The article, then my comments follow:
Author unknown:

Rage. A deep sadness. Shock.
These are the things I'm feeling right now. Here's why:
Over the weekend, the dismembered, decapitated and burned body of a 19-year-old gay Puerto Rican was found abandoned at the side of a remote road just outside of the city where he lived. And what did the police investigator say about this awful, senseless crime? In a live televised statement, he suggested that the young man got what he deserved for being gay. That it should be expected.

The story came to light yesterday, Monday Nov. 17, when Citizen Journalist Christopher Pagan wrote a brief iReport for CNN about the murder of George/Jorge Steven Lopez Martinez (Jorge Lopez). Here's an excerpt:

I am writing to you about a tragic murder that has happened here in Puerto Rico. It has really only made local news simply because we are on this island, but you are the voice of those that are unheard throughout the world. On November 14 the body of a gay 19 year old was found a few miles away from the town in which he was residing in called Caguas. He was a very well known person in the gay community of Puerto Rico, and very loved. He was found on the site of an isolated road in the city of Cayey, he was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered, both arms, both legs, and the torso.

This has caused a huge reaction from the gay community here, but its a difficult situation. Never in the history of Puerto Rico has a murder been classified as a hate crime. Even though we have to follow federal mandates and laws, many of the laws in which are passed in the USA such as Obama’s new bill, do not always directly get practiced in Puerto Rico. The police agent that is handling this case said on a public televised statement that "people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen".

The team over at Americablog Gay managed to track down the exact quote from the police investigator's statement that was broadcast live on the Spanish-language channel Univisión, and have provided a translation:

"'Este tipo de personas cuando se meten a esto y salen a la calle saben que esto les puede pasar.'

I speak Spanish fluently, so let me give you a rough translation:

'Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him.'"

There are two original stories about this case from Puerto Rican newspapers here and here.

It's unclear if the slaughter of Jorge Lopez was a hate crime, perpetrated because of the teenager's sexuality, or a brutal act committed for other, as yet unknowable, reasons.

The police will need to treat this as a hate crime for the American FBI to get involved, though, and as Pagan's iReport shows, Puerto Rico has yet to classify a crime that way. That said, there are reports that the FBI have begun monitoring the investigation.

I can also tell you that, as of this morning, a suspect in the case has been arrested. He is a 28-year-old man who, apparently, put up little resistance for the arresting officers. Two vehicles have also been seized and are being examined.

Thanks to protests from Puerto Rico's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the police may now be investigating the possibility of a hate crime, which leaves the door open for an FBI investigation if sufficient evidence is found.

Meanwhile, Jorge Lopez's murder has sparked calls for Puerto Rican authorities to take a tougher stance on hate crimes, and to comply with the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act – an American federal law which calls for stricter penalties for bias motivated crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

At the time of writing this, the police officer who made such vile remarks about Lopez's murder retains his job, but does so against mounting pressure for him to be fired.

Take Action:
Americablog Gay have set up an email action to ask the Department of Justice to investigate this murder. If you would like to sign it, please click here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OH Please! Such childish hysteria! A case of manipulating the public's mind and emotions, such as this,is indeed disgraceful. Nowhere in this article is the Official quoted as using the word "deserves". "Hating" this policeman for what you were TOLD he said is so much socialist mindgame manipulations. It says quite clearly in the article what he said...it's even given in the original language and translated into English. And yet the author insists that we read what is clearly NOT there. It never ceases to amaze me how people allow themselves to be used and abused by unscrupled and reckless journalists and petition proponents. Their outrage is as biased as the police officer's ALLEGED statement. The FACT that the readers here,thru their obviously illiterate judgements, fail to see the obvious manipulations is appalling. The Devil is in the details and the true "haters" here are those who have allowed themselves to be "outraged" by the author's obvious display of word games. Of course murder is always an offense,and the criminals deserve their punishment,but putting words into a person's mouth is also offensive. Language is offended, and so is this reader. It seems to me that the sheeple are more of a threat than the alleged perpetrator of this heinus crime.

Freedom 2 Txt

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

We all want freedom for ourselves, but many people have doubts about the way others might use their own freedom. Under these conditions, the state is there to help. Get enough people to favor enough restriction, and the state is good to go, administering every aspect of life.

Every day presents more cases, but the most recent case is stunning. It turns out that 97% of people polled support a universal ban on texting while driving. Half of those surveyed say that the penalty should be as severe as that for drunk driving. Among these, how many do you suppose do text and drive but don't want to admit it to a pollster? Probably plenty. And yet I couldn't find a single online defense of the practice anywhere on the web.

The truth is that it is not necessarily unsafe to text behind the wheel. It all depends on the situation. If you are in a traffic jam, and are late to an appointment, the ability to text can be a lifesaver. Or if there are no cars around, you can do it. On the other hand, it would probably be a mistake to attempt it while doing 80mph around slower traffic.

How can we know the difference between when it is safe and when it is not? The principle applied on American roads is that the driver himself makes that decision. If this principle didn't make sense, there would be no way that the roads themselves could work.

Think of this the next time you are in a big city, zooming around curves and between lanes along with thousands of others, doing top speeds. Here we have 4000-pound hunks of steel barreling down the road without aids other than a dotted yellow line. These are real-life death machines in which one wrong move could cause a 100-car pileup and mass carnage. We do it anyway.

What's remarkable is not that there are so many wrecks. The miracle is that it works at all and that, for the most part, people can get to where they want to go. And consider too the demographic behind the car: old, young, abled, disabled, experienced, inexperienced. Some people have a facility for driving and others do not. Some people have spatial agility and others do not.


How does it all work? Don't tell me that it is due to central planning and the police. The police aren't driving every car and controlling every wheel (much as they might like to). Our human volition on the road, and the decisions we make that affect other drivers, are nearly 100% our own.

And yet it works, and why? The reason is that it is not in anyone's interest to get in a crash. It is in everyone's interest to get to where you are going in one piece, and to do it efficiently. Roll together tens of thousands of people with the same broad goal, and you get spontaneous cooperation. Something that people normally think could not work does in fact work. Looked at from that angle, the orderliness we see on the roads is a general expression of the capacity for human society to work in the context of self-interested individualism.

Now think of that poll showing a widespread opposition to texting while driving. I submit that you would get similar results from a poll that asked people about the right to drive:

Do you support or oppose the right of everyone to own 4000-pound heaps of steel and control them autonomously at top speeds in the midst of thousands of other citizens whose lives could be in danger with so much as a flick of the wrist to the right or left?

That question could elicit nearly 100% negative results. We generally trust our capacity to manage ourselves, but we do not trust the capacity of others to manage themselves. And we surely don't believe that society can generally function well under conditions of freedom. Even though we live in the midst of spontaneous order and use its brilliance every day (grocery stores, the world wide web, restaurants, housing developments), we don't really understand it.

Or how about this one:

Do you support the right of anyone over a certain age to buy and consume as much hard liquor as he wants, even to the point of drinking himself into a life-threatening stupor, neglecting the kids, wrecking family life, and killing brain cells that cannot be replaced?

Probably most people would say no. And yet this was precisely the reasoning behind Prohibition, which most people today regard as a terrible error. Today, we supposedly realize that the social cost of the right to drink hard liquor was greater than the supposed benefit we receive from enforcing Prohibition.


So it is with texting and driving. There are times when it is safe. There are times when it is not safe. The only ones who can really know the difference are the people behind the wheel. These people already enjoy the freedom to talk to passengers, to fiddle with their stereo, to drive following an exhausting jog, to drive while distracted with anxieties over work, to argue, to pray or sing in the car, and do many other things that seem like a distraction from the goal at hand. Somehow it all works, and there is a lesson here. You can count on more order to emerge from trusting freedom than you get from attempting to micromanage other people's lives.

Now, the libertarians among us might point out that these roads are publicly owned, and that this is the core problem. Under privately owned roads, there might be intense restrictions on what you can and cannot do, and these might be part of the contract you make with the road owner.

The market would take care of the rest. If an owner were too restrictive, drivers would take other routes. If they were too lenient, their insurance premiums would rise. The rules of the road would be a result of this careful calibration, tested constantly by the forces of supply and demand.

Under the existing rules of private roads, we see no evidence of a crackdown on texting. Maybe it would come in the future, but at least there would be a market test. When private markets fail, the rule is changed.

But it is different with government. No matter how preposterous the rule, it stays and stays, regardless of whether it works to accomplish its end. And there can be no question that a vicious crackdown on texting is coming. Obama has already banned texting while driving for federal workers. A bill that would deny federal funds to states that allow freedom in texting is flying through the Senate. Look for a nationwide ban in the coming months. It's also all too easy to get some people to support an attack on the young, which texting prohibitionism certainly is.

The ban says: you don't know what is good for you so you must be forced to do what the government thinks is good for you. The ban gets support because people generally think that while they are responsible and good at calibrating what is safe and unsafe, others are not. Through this method, all freedoms could be abolished.

November 4, 2009

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author, most recently, of The Left, The Right, and The State.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Of the reasons listed below, which is the No. 1 reason you have sex?
Love 21%
Pleasure 45%
Jealousy 4%
Loneliness 5%
Physical attraction 10%
Boredom 3%
Cure a headache 2%
Duty 5%
Reproduction 1%
I don't know. 4%

Of the people responding to the poll, 4 percent answered "I don't know." Taking into consideration that about that number of people,in the general population, have no clue about anything, this percentage would seem accurate. Margin of error can also be taken into account.
Duty, 5 percent. This does not seem to reflect accurately to the study done from which this poll originated. 84 percent of women and 64 percent of men picked this as an answer in the study. There are, of course, factors to consider that would make the discrepancy explainable. The poll question is different than the study questions, thus it may not reflect an accurate conclusion for our purposes here. In addition "duty" could very well be associated with another answer or offered choice of answers in both the study and the poll.For example, "Duty" could be linked to "Love" and properly accepted as being additional votes for the "Love" category. 21 percent plus 5 percent makes the "Love" answer a higher percentage as a result, 26 percent. "Physical attraction" 10% could also be associated with "Pleasure" as well as the "Love" choice, for a total of 76%. We could, therefore, conclude that 76% of the polled persons "have sex" because they are physically attracted to the person they "love" and they experience pleasure from the doing. An additional 1% could be added, as a fractional reason, due to a certain number of people desiring to engage in the process of reproduction at some time in their lives. I for one would have amswered "reproduction" only perhaps 2 or 3 specific times in my entire life. At no other times in my life that I engaged in or desired to engage in sex would that be a valid reason, or answer to this question. Even then, only because I had the other three reasons as prerequisites. Love,pleasure, physical attractiveness all play a factor in the desire to reproduce with a particular person. I can not imagine anyone desiring to reproduce simply because they are "bored". Since only one percent of those answering the survey gave "reproduction" as the number one reason for having sex it would indicate that very few people, as an overwhelming rule, use it as a "reason" for engaging in sex. Thus, the overwhelming majority of people (94-99%) have sex because they want to...or perhaps it should be said because they choose to and lack any other reason than for the lust, pleasure, or physical/emotional desire, gratification, and rewards. In other words, reproduction is the least of reasons for having sex. And the population of the world ever increases regardless. Interesting no?

He said:
The CAA must be changed by Congress, NOT by the Judicial Branch, or
by Executive Branch bureaucrats. Surely, neither of these branches of government know they are doing something that they should not be doing. Usurping the powers of the congress? Certainly not!

*******************
I Respond:
Of course they know...and they also know that the miss-application of the income tax is not only criminal but sooooo very obvious.
There is NO law making the avarage citizen liable for the income tax. You know this, right? Well, so does the IRS agent that I talked to. He refused to do his job and answer my simple question. "Show me where the law is." Well, that was not really a question was it? "Tell me where I can find the law that makes me liable." Not a question either, I guess. More of a command from a citizen, a master, an employer to an employee, a servant. He mumbled something about the 15th Amendment (The 15th Amendment, mind you, NOT the 16th Amendment, ignorant moron that he is!) Called me a trouble maker or something just as offensive and hung up on me! Can you imagine that? How many employees manage to keep their jobs after insulting their employers and hanging up on their boss? Only if they are government employees, my friend, only in government.
I know there is no law making me liable for the income tax...I know this as surely as I know my own name. As surely as I know the sky is UP. There is only ONE way to prove me wrong. Only ONE valid arguement that can prove me wrong! And that ONE way is to SHOW ME THE LAW! And they refuse to do it! They refuse to do it because THERE AIN'T NO LAW! (Never mind my grammer.) AND: They KNOW there is NO LAW! The sad part is...they know that we know, that is, they know that some of us know...and I see no reason why ALL of us do not know.
My wife knows there is no law. And yet she continues to cooperate with the criminals, the thieves...the liars and traitors. I understand her reasoning, if reasoning is the right word. She's afraid. She's afraid of the government. She's fearful of what the government might do to her...what the people with the guns, with the power of the police force, with the will to destroy her...all of us...if needs be to remain in power, to continue to rob us, steal from us, violate us and our rights. I understand her fear...I'm afraid too. I suppose it would be foolish not to be afraid...afraid of the monster that threatens us at every turn. Fearful of our lives being taken away if we resist. After all, they do have guns..and they do point those guns AT us from time to time. They have even shot some of us on occasion. Killed our fellow Americans. Put them in prison...ruined them. Yes, I comprehend the danger, the risks involved.
Being afraid is one thing. Being a coward is another. In the old days being a coward was a dishonorable thing. I imagine that the founders of this country were afraid, after all they were at risk of being hung if they were caught. Shot dead on sight if seen by the enemy...their gun toting masters...the liars, and thieves of their time. Yes, I believe they were very afraid. And yet they were not cowards.
I admit that I am afraid. It would be insane not to be. But am I a coward? Sometimes. I may give voice to heroism...but I do not wish to be a martyr. Certainly not a lone martyr. A single dead hero is not likely to effect the system, the enemy's resolve to stay in power...to continue to rule over us without mercy, and to keep right on stealing our property. Like the lone gunman standing in front of us in our own homes, pointing a gun at our heads, demanding that we give him our money...or else! That's how I see the Government, the IRS, except that there are thousands of those gunmen standing in front of me, all around me, and my wife, and you...all of us. Yes, being afraid is very rational. But still......

I know there is no law making me liable for the income tax...I know this as surely as I know my own name. As surely as I know the sky is UP.
******************************
Well, then, LOGICALLY I can assume you don't pay it. That does seem LOGICAL, doesn't it? It would be quite ILLOGICAL for you to give money to someone if you do not owe him or her anything.

****************************

Of course I don't pay a tax I do not owe. Why would I? Why would anyone? Except for fear. Of course I did. Before. Before I learned the truth. Now I spread the Word. The Truth. I am afraid...but I am also brave...but I am no hero...others are more fit for that role...I leave that to them.
It should be said that I have paid the illegal tax, that is, the illegally applied tax. The legal tax, the honest to God income tax, applies to corporations. Read what the "law" actually says. Read what the tax "code" says about liability. "Non-resident aliens"....THAT"S NOT ME! Not you, I imagine. "...With domestic income" ...now what do you suppose THAT means? "Non-resident aliens with domestic income" ...does it mean Chinese peope living in China? I think the Chinese people would be surprised to hear that! But it is NOT me! Are you a foreigner living in a foreign country making money in THAT country? And what does the word "income" mean?
The tax code says what it means. It means corporate profits. Says so. Not my words...not what the dictionary says...it's what Congress says it means. Did you know that the tax code "defines" "person" as a corporate entity? And we all know that corporate entities are "fictitious entities"...not human beings.
I am not a fictitious entity...I am a living soul. I am not a REAL "person" as far as the IRS is concerned. And: only "taxpayers" are liable for the income tax. I am not a taxpayer! Well, I used to be...I paid the tax..so therefore I WAS a taxpayer. Those bastards are trickie little weasels. Since the age of about 17 I submitted to it. I didn't know. I didn't realize. I was ignorant...now I am enlightened...now I know. They tricked me into become a taxpayer. They committed fraud...which is a felony!
Every one knows that a contract that is established by the use of fraud is invalid. Well, The government committed fraud when it tricked me into signing up for the income tax withholding back when I was 17. Thus, a felony was committed...I didn't owe it..I was not liable. Not until I was fraudulently tricked into signing on....and therefore became a taxpayer....I didn't know. Now I know.
Social Security is just another income tax, by the way. Another illegally applied tax. FICA does not stand for Social Security...it does not go into a trust fund under the name of the SS administration. It goes into the general fund. My first SS check doesn't come from the SS administration...it comes from the Treasury...says so right on the check. Did you know that all of your income tax, and FICA taxes, goes to pay the interest on the national debt? The Federal Reserve gets it all. Not one red cent of our "income taxes" goes to pay benefits to the people. We are all property of the Fed. We are collateral on the loan that the Fed gave to the government...to pay the government's bills. An interesting arrangement, no? I kid you not. In this case the Truth will not set you free.....

My website tells it all...if only people would go there and read the truth...I always tell the truth, Joe. I have no reason to lie.

I have nothing to gain by telling lies, Joe, but the government does...and you know what that is, right? Please tell me that you know what that is...why the government always lies. They lie even when the Truth would serve them well.

It's hard to stop being a taxpayer, Joe. The government is so very very trickie...and devilishly evil. You can become a taxpayer by simply paying the marriage license tax. Once you "pay" the tax to get married...you become a corporation....corporations are liable for the income tax. See how easy it is for the people to be tricked into becoming taxpayers? Ask the government for permission to engage in a "privilege" and "bingo"...you're incorporated! Corporations are liable for the income tax....on corporations! Do you get it, my friend? I bet you thought getting married...and BEING married was a Right. Well, it is, Joe, it is! That's why I don't DO marriage licenses anymore. I am not trading my Right to marry for the "privilege" to marry. And that is exactly what people do when they "apply" for a marriage license. They are applying to become a corporation....asking permission to engage in a privilege. Now you know.