Subject: One in a million: Tisane - A wonderful man! Sat Sep 11, 2010 7:50 am
Read his story, you degenerate, spineless, 'libertarian' motherfuckers!
I'm republishing his piece, in case that page gets whacked.
Early years
My disillusionment with electoral politics was many years in the making. The irony is that it was largely the result of student government figurehead elections and other straw polls designed to educate students about the democratic process. In elementary school, I was in a gifted program that studied the 1988 U.S. Presidential election for several weeks. We simulated the election by setting up a booth in the middle of the cafeteria, and offering every student a choice of either a red ballot (if he favored George H.W. Bush) or a blue ballot (if he favored Michael Dukakis). The ballots were chained together and strung about the cafeteria, so that we could tell by length which candidate had won. It soon became evident that most students were choosing, not based on any predilection toward either candidate, but based on favorite color. Red won by a landslide, and being a Dukakis fan, I lamented that Dukakis had not had the blue ballots. It didn't bother me overmuch, but it did mark the first time that I came face-to-face with the public choice dilemma of rational ignorance.
My next foray into electoral politics was in 1996, when I ran for parliamentarian of my school's chapter of Future Business Leaders of America. The parliamentarian's only role is to advise the chair on parliamentary procedure; given that I voraciously read Robert Rules of Order for fun and had been the state winner in FBLA's parliamentary procedure contest, I should have been a shoo-in. But I lost, the reason being, according to most people, that I was not as well-known as the other candidate. The concept of electoral process as meaningless popularity contest hit home.
In Spring 2000, I was in my last two years of study for my business major at George Mason University, and was required to take one upper-level economics course. I chose Thomas Carl Rustici's ECON 309, which was then titled "Economic Problems and Public Policy." It turned out be a life-changing experience, since it converted me from statism to libertarianism. However, Rustici was a minarchist and I was accordingly indoctrinated into the belief that public goods exist. Radicalism would have to wait till later.
In Spring 2002, I was elected to the student senate on a cannabis reform platform. I introduced the GMU Student Senate cannabis reform resolution, calling on the Virginia General Assembly to decriminalize the plant. The bill passed, but was pocket vetoed by the Student Body President, an action which was upheld by the Student Supreme Court (comprised of members appointed by the Student by the President) after a grievance was filed. The flaws in our notions of separation of powers became evident.
2008 and beyond
Run for public office
I then ran for public office in Virginia's 1st congressional district election, 2008. I also was elected delegate to the 2008 Libertarian National Convention. While researching the candidates, I stumbled across Mary Ruwart's article, How I Became a Libertarian, which mentioned that she became an anarchist after reading The Market for Liberty. I read that book and, in the course of my research of various policy issues involved in my Congressional candidacy, also began reading many other books, such as Gabriel Roth's Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship and the Future of Roads, Hans-Hermann Hoppe's The Private Production of Defense, Bruce L. Benson's To Serve and Protect, etc.
It was becoming evident, though, that people really do vote and make other political decisions for shallow reasons – meaningless bullshit, to use a more colorful term. The process is somewhat ridiculous. To obtain ballot access, for instance, you either buy it by paying $2/signature to hire petitioners, or you stand in front of a grocery store, or on public property somewhere, and accost random passers-by. You have only a few seconds to get their attention, and usually they decide to sign or not sign based on first impressions (e.g. your smile and confidence) rather than on anything substantive. It's rational ignorance at work again.
I also ran into a lot of paradoxes/contradictions. People would ask, "What are your chances of winning?" If I were to answer, "Slim to none," it would be accurate, but then the next obvious question is, "Why bother running then?" If I say, "Because I want to raise public awareness of my cause," they'll say, "Well, why don't you just send out a bunch of literature or buy TV ads or something?" The answer is that you can get a lot more free publicity by running for office; e.g. I went on TV several times, and it would have been hard to afford that coverage.
Then there was the question, "If you favor government's abolition, why do you want to be a part of it?" The answer is, "So that we can change the system peacefully; what do you prefer, that we overthrow it by illegal means?" But I usually left out that last part.
As the race went on, I started doubting more and more the workability of ending oppression through democratic channels, and wondering whether it wouldn't be just as well to do what Timothy McVeigh did, and truck-bomb the government. I began discussing the merits of this idea on the Internet, and evidently someone reported me to the FBI. They approached my mother and told her that they had enough evidence to arrest me for terrorism, but that she could avoid that by going to a county magistrate with them and obtaining an emergency detention order placing me in a mental hospital. She did as they asked, and I was hauled away by the local police. They initially took me to the local hospital, where I was handcuffed to a bed while blood samples were drawn. (I was later billed for these diagnostic medical "services" I received against my will.) A sheriff's deputy remained with me at all times until I was safely incarcerated at Prince William Hospital's Center for Psychiatric & Addiction Treatment, where they have bulletproof glass and other security measures to prevent people from escaping. (The glass is indeed virtually unbreakable; in my efforts to escape over the following weeks, I tried to put a heavy wooden chair through it, and all it did was make a slight scratch. But then again, I lack much upper body strength, so wasn't able to put a lot of force into it.)
The next day, I was questioned by a government doctor for a few minutes, who had not been briefed on my situation. I told him that I was running for Congress and that the FBI was investigating me. He said, "Only the FBI? Not the CIA?" He concluded I had severe delusional disorder. My court-appointed lawyer advised me to consent to be held for a few days for evaluation rather than to fight the commitment, because if I were to lose, I could be committed for several months. He told me that the only downside would be that, pursuant to Code of Virginia § 18.2-308.1:3, a law passed after the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, I would thereafter be forbidden to possess a firearm. I opted for "voluntary" admission.
In the days that followed, though, it became clear that my treating psychiatrist intended not to release me for awhile. He wanted to have neuropsych testing conducted on me, and the timeframe for accomplishing that was unclear, since they lacked the necessary equipment and would need to send me elsewhere. I decided I had other things I needed to do, such as finishing up my Congressional campaign, so I indicated that my presence there was no longer voluntary. The hospital obtained another emergency detention order from the magistrate, and I was brought before the Special Justice. He concluded I was not an imminent danger, and released me.
I continued to research Timothy McVeigh, and after reading the book American Terrorist, concluded that mass destruction was not a good way to try to bring about reform. This lined up with the teachings of Murray Rothbard, who held that guerilla warfare is justified only if it avoids taxing, conscripting, or otherwise harming innocent bystanders. After reading John Ross' book Unintended Consequences, I decided to instead assassinate a high-ranking senator (specifically, Senator Robert Byrd, because of his reputation as the "King of Pork") and prepared this document, which I would carry in my pocket when I liquidated him, for discovery by the police after my arrest:
Prosecution for threatening the President
However, deciding to first give entrepreneurship a try before sacrificing my life for the cause, I ended up instead moving to Boulder, Colorado shortly after the election. I hoped that, by getting away from Washington, DC metropolitan area, which is dominated by government and its contractors, I might find a non-government-related job, the wages from which would finance my starting a successful side business. My timing was not good, in that the Great Recession had flooded the job market with experienced accountants looking for work, and it was hard for me to find a job. My money ran out, I couldn't pay my credit card bills, and it became evident the situation wasn't viable. Circa Thursday, December 11, 2008, I decided that I was tired of serving as the government's slave and having my goals thwarted by the state, and that I was unwilling to put up with it anymore. Once again, I considered assassinating a government official but, lacking the money to buy a gun and spend time figuring out a plan of attack, I made up my mind to instead commit an act of symbolic protest against the government by threatening assassination. I planned to go to prison and commit suicide there by starving myself to death, so that they would have to carry my body out of there and be faced with the visceral reality of what their oppression causes. So, I sent the following email to comments@whitehouse.gov :
The next day, two Secret Service agents came to the rental office of my apartment. Being informed by the landlord of the name and address of the company at which my sister and I worked, they showed up at my workplace. After presenting their credentials, they showed me the email and asked me to read aloud a paragraph from it. I did so, and then they asked if I had written and sent it. I confirmed that I had done so. They noted that it was a well-written letter, in contrast to many of the rambling documents they receive, and asked if I meant what I wrote. I told them that it spoke for itself.
One of the agents asked why I didn't just vote as a means of expressing my opposition to the government, rather than sending a threat. I asked, "What if the candidate you vote for loses?" He responded, "Then vote in the next election." This seemed like a implausible solution, considering that Libertarians, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, have never won a federal election.
They said that if I were to tell them that my email was not a serious threat, they could report that to their superiors and let me go; but if I maintained that I were serious, they would have to arrest me. They told me that threatening the President of the United States is a felony, and that this is not the kind of thing that a young man needs on his record. I responded that I was serious and meant what I wrote in the email.
They handcuffed me and took me to Denver City Jail, a place where time seems to pass quite slowly because you can do very little there but sit in your cell, eat three times a day, and sleep. After the weekend, the Secret Service agents showed up again with an arrest warrant and an indictment. One of them asked me, "Did you have a long, hard weekend?" to which I answered in the affirmative. He showed me my mugshot and said, "You can take a better picture than that, Nathan. That one just makes you look mean." I shrugged that one off. I am fairly used to law enforcement officers being assholes.
I was taken before a U.S. Magistrate Judge, who ordered that I be detained pending trial because I posed a danger to the community. I was taken to Englewood Federal Detention Center, a much nicer facility than Denver City Jail. I spent the next ten months there.
While awaiting trial, I had a succession of cellmates. One was a meth cook; another was a meth dealer who had gotten busted for being a felon in possession of a firearm; two of them were bank robbers; one had forged Colorado drivers' licenses. Most of the inmates were there for drug, gun or immigration offenses. The inmate population ranged from people who were looking at only a few months to those who were serving life sentences and awaiting transfer to other facilities.
While I was there, someone tried to escape by digging through his cell wall. He was a store room orderly who had access to a lot of equipment. Evidently, his plan was to bend the rebar with a long metal rod, and to take down the razor wire fences with an improvised grappling hook made of modified paint rollers. He had sewed two coats together to help him get through any remaining razor wire. But someone snitched on him, and the whole unit was locked down for a week or two afterward. An investigator questioned everyone about it. He asked me if I had known anything about the escape and "Would you tell me if you did know?" I answered "No" to the first question and "Probably not" to the second. I was sad to see that inmate go; although he didn't know how to make particularly strong hooch, he was a good guy in many other respects. Apparently, he is not in BOP custody anymore. He must be in a state lockup; he had a long sentence for bank robbery, if I recall correctly.
Many prisons (and especially the higher-security prisons) are racially political. Each major race (e.g. white, black, paysa (Latin American-born Hispanic), and chicano (American-born Hispanic)) has one or more cars, each of which is led by a shot caller. Sometimes being a member of a car is optional, sometimes not. At the FDC, partly because of the high turnover rate and large number of inmates who were there for psychological evaluations and therefore deemed incompetent to participate, not everyone belonged to a car. In any event, if you have a problem with a person who is of another race, the procedure you are expected to follow is to tell your shot caller, who then tells his shot caller, who then tells that person. This system actually seems to work pretty well at helping people save face by avoiding direct confrontation. But, cars have their disadvantages too. If your car goes to war with another car (what is referred to as "getting in a wreck"), then you are expected to participate if you belong to one of the involved cars. If you fail to help in the fight, or otherwise violate certain norms, then your own shot-caller may order that your ass be kicked. (Being a member of a car, or supporting your fellow car members, is known as "riding with them.")
One day I was waiting to use the phone when suddenly a chair flew by, and I heard a lot of yelling and loud thuds. The blacks decided to corner one of their own in the TV room and perform an "internal security" beatdown, in full sight of the guard, who promptly pushed the panic button. About 30 staff members burst into the unit and started yelling at everyone to "lock it down" (i.e. go back to their cells so that staff could lock them in), but everyone just stood there watching the fight until the victim had been thoroughly thrashed. The HazMat team arrived to clean up the blood as everyone rushed to point fingers at someone else as being the instigator of the fight, and a lot of those accused got taken away in handcuffs. Perhaps some of them were cleared after spending lengthy periods in the hole awaiting administrative hearings. We were locked down for a couple weeks after that incident. [edit] Psychological evaluations
My public defender asked if I wanted to simply plead guilty and take whatever punishment the court meted out, or pursue a sentence reduction for diminished capacity. I responded that I wanted to seek jury nullification by claiming that I had a right to threaten the President. My lawyer then asked me, "If you had a tiff with your neighbor and he wrote you an email like that, wouldn't you feel threatened?" I replied that it was more akin to a situation in which a liquor store customer sees a man robbing the clerk and pulls a gun on him, saying, "Drop it or I'll shoot"; such a threat would be justified. He responded, "But the President wasn't pointing a gun at you when you were writing that email." I replied that the President is, however, through the federal agents under his command, at any given moment using armed force against the innocent; and that reasonable force in defense of others is justified. My lawyer concluded that I must be mentally ill, and filed a motion with the court for a competency evaluation.
Meanwhile, I began starving myself to death, but another inmate told the correctional officer, who asked why I wasn't eating. I told him I didn't want to be a government slave anymore who contributed, through his taxes, to the oppression of others. He responded, "We're all government slaves. But you have to eat." I declined, and I was given a suicide smock and a suicide blanket and sent to suicide watch. While on suicide watch, I talked with one of the inmate companions, who told me I would be a good teacher and that I should do that rather than killing myself. Eventually he talked me into eating again, and I was taken back to the general population.
I was interviewed by a psychiatrist for about an hour and asked various questions such as the names of the last several Presidents, the roles of public defender, prosecutor, judge, and jury in the proceedings, and the nature of a plea bargain and why someone would want to accept it. I was found to be competent to stand trial, and my lawyer then, over my objections, filed a motion stating that he intended to pursue an insanity defense.
I opposed using an insanity defense because, for one thing, arguing that I was crazy would discredit my cause; and, for another, I had done my own research about what happens, pursuant to United States federal laws governing defendants with mental diseases or defects, when a court declares you not guilty only by reason of insanity (NGRI). Per 18 U.S.C. § 4243, once you are found NGRI, the government can hold you in custody for the rest of your life, or until you present clear and convincing evidence that you are no longer a danger to other people or their property. You get to go before a risk panel once a year, and if they decide you are still too crazy and dangerous to be released, then you have to wait another year; so in the end, you can end up serving a lot more time than if you had pleaded guilty. I also was getting concerned about the delays caused by all these pretrial motions, but my lawyer's attitude was that it didn't matter how long I spent in detention pending trial because I was going to get convicted and serve time anyway. In any event, the judge ordered an insanity evaluation.
This time, I had a two-day evaluation which found that I had an IQ in the top 0.5% of the U.S. population and that I had "depressive disorder, not otherwise specified" and a "personality disorder, not otherwise specified" with paranoid, antisocial, and narcissistic elevations. Perhaps the "paranoid" aspect was due to my answering, on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, that I distrusted the government; the "antisocial" aspect was due to my answering that I favored abolishing almost all laws; and the narcissistic aspect was due to my answering that I think I am an important person. The psychologist also found that there was no evidence that I was insane at the time of the offense. So, the insanity defense was dropped, and a two-day jury trial was scheduled.
Having read Clay Conrad's Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine, which recommended that some defendants seeking jury nullification represent themselves, I filed a motion to proceed pro se. This motion was granted by the judge. I wanted to file several pretrial motions, including a motion in limine to forbid the prosecution from inquiring, at jury selection, into the prospective jurors' political beliefs; a motion to dispense with the juror's oath; and a motion containing some proposed jury instructions. However, it became evident that I didn't have the research materials needed to back up my motions with empirical evidence supporting the wisdom of these proposals. I asked my lawyer to provide me with certain law review articles, and he told me that it wasn't his job.
To earn some extra money, a fellow inmate and I set up shop as jailhouse lawyers. Actually, I was more of a jailhouse paralegal, typing up documents that my partner wrote, and doing whatever research I could. I read a lot of accounts of what I would consider outrageous police conduct. All in all, the ignorance, apathy, and evil I saw pretty much shook my faith in the fundamental goodness of mankind. It seemed amazing, for instance, that no one on the outside bothered sending some legal research materials to help a fellow inmate who was fighting a life sentence for distributing crack cocaine. [edit] Plea negotiations
In the meantime, I met with the prosecutor, who arrived at the FDC accompanied by a Secret Service agent. The prosecutor began by saying that he was not here to discuss my political beliefs and that I shouldn't make a decision based on my like or dislike of him personally; then, like a true gangster, he said, "This isn't personal; it's just business." He stated that I had no chance of winning my case. He asked why, if I wanted to be a martyr, I didn't just "man up" by pleading guilty and asking the judge for the maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment. I told him that I considered the government's incarceration of me to be an act of aggression and that I wouldn't legitimize that aggression by consenting to it. He told me that when defendants don't plead guilty, it tells him that they haven't learn their lesson, and therefore he is inclined to ask the judge for a lot more prison time for those defendants. I told him that I would agree to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain United States Government officers or employees, but he held firm, saying that he couldn't in good conscience reduce the charge below what I was guilty of and that his bosses wouldn't let him do so in any case. He said that it was important that this felony charge be put on my criminal record so that it could serve to increase my sentence if I were to make another threat in the future. He also said that he would have thought that after five months in jail, I would have had a changed attitude.
The prosecutor said that we both knew that if this case went to trial, I would be convicted. He said that we both knew that his first exhibit would be the email and that his first witnesses would be the two Secret Service agents who interviewed me. I replied that with a jury, one never knows what will happen. He replied that that was true, and that he's been beaten by pro se defendants before, but that he didn't think it would happen in this case. The Secret Service agent chimed in to say that he didn't think that the average juror would want to put someone who thinks that it's okay to threaten the President back on the street.
I argued that a person has the right to use self-defense against an aggressor. The prosecutor said that principle only applies when the aggression is immediate, and that if I persisted in saying that I was going to kill the President after I got out, he would seek 5 years of imprisonment. The Secret Service agent became noticeably angry at my remarks about the moral acceptability of killing the President.
The prosecutor offered to agree to a 2-point offense level reduction under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines for acceptance of responsibility, to not seek a fine, to recommend an 8-month sentence, and to not object if I asked the judge for time served, if I would plead guilty. I noticed that his calculations were not taking into account a 6-level official victim enhancement, but I did not say anything then, because I thought that it might be better to let the oversight go uncorrected. I told him I would think about his offer, and he gave me about a week to make my decision. Upon leaving, he shook hands with me, but the Secret Service agent, visibly peeved by my comments, simply walked out.
I talked to my lawyer, who suggested that I bring the enhancement to the prosecutor's attention, since the probation officer might notice it anyway in the course of preparing the presentence investigation report. I told the prosecutor about it, and he replied that he would have to rescind his previous offer, and that now, the best he could do was support a 10-month sentence. I suggested that the plea agreement include a 4-level decrease for the offense consisting of a single instance evidencing little or no deliberation. He went along with that, and we put it in writing. One thing I was not able to get him to do was offer a proposed sentence that would be binding on the court in accordance with Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C); he said that he couldn't do that because the government takes this offense very seriously.
There were several factors that influenced my decision to plead guilty. The difficulty in preparing a case from inside prison was a major one. Another was the fact that I would face 2-3 times as much prison time if I were to plead not guilty and lose at trial. Then there was the fact that I had already served 5 months that I would not be able to get back even if I were acquitted. Yet another reason was the fact that I was bitterly disappointed in the reaction of my friends and libertarian colleagues, and in the rest of society, and viewed them as not worth fighting for anymore. I also knew that, according to statistics gathered by David C. Brody and C. Rivera, most jurors mistakenly believe that if they refuse to acquit the guilty, they will be held in contempt in court. This is caused partly by a combination of the administration of the juror's oath with the jury instructions which state, "You have no right to disregard or give special attention to any one instruction, or to question the wisdom or correctness of any rule I may state to you. You must not substitute or follow your own notion or opinion as to what the law is or ought to be. It is your duty to apply the law as I explain it to you, regardless of the consequences... It is also your duty to base your verdict solely upon the evidence, without prejudice or sympathy. That was the promise you made and the oath you took." [edit] Sentencing
I went to court and pleaded guilty. The probation officer dug up a cannabis possession charge, which had been dismissed as part of a deferred disposition, from my past, and used it to justify putting me in Criminal History Category II, which would give me 2-3 extra months prison time. The presentence report he prepared was laden with hearsay statements, not made under oath, that never would have been admitted as testimony in court, and were in some cases misleading or blatantly false. He also recommended that the judge give me 3 years' supervised release and require that I take whatever medications are prescribed to me by my treating psychiatrist and submit to blood tests to ensure that I am taking a therapeutic dose. I objected in writing, threatening to commit suicide if they imposed onerous conditions of release on me, and suggested that the probation officer quit his job and do something useful, like audition for the lead role in Brokeback Mountain II. I wrote that citizens have a right to defend life, liberty and property by killing tyrannical government officials who used armed force to aggress against them and that I went easy on the President by only threatening him, but that my time in prison had not been in vain, and next time I would know how to go about doing things.
I also filed a motion asking for another psychological evaluation, on the grounds that the doctors had not made findings justifying any order that I be forced to take medication. This motion was denied. My lawyer told me that the judge has broad discretion in reference to conditions of supervised release, and that I would not be successful in fighting that condition. My mother and sister wrote letters to the court stating that I am not a violent person.
I went into court and had to sit there for a long time, because my attorney was tied up with another case. The court reporter, probation officer, law clerk, prosecutor, and other staff were chatting amiably, and it occurred to me that during all of these judicial proceedings, I was the only person there who was an outsider, because I was the only participant who wasn't a government employee. Even my lawyer was a government employee. Finally my lawyer arrived, and we got underway.
The prosecutor told the court that, although he was bound by the plea agreement to recommend 12 months, he made that agreement before he knew the details about my past and before I wrote that letter. The judge told me that the remarks I wrote in my letter to the probation officer undid all the good that my relatives did by writing good things about me. He told me that what I wrote was the worst possible thing a person in my situation could write. He asked if I wanted to say anything in reference to the conditions of supervised release that the probation officer had recommended. Thinking, because of my what lawyer told me, that it was pointless to fight the condition, I told the judge that I was withdrawing my objections to the condition of supervised release. I told him I would refrain from committing any more crimes, and that I would abide by the conditions of supervised release. I had nothing further to say.
He told me that my letter to the probation officer indicated a lack of self-control on my part that suggested a higher likelihood that I would commit a similar offense in the future. He told me that I might have the highest IQ of anyone in the courtroom, but I was still the only one in custody. He told me that whether I lived here or in Papua New Guinea, I would need to learn to abide by the norms of society. He also said that this case did not arise because the government oppressed me, but because I reached out and touched someone. He sentenced me to 16 months in prison, and imposed all the conditions of supervised release that the probation officer had recommended. He ended by giving a brief pep talk, saying that I've had times in my life when I was doing well, and I'll probably do well in the future if I can overcome my mental health issues.
I appealed the condition of supervised release pertaining to forced medication to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and my appellate lawyer told me that if I had not withdrawn my objection to the condition, I would have had one of the best appeals case he's ever seen. But, because I withdrew the objection, I forfeited my rights. He indicated he was going to file an Anders brief and withdraw from the case, but I prevailed upon him to continue fighting. The case is still in the appeals process, although if I had to put money on a particular outcome, I would guess that the appeals court is going to issue a one- or two-page unpublished ruling affirming the judgment of the District Court. [edit] After sentencing
After a month of lingering around Englewood FDC, I was finally designated to Rochester Federal Medical Center in Minnesota. I spent a few months there, and right before release, went before a risk panel that considered whether I should be held beyond my sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4246 due to mental illness and dangerousness. They decided I was fit for society. The Secret Service also visited and asked about my intentions in reference to the President and his family. Presumably, if I had said I intended on killing them, it would have resulted in another threat charge, since by definition, a threat is a communicated intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. (18 U.S.C. § 871 limits it further by saying that it has to be a threat of bodily harm or death or kidnapping.) That is what makes those sorts of conversations somewhat ridiculous; the only thing you legally can say is that you plan on not harming the President. And in any event, if you were seriously planning on killing the President, you certainly wouldn't tell the Secret Service. [edit] After release from prison
I was released in February 2010, but the scars of the experience remained with me for a few months. It was not so much what happened to me, in and of itself, that bothered me. It was the things I saw and experienced seemed to say about other people. The months of sitting in prison and not receiving mail from people who had held themselves out as best friends. The fact that, although I wrote to them, no newspapers or blogs covered the story until the end, and when they did cover it, they merely repeated the sparse facts stated in the press release issued by the U.S. Attorney. The fact that no one protested what the government did to me. The fact that people viewed me as crazy.
Sometimes I thought back to what the judge said, about how I need to exercise self-control. And I angrily thought, I'll show you self-control. When my brains are spattered all over the wall, then you won't have to worry any more about my self-control, or lack thereof. You won't have to worry about my lack of conformity to societal norms. You won't have to worry about my being crazy, because I will rid the world of this crazy person. And I won't have to worry about your tyranny any more. I will have emigrated from this world into a realm of eternal nothingness, and fled to where oppression cannot reach me. So what if I lose all the benefits of being alive. I didn't really fit into society anyway. And when I'm dead, I won't care about what I've lost. Especially when I ran into major obstacles in what I was trying to accomplish, I despaired and wondered what the use was, if nobody cared and nobody would help.
But then I calmed down and, sometimes, figured out how to solve the problem I was dealing with. I realized I was not the first person to get disgusted with his fellow man, and to become frustrated in trying to accomplish a lofty entrepreneurial dream. But I figured, if failure were to become unavoidable, or I decided I just didn't care anymore, I might give up. I wrote during that time: I still have not found any great meaning in life, or anyone with whom I feel I have very much in common, and it's very lonely. I live only to accomplish great things of my choosing, and if I can't accomplish them, what's the point? And even if I can accomplish them, what's the point? Only my own amusement, and perhaps the admiration and respect of others, if I accomplish something really big. And why does it matter what they think? Maybe, if I can actually improve others' lives significantly, there will be some point in continuing to endure my own pain of existence.
I want to build a successful company (see User:Tisane/Proposal) and then use the resulting funds to participate in a successful secessionist movement, perhaps in a country that has a weaker central government that America's. It's kind of a long shot, but most ambitious endeavors are. I see no point in living a merely ordinary life. I don't enjoy it enough for it to be worthwhile. I don't think anything can change that, either. A melancholy temperament seems to be an inseparable part of my nature.
I posted this story on Libertapedia, and RBLibertarian threatened to leave if I didn't delete it, because he said that it would make libertarians look like a bunch of nutcases. But if it is suppressed, then what will have been the point of spending those 14 months in prison and going through all that pain? No one will learn anything from it, and it will just have been a dead loss. All of my editors left the encyclopedia over this issue, and because I created articles like the assassination article. I found that deeply depressing. They were not able to make any sound arguments against my point of view, but they left anyway.
A few months after my release, a few fellow libertarians wrote to me and expressed regret for what happened and for the fact that they didn't write. One of them wrote that "despite not writing back I was concerned about you and the actions others took to violate your rights." I felt very healed when I read that. It changed my assessment of humanity for the better. Just to have somebody acknowledge that my rights were indeed violated made a big difference for me. I also found out that a few people had tried to telephone but hadn't been able to reach me, or that they had drafted letters but not sent them because they were struggling to figure out how to express themselves adequately. I read Larken's blog on helping political prisoners, and found that there were others who had gone through the same experience. I find some measure of satisfaction in providing whatever support I can to those who are in a similar situation as what I was in, even if it is only a symbolic gesture such as expressing appreciation for their sacrifice.
In retrospect, I suspect that the optimal course of action would have been to take the case to trial, and to never mention to anyone the 6-level official victim enhancement. Even if I had been convicted, the enhancement probably would have gone unnoticed, and I would have ended up at offense level 12, the same level I ended up at by pleading guilty. I also had not realized that it would be so difficult to make it successfully through federal supervised release. It is a much stricter system to deal with than state-level probation.
For awhile, I considered writing a second such letter; see User:Tisane/Second letter. I could have used my experience from this first experience to act more effectively this time. But, I decided against it, since every hour spent in prison seems like an eternity, and it would be pointless to spend more time there if no one is going to support my actions.
In accordance with the court order, every week, I have to go see a counselor. Thus far, they haven't been too bad. We seem to have an arrangement in which I give them a lucrative, steady opportunity to bill the government, in exchange for their not giving me too much trouble. On the other hand, it is a total waste of time; these guys can't help me through my situation, so we waste our time talking about nothing of importance. Every week, they ask about my mood, and I say, "The same as always. Lots of mood swings."
I am considering applying for some information technology internships, and am pondering how to handle job interviews, when people ask about my conviction for threatening the President. I had not anticipated reaching this stage, since the original plan was of course to either gain an acquittal or kill myself. I feel that it would be a betrayal of what I believe in to say something like, "I did something stupid but I've learned from it." I don't see what is so stupid about exercising one's rights, and the email did not, in and of itself, produce the consequence of my staying in prison for 14 months, but rather, the government caused it to produce that outcome. But I suspect that a lot of people don't look at it that way.
I was a Certified Public Accountant, but I am not even going to try to pursue an accounting career at this point, because I know from experience that those employers tend to be very fussy about their applicants' criminal records. I also kinda sucked at accounting, because I had trouble staying organized. But, I might be able to find a job at some mom-and-pop IT place. We'll see. If I fail to build a life that meets my standards, suicide awaits. I have already started down that road once or twice since I've been out, and doubled back when the will to live overcame the will to die. When I get closer to the point of no return, I find myself thinking, "I should at least give life more of a try before I throw in the towel. Let me exhaust all possibilities before I do something so drastic." Or actually, to be more accurate, my fighting spirit returns and I say to the world, "Who do you think you're dealing with? You can't defeat me this easily." Then, later, I slip back into the more mundane and grim "let's stick this out till I'm satisfied the fight is finished" frame of mind.
In writing this letter, I have indicated that I will not obey the conditions of supervised release anymore. Accordingly, it is highly likely that within a few days, I will be arrested. Details can be found here
Subject: Re: One in a million: Tisane - A wonderful man! Sat Sep 11, 2010 8:05 am
Tisane/Second letter to U.S. Probation
Nathan Larson 9270 Prospect Avenue Catlett, VA 20119 August 9, 2010
Barry Raymond Senior United States Probation Officer 10500 Battlefield Parkway, Suite 100 Manassas, VA 20109
Dear Mr. Raymond:
I have decided not to comply with my conditions of supervised release anymore. The United States Government has no rightful claim to jurisdiction over me, and I am not morally bound to obey any of its laws or officers. In throwing off the federal yoke, I am exercising the right of individual sovereignty to which I am entitled under natural law.
From now on, I will violate federal, state and local laws at will, as long as such violations do not infringe the rights of others. For example, I will possess and use whatever controlled substances I want to possess and use. There is no natural law against doing so; such “offenses” are merely victimless crimes arbitrarily established by the government. I refuse to submit to any more drug tests, because they infringe my privacy rights.
For now on, I will possess firearms, ammunition, destructive devices, and other dangerous weapons whenever I want to. I have a right to protect myself from aggressors, including those who work for the government. If you happen to hear the distinctive sound of the gunfire of a Solothurn S-18/100 20 mm Anti-Tank Cannon emanating from my backyard, as cardboard cutouts of statist federal politicians, federal judges, federal prosecutors, and federal agents become riddled with large, ragged bullet holes, please know that there is nothing amiss; it is just me engaging in target practice.
From now on, I will leave the judicial district whenever I want to. Arbitrary borders drawn by governments have no legitimacy to me. I will come and go as I please.
I will not submit any more probation reports, as they are a pointless waste of time. I will not answer any inquiries or follow any instructions of probation officers. I will not notify any probation officer when I change residence or employment, since that is none of the court's business.
I will frequent places where controlled substances are illegally sold, used, distributed, and administered whenever I want to frequent those places. I will associate with persons engaged in what the government deems criminal activity and with persons convicted of felonies whenever I want to. I will refrain from helping anyone infringe others' rights, but I won't submit to the government's arbitrary designation of certain people as off-limits.
I will not permit probation officers to visit, or permit confiscation of what such officers may deem “contraband.” Nor will I notify a probation officer if I am arrested or questioned by a law-enforcement officer. Nor will I provide access to any requested financial information. I have no moral obligation to disclose such matters to the court.
I will not participate in a program of mental health treatment. There is no point; it is a complete waste of taxpayer money. I do not have any mental illnesses, so there is nothing for a counselor to treat. I certainly am not going to submit to any involuntary medication, since that constitutes an unwanted intrusion into my body, over which I have sovereign ownership rights.
Lastly, I will use email whenever I want to use email, and without obeying any restrictions or conditions imposed by any probation officer. I have a right to communicate without allowing government officials to be privy to such communications. If there are any other conditions of supervised release I have not mentioned, please know that I have as little intention of obeying those as I do of obeying the ones I have mentioned.
Do not attempt to enforce the judgment of the court. I do not recognize the legitimacy of that judgment. I am also morally entitled to defend myself if anyone tries to lay hands on me, since I have not infringed anyone's rights. I was convicted of making a threat against the President of the United States. It was a threat I was entitled to make, since defense of others is morally permissible when a government official, or any other criminal, is committing aggression against them through the henchmen under his command. The federal government lacks any rightful authority to arrest people for violating tax laws, drug laws, etc. to which they did not consent to being bound. Federal agents are committing aggression at any given moment at the behest of the President; therefore, at any given moment, anyone has a right to kill, or to threaten to kill, the President.
In view of the overwhelming force that the government can muster for its efforts to infringe the rights of the innocent, I might have decided that it was in my interests to obey the conditions of release. But the court and its officers have too much power. Supervised release is a middle ground between freedom and incarceration, and what is to prevent the court, and/or you, from making it almost as bad as imprisonment? Only your goodwill. But I don't trust in goodwill, when the person has no incentive to display any such tendency.
You can make it intolerable for me, if you want to; and why wouldn't you? Those who are attracted to government work tend to be those who are willing to put ethics aside and pursue other priorities. And there are no penalties for a government official who harms the innocent in a way that is authorized by law. Even if you happen to be a reasonably decent person, who is to say that you will be my probation officer for the entire three years? In light of this, I may as well rebel completely, and go back to prison. That way, I stand a chance of leaving the criminal justice system in 2012 rather than in 2013, or beyond.
Subject: One in a million: Tisane - A wonderful man! 
Sat Sep 11, 2010 7:50 am
