Where HipHop and Libertarianism Meet

The guys from Little Brother were vegetarians but are no PETA supporters. 2 years ago Little Brother did an interview with PETA as vegetarians. At the time they did not know a lot about PETA but since have objected to PETA’s use of the interview. Little Brother became hostile to PETA after PETA’s campaign last year comparing animal cruelty to slavery. Group Member Phonte wrote the following on MySpace:

Plus, my problems with PETA run waaaaay deeper than that. To me, they come across as rich white folk who are privileged enough to fight a ‘struggle’ that the average everyday working person could really give a fuck about. Meat is murder? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit! Meat ain’t murder, its what’s for dinner! Plus, any organization that attempts to compare animal abuse to HUMAN SLAVERY can eat a dick…..for real, for real….

I guess I’ve never been much of an animal sympathizer……truth be told, I don’t even like pets…..never have really…..I never even dated girls who had pets…..I thought them hoes was nasty for living with a fo’ legged creature…..Its not that I want to just pointlessly slaughter animals or anything….its just that when I see a chicken, I don’t think ‘oh, poor little helpless creature of God.’ I’m thinkin’ ‘Fo’ piece waing dinner, niggas!”

“Meat ain’t murder, it’s whats for dinner!” That’s pretty funny. Phonte goes on in his blog about how stores shouldn’t sell fancy collars and black people shouldn’t be allowed to own pets.

The May 2006 issue of XXL has an interview with Ghostface that contains some interesting thoughts from Ghostface on the intersection between art and commerce:

So the new album is called Fishscale. Sounds pretty self-explanatory. Is it a concept record, or is that just a title?
I had to go back a little bit and take these niggas on some real live black shit. You know, moving back in on the cocaine shit, because it seems like nowadays niggas is respecting a lot of that bullshit, that white-white. You know: cold drugs, sex, and money and all that. You know what I mean? That’s what’s moving right now, so I had to go back in on some real Tony Starks shit—paint a few pictures and shit.

Does it frustrate you as an artist to try and cater to the market?
Yeah. You know, the game is funny, because you never know which way to go with these people nowadays. So one minute they like this, next minute, they like that. So you know, trying to keep up with muthafuckas and shit, it’s like, Yo, if you want to go in here, I can go in there and ball on that. So I just said, Fuck it. I’m just gonna go with this Fishscale shit, paint my pictures and keep it moving.

This would explain the reason for the inclusion of “Tush” on The Pretty Toney Album. Ghostface kind of hints that some of the cocaine themed material on the new album is because Ghost is trying to appeal to market demand and sales for cocaine themed material. Ghost can’t afford potential loss in album sales by sticking to pure “art” and the aknowledgement of that fact is pretty pure for a rapper.

Here is the link to the majority of the article that is already online:Ghostface: Sincerely Yours

There are many similarities between the policies needed to adequately control drugs coming in to the United States and to control illegal immigration. Both fights can only effectively be fought by law enforcement by effectively reducing the demand.

Illegal immigration can not be stopped no matter what amount of resources are put towards patrolling the Mexican border. Most of the evidence point to the fact that increased enforcement will give immigrants a reason to stay once in the United States. Demand for illegal immigrants can be nearly reached by legalizing the illegal population or increasing the resources put towards the enforcement of employer sanctions.

Drug prohibition probably has not succeeded, at the borders, for many similar reasons. This can be noted in a recent Reuters article on the drug war in Mexico which pointed out that

“Despite hundreds of arrests and record seizures on both sides of the border, drugs have continued to pour into the United States and cocaine, heroin and marijuana are widely available in American cities.

In its latest report on international drug trafficking, issued last month, the U.S. State Department said between 70 and 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the United States passed through Mexico.”

In addition, Meth has begun to be produced in Mexico for American consumption. The demand for drugs in the United States can be reduced through the creation of public health programs to deal with addicts and through decriminalization or legalization which could potentially reduce the profits leading to criminal elements.

MTV recently did an interview with 50 Cent. The first part of the interview is mostly 50 Cent promoting himself and his G-Unit associates.

The second half of the interview is where it gets somewhat interesting:

“A lot of the music that comes out of the South is kind of simplified and I think it’s kinda ’cause they just wanna have a good time,” he explained. “They don’t wanna think about what [they] just said. … They really didn’t make sense, but they made sense in a way and they just wanna hear something while they’re actually partying and it works for them. But when they don’t take the time to make it the highest quality possible, it hurts the actual hip-hop [genre]. People wanna make music they can get away with as opposed to the best possible music they can make.

“They’ll lower the grade of music,” he continued. “It changes the range you can go and then it causes confusion amongst artists that don’t have their own direction at that point and they all start making music that is similar. Like if the record comes out and it’s a hit and it’s the simplest thing on the planet, all of a sudden the new artists start writing records that are similar to that hit. Their motivation is to have a project that’s successful and that will allow them to move out of the financial situations that they’re in when you’re in the ‘hood or in the ghetto. They make it sound like the record that they hear playin’ on the radio as opposed to just creating their own lane.”

50 is right to an extent. Laffy Taffy is huge right now but it is also an egrigiously simple song with elementary lyrics. Snap Music also seems to have oversimplified beats and lacking any real substance. That being said 50 Cent is just making these statements to promote himself and Mobb Deep’s album scheduled to be released in April.

Prison rape is not okay.

If society thinks that some crimes are heinous enough to deserve to be forcefully sodomized, then that should be done through the legislative process. The only crime I could think where one might want to use this as a punishment would be for sexual child molestors but even in that instance, it seems that prison rape would be a cruel undoable punishment.

Prisons have turned a blind eye to the events until recently. As Ron Bailey points out this has led to a public health crisis:

Until recently, prison wardens and the state and federal legislators have largely looked away, not wanting to deal with the crude and brutal facts of prisoner sex. Their inaction has incubated a public health crisis. Of course, the most effective way to prevent HIV infections among prisoners would be for correctional officer and administrators to put a stop to sexual intercourse and oral sex in their institutions. But since inmates tend to be young, violent, testosterone-fueled men, that is much easier said than done. In 2003, the U.S. Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act to study ways to control and stop prison rape. Perhaps the PREA will eventually encourage the development of effective ways to protect inmates from sexual violence, but the crisis urgently needs to be addressed now

From: Government Kills Blacks with AIDS by Ron Bailey