A few morons within the USA are now claiming that the government has been "shut down" (because normal operations at a few state-run tourist traps have stopped).
Interestingly, if you simply attempt to enter these tourist traps, an armed government agent will tell you that you can't, and will threaten you with physical force if you decide to ignore him. That is, in fact, the normal operation of our unconstitutional, illegitimate, bloated, unsustainable, totalitarian-by-law government. That is government as usual. That is =/= to "government shutdown."
If the government operates as usual, then it is not "shut down."
When I first saw the news, I predicted that this was the case. (To do this, I simply needed to imagine that the government actually was shut down. Then, I needed to compare the past 11 years of my life ineffectually fighting the government to the government's response. The highly functional bullshit detector that I call my neo-cortex doesn't allow me to believe that all the sociopathic murdering, lying, stealing, and belligerence simply came to a halt because a few sociopaths in government are under the strain of their own reckless fiscal policies.)
Please follow along as I go through the logic of determining whether the government has "shut down."
First: Wow, that's great! I'm amazed it was so easy!
Next: So the government is shut down?! Great! I guess that means that the IRS and treasury stormtroopers won't be raiding and arresting innocent people anymore! I guess they can set free political prisoners like Irwin Schiff and Bernard von Nothaus, as well as the 1.44 million people now incarcerated for first-time, victimless "malum prohibitum" crime offenses! (Mostly state-escalated traffic offenses and nonviolent drug possession.) I guess the book-burning stormtroopers at the ONDCP and the FDA didn't show up to work, or were told to go home, without pay! Great! And the military has all been called back from the over-extended and belligerent United States empire! Amazing! The ATF is all on unpaid leave, right? So there won't be any more churches full of women and kids getting burned alive for the duration of the "shutdown." There won't be any more Idaho recluses whose nursing wives are shot in their necks by FBI snipers, after they refuse to become informants!
All of the prior would need to be true if the government, and not just a few government-run tourist traps, had actually been shut down.
Oh, no, wait, this is a fake shutdown that only temporarily interferes with tourist attractions and other noticeable "services." It's just an attempt to wreck a few vacations, as an "I told you so" to weak-willed government critics. It's just a "divide and conquer" tactic to pit the gullible ("Democrats" against democratic institutions) against the belligerent ("Republicans" against republican limits on government power).
...I THOUGHT SO.
To prove what I'm saying, libertarian entrepreneurs now have a huge opportunity: Go to the areas where the services are "shut down" and provide those services yourself as an unlicensed tour guide. If the government prevents you from providing those services on a voluntary basis, then there is no "shut down" and the government (organized crime) is alive and well. If the government allows you to provide those services, then those services didn't and don't need to be provided on a coercive basis by the government: they can be performed on a voluntary basis by private individuals who don't threaten to throw extorted "supporters" into the American gulag for nonpayment. Lysander Spooner operated "The American Letter Mail Company," an early competitor of the U. S. Post Office, in just this manner, ...until they threatened him with prison, thus "shutting him down."
Let's hope this failed constitutional republic truly "shuts down." The people can keep the courts (and morgues) open, for those murderers and thieves who truly need to be dealt with. The townspeople who want a such people off the streets can each pay a silver coin to pay the randomly-selected (no "voir dire") jurors, and the unlicensed lawyers. The responsible citizens can carry their firearms, and again, the communal silver can pay a retired man who is good with firearms to act as sheriff on an "as-needed" basis.
Since all drugs, firearms, and other "contraband" will then be legal, crime (initiated aggression) will drop by over 90%, as it did when alcohol was re-legalized by the 21st Amendment. Add to this the legalization of cryonics, brain preservation, assisted suicide, prostition, "unapproved" medical treatments, etc., and America could once again be the primary innovator, worldwide.
Perhaps most importantly, people will see first-hand what "the land of the free and the home of the brave" actually looks like, so they don't embarrass themselves when they sing the national anthem.
Go ahead, DC parasites, shut down the government. ...For real.
