When’s it ever gonna end?!
Notes
1. Wickard v. Filburn
2. Only pies baked in commercial kitchens legally allowed at church bake sale. Referenced in After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, by Mark Steyn.
3. Children’s lemonade stands are shut down pretty regularly for being unlicensed. Google it.
4. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
5. HHS Contraception and Abortifacient Coverage Mandate
6. https://youtu.be/23fxiKWFKrg
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5. |
The Knowledge Problem
03:24
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How much milk did I drink last week?
You don’t know
How much milk did anyone drink?
You don’t know!
It’s not a question of whether we plan or not
The question is: who does the planning?
A central board pretending to knowledge? (1)
Or each person using what he knows? (2)
Nobody has all the answers
Because nobody even has all the data
The economic problem’s not an equation (3)
It’s how to use knowledge that’s dispersed
Even if we had a government of angels (4)
Even if we were all socialists
We still couldn’t plan the economy consciously
The mind that could comprehend it doesn’t exist!
We want to allocate scarce resources
But how? To whom? When? How do we know?
How do we give the people what they want at the least cost
When the facts we need to know are all subjective? (5)
Science isn’t gonna solve this problem
Local knowledge is even more important
The right boat in the right place at the right time
Can ship your goods cheaper than a fleet of brand new ships (6)
Aggregation won’t substitute for knowledge
The bird’s eye view is much too high
We can’t afford to gloss over the details
But to pack them into one mind would make your head explode! (7)
No one can know all the info
But everyone can know what he needs to know
Prices lead us out of this knowledge problem
By conveying relative scarcities in a self-adjusting signal (8)
Notes
1. Friedrich August von Hayek 2014 [1974]. “The Pretence of Knowledge,” Nobel Media AB.
2. Friedrich August von Hayek [1945]. “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” Liberty Fund p. 7.
3. More specifically, it’s not an equation that can be solved numerically. Hayek explains that algebra can be used to illustrate the relationships within the economy. (Hayek 2014 [1974], paragraph 12.)
4. Publius 1788, “Federalist 51.”
5. Methodological subjectivism is a key tenet of the Austrian school of economics. (Michael Clark 2014. Economics 412: Austrian Economics I, Hillsdale College.)
6. Hayek [1945], p. 8.
7. Hayek 2014 [1974], paragraphs 9-11.
8. Hayek [1945], p. 13.
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6. |
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Don’t immanentize the eschaton! (1)
Don’t!
Notes
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton
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7. |
State Theft
04:12
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The government brings suit against your property
Accusing your goods of the crime
They don’t have to charge you with anything
They do it less than a quarter of the time (1)
Your property is guilty until proven innocent
You don’t get an attorney, but you get a lot of fees
They put you through a bureaucratic nightmare
So long and time-consuming, it’ll bring you to your knees
Civil forfeiture
Civil forfeiture
Civil forfeiture
STATE THEFT!
And who do you think gets the money?
The same people who take your rights from you
You know people respond to incentives
What did we really think they would do?
The prosecutors, they get their cut
The police departments get theirs too
Sometimes it’s used to pay salaries
The one who’s missing out is you!
What do these legal brigands do best?
They shaft the poor!
Cops turned into highway robbers
Funding their departments more and more (2)
Who do you think
Can’t afford a lawyer?
Who do you think
Still carries cash?
Who do you think
Doesn’t have time for kangaroo court?
Who do you think
Can’t afford to lose her car?
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?" -- St. Augustine (3)
Notes
1. Eighty percent of people from whom the federal government seized property for forfeiture were never even charged with a crime.” http://endforfeiture.com/
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/
3. City of God, Chapter 4: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120104.htm
General References
http://endforfeiture.com/
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken
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Blasted Athwart Hillsdale, Michigan
Inspired by classic punk bands such as The Dead Kennedys and Agent Orange, Blasted Athwart takes quite literally National
Review’s motto of “Standing athwart history, yelling ‘STOP!’”
Their music combines aggressive instrumentation with biting sarcasm to rail against those who would oppress the citizenry and exploit the least fortunate.
... more
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