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April 5th 2002
At long last I have finaly come into possesion of a legal handgun. After much debate and budget assesment I settled on a Ruger P95. Solid 9mm package, shoots nice. I'm happy with it. I now just need to learn how to shoot. Making bullets go where you want them to is an art far more dificult than it looks. A brief rant: Three Cheers for the Mafia It’s a common tactic of anarchists, including myself, to expose the evil of the state by comparing it to organized crime. It certainly seems to fit, all the same systems are in place: the mafia extorts money from you with the return service of rubbing out any other gangs that may try to infiltrate the area; the state taxes you to provide equally dubious police and national defense. The mafia offers great programs like casinos and off track betting; the government has social security. As effective a comparison as it may be in demonizing statists, I now admit this has been an injustice-- to the mob. Under closer examination, the mafia are far more egalitarian administrators than their bureaucratic cousins. The Mafia is interested in one thing and one thing only: your money. If you pay up, they take the loot and entertain themselves, but more or less forget about their victims once the money’s been laundered. Mafiosos don’t have the concentration to write up zoning laws, Brady Bills, environmental regulations or the lot of it, and they’re obviously not going to pursue prohibition. Of course if you don’t pay, the escalation of force is precipitously steeper, but I can’t imagine they’re any less forgiving than the IRS in the end. How great would it be if government would just take 30% of your income, pocket it, and then leave you the fuck alone? Sound like an improvement? Well then pack your parka and shot glass, this is what is happening in certain areas of Russia. As you may be aware, Vladimir Putin is being dragged kicking and screaming out of bed with the now decaying corpse of the socialist Motherland. Such a flop is post-Soviet capitalism, screams western media, that there are towns, if not whole regions, virtually ruled by the Russian Mob! Local governments are powerless vassals! The horror! The real shocker here is that the protection money charged by mafia thugs is often a 50 to 66% discount on what small business owners would be extorted by statist thugs. Given that no one provides any kind of competent services whatsoever in that country, including nuclear weapon storage, the issue comes down to simply what it costs to be ignored by the powers that be. And the Mafia is under cutting the competition, congrats chaps, what are your stock shares going for? So given the choice between buying off some local Capo periodically or pledging allegiance to my lord and sovereign, my loyalty goes to the Family. The government badmouths the mob simply because they’re better at their job. |