Notices by Mr Penguin (mr_penguin@social.freetalklive.com)

@anyways @eff

I find it humorous that a technical solution (Mastodon) that has been engineered for freedom of speech would also be utilized by extremists on the left and right.

This instance isn't censored and connects with anyone and everyone. Short of that we're living in echo chambers. I don't have to like or agree (and don't) what the left and right have to say, but I'm not going to be intentionally ignorant either.

It's humorous how much the left hates freedom. This instance isn't for Nazis, the KKK, right wing supporters, or anyone in particular other than it geared at those who believe the ability of man to speak freely is critical to democracy (whether or not democracy is the optimal way to form or organize). Despite this people on what I presume is the left disparage it because we don't censor anyone.

It's amazing the amount of brainwashing that goes on in "America". The news reporters went on and on about his "service" and how if he couldn't be home with his family there is no other place than the "front lines" and keeping "America" safe. Keep in mind this is all in the context of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

I really want to know how attacking Iran is "keeping America safe". Last I checked the US is primarily concerned about oil prices and that's literally all they're going on and on about. If anything the US is actually losing control of oil prices and enabling Iran by antagonizing them. Do you really think they would have risked making the 'ultimate move' in taking control of the straight if not for being put into a life or death situation by the United States? I'll answer that one. Of course not. Iran's at best a regional power that like many countries can cause economic damage to the world economy. Refraining from unproved aggression is almost always the best answer, but of course bullies and empires like that of the US can't ever resist refrain from antagonizing others and showing their 'strength'. In reality the US is a power to be reckoned with, but it's not complete and total. The US does NOT have the economic or military capability to take on the world despite being able to take over and control parts of it thereof in addition to being ably to bully and coerce pretty much everyone.

@eff Better solution: Stop using Twitter.

@eff umm no. Unless I'm missing something being openly trans on the internet is not 'harmful'. It exposes people to the fact there is a diverse range of people in the world. Familiarity undermines fear and grows acceptance mitigating the likelihood of violence and fearmongers.

@sister_sam Yea, I had a feeling you'd think that. I did dive a little deeper into the issue. I thought it was worth making a public statement on it to demonstrate to others the libertarian position. Too many people wrongly associate libertarians with conservatives, and it doesn't help when you have conservatives infiltrating libertarians circles and pretending to be libertarians. At least the libertarians are up front that they're libertarian when 'infiltrating' republicans and democrats. Of course that's only because the right and left have put up barriers to libertarians running as libertarians that don't apply to those running as republicans and democrats. In other words for them it's self-inflicted. For us it's doing what has to be done, not something done out of choice.

"Meta Loses Bid To Dismiss US States' Claims That Facebook, Instagram Addict Children

They also ruled that Meta failed to comply with federal parental notice and consent requirements for children under 13, 'and granted summary judgement to the states on that issue,' reports Reuters.

In a separate statement, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the decision a 'critical win' in holding Meta accountable for fueling a mental health crisis among American children. "

Whatever happened to parental responsibility? I mean seriously. If Facebook and all these platforms are a 'health crisis' it's not the platforms that are to blame. This isn't an issue of negligence or foreseeable danger, but a problem any parent can see to whatever degree it's a problem with a given child. It's the parents responsibility to whatever degree any parent(s) feel it's impacting their children in a negative or harmful way to separate that product/service/etc from use by their kid.

It's not the state's responsibility and it's certainly not Facebook.

I don't like Facebook either, but I don't blame Facebook for my personal problems. I take responsibility for my problems and don't use Facebok (fictional in the sense that I would never use Facebook in the first place so it makes it a bit difficult to be addicted to Facebook, point being if Mastodon was an 'addiction' ... I'd stop using it too!).

My response to NH Liberty Alliance's request for us to sponsor the NH Liberty Dinner this year:

Unfortunately I am not able to sponsor this year as the NH Liberty Alliance has fallen short in its mission to expand individual freedoms in New Hampshire and taken a radically conservative stance on at least one issue that I am aware of. As such I can't in good conscious support the liberty alliance dinner this year.

Limiting government intervention does not include supporting new laws that place restrictions on folks, particularly under the guise of "privacy and safety". "safety" is the primary justification for restrictions on freedom for both the left and the right, and I can't ignore the co-opting of the organization by conservatives to push an agenda that is so blatantly hostile to freedom and liberty. We should be limiting government, not expanding it.

House Bill 1442 (HB1442) expanded government institutes restrictions on trans women by legally classifying them as male and prohibiting their access to facilities designated for females.

The gold standard should not have indicated this was a pro-liberty piece of legislation. Libertarians believe in eliminating government institutions, not [government] "safety". Whatever the concern is it does not matter as it is up to private property owners and non-government organizations/entities to make these rules as policy decisions, not government through use of violence and law. A bill inhibiting the government and institutions thereof from forcing people to partake in mixed use facilities would have been a way better pro liberty-bill. That is the pro-freedom position, not some convoluted logic and twisted excuse about safety and privacy. This is an expansion of government, clear as day.

"Amazon says it is ending sideloading on new Fire Sticks because 'apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware,'"

Ohh you mean like proprietary OS Amazon ships with the device????

Story from arstechnica.com:

https://archive.ph/wip/WluTf

And here is the answer regarding the legality of geofence searches, and it appears to be as I thought, that is geofence searches without a warrant are unconstitutional:

“'The Court’s decision confirms that law enforcement does not have a blank check to use new technology to conduct warrantless surveillance of people’s movements,' said Eden Heilman, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia"

I may be no fan of the United States, but one benefit to living in a country this large is it has multiple organizations fighting for civil liberties even if some have not been as effective or focused on the sorts of things I'd be most concerned about.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) just achieved a Victory with a ruling at the US supreme court. The ruling says the constitution protects location data. Basically it sounds like geo geofencing warrants are now illegal, although I have not taken a deeper look into the ruling beyond the EFF's summary:

"It confirms that even shorter-term surveillance of location data can constitute a search, because it can still reveal 'a wealth of detail about a person's familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.'"

"DNS4EU is a public DNS resolver, co-funded by the European Commission and currently operated by a consortium led by Czech cybersecurity company Whalebone. The service launched last year as a sovereign European alternative to non-EU resolvers such as Google Public DNS and Cloudflare."

The humorous part of this is that it at least appears they envisioned some kind of patriotism for the reason people would want to utilize their European's DNS server when in reality it's more along the lines that Europeans utilize these third party DNS servers to get around the censorship. Sure- you have a few users wanting them to censor their kids, but for the majority it's about privacy and countering the rise of totalitarianism.

@mr_penguin In a world where sex and violence is everywhere in media what exactly are they claiming to "protect" kids from. We know this was never ever about protecting kids. It was always about being able to fully track and control everyone on one of the last bastions of freedom - the internet and our computers.

Ya best be careful who you trust that claims to be concerned about your privacy, but also conscious of the fact there are those out there who want you to be afraid so you don't take steps to protect yourself (the FBI in particular has a history of creating distrust among organizations they infiltrate, political, that is):

"DNS4EU is a relatively young DNS provider that launched last year with European Commission funding. The company is pitched as a privacy-first alternative to Google and Cloudflare, but it also comes with site blocking in mind. DNS4EU has shown an interest in pirate site blocklists, including the one that's maintained by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. After looking into it, however, DNS4EU decided not to use them, because BREIN isn't a government authority"

"US Bill Would Mandate AI Chip Location Tracking to Thwart China and Other Adversaries "

These sorts of laws are fucking retarded. There is no way you can control what a third party does with a product after you've sent the product with them. You can have them sign whatever agreement you so desire, but enforcement is another matter.

This technology is likely something that can be gotten around through one means or another, but really what it is likely aimed at is tracking you and I. It's not going to prevent China from importing a mass produced product that is shipped around the world to random people.

The solution to the security problem is pretty obvious. Develop better military tech. It's not to restrict a mass produced consumer product.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/chips-security-act-gains-industry-support-letter-rcna350500

@sister_sam Best thing to do is call out these a-holes for not being libertarian and making up bullshit up and trying to twist freedom into some opposite thing.

@sister_sam There is literally no right to privacy or safety and the libertarian motto is no violence no crime or something of that nature.

The police have a motto of 'to protect and serve' and libertarians are constantly pointing out that the supreme court has repeated stated that the cops have no obligation to protect you. The point being we shouldn't have a theft-payer solution to security. Like schooling, security should be up to the individual. If you want it pay for it. If your not concerned or think those dollars would be better spent on keeping oneself alive (medical care) ... well... that's all on oneself once you eliminate government funding.

@sister_sam

This is 100% conservative, not libertarian:

"They stated: 'The right to privacy and safety for those who present as their biological sex outweighs the interest of others... As a result, it is a reasonable protection of liberty to allow for the use of shared public spaces to be separated on the basis of biological sex.'"

@sister_sam So technically sponsoring a bill to strip "gender identity" from state law entirely, allowing businesses and the state to discriminate based on "biological sex." is libertarian. It's not the states business regulating any of this. The solution to this problem from the libertarian perspective is to not do business with those entities that would force a biological sex policy on bathroom usage and end funding of things like government schools to ensure no one has violence (laws) used against them (either to pay for the school or to use a particular bathroom because they're forced to go to a government school because said dollars were stolen from their parents through taxation or theft).

The part that may be a problem in the short term and why this is probably a bad bill is it sounds like it allows the state to discriminate.

We have a lot of problems. Kids can't vote. Kids are taxed, but still can't vote. Kids are forced to go to government schools. This makes it worse for some... but it's actually par the norm.

What we don't have still is a libertarian controlled house. We have a libertarian leaning state relative to other states, but it's also definitely got a bunch of conservatives.

We had 13 reps initially vote for NH independence and then it near doubled to ?24? ... out of 100 so-called libertarians in the house.

Why did people not vote for independence? Many said they feared being voted out of office or some nonsense like that.

The point is libertarians don't control the state and conservatives have influence within the state even on libertarians. The left wants you to believe the libertarians have taken over- but it's a half-truth.

It's more like libertarian leaning individuals have more or less taken over the republicans.

@sister_sam The FSP, Inc was created to do things like organize the porcupine freedom festival, register new movers (so we could keep track and determine when we hit the 20k mover number), and similar.

The problem is they also have done things like ban people for reasons that aren't related to provable issues of violence.

They've done such things in theory to distance us from negative publicity at times, but I think it is a mistake. The right move is to stick to be libertarian principles and say "we don't support violence or taking actions on rumor or allegation alone nor control who associates with us, and short of violence we don't ban people" or something like that. It's the right amount of distance while also not undermining the very things your trying to do when issues come up.

I'd half not blame them for it where it involved actual violence, but it becomes a particular problem when you ban long time solid libertarians over government sponsored negative publicity campaigns (false arrests, or even just false raids intended to smear peoples good name).

@sister_sam Well, so there are different organizations, and while there are free staters partaking in the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance group it's not just free staters and none of this necessarily means all A+ rated reps are perfect either.

Free staters make up less than 1% of the state and non-libertarians have been associating with free staters for quite a long time now. The republican party is no more. It's basically free staters and libertarians... but that doesn't mean the conservatives are gone. They're just cozying up and pretending to be libertarians. Just like libertarians run as republicans the republicans are infiltrating what have been largely libertarian-leaning organizations (again this isn't the free state project or free state project inc even).