Thursday, August 28, 2014

Ferguson - A Human Tragedy In Three And A Half Minutes


What life altering experiences can a person have in three and a half minutes?  Can you start and run a successful business?  Can you fall in love?  Write the Great American Novel?  Invent the next killer app or miracle cure?

No, great achievement requires time.  However, lives can be destroyed in a matter of moments.  In the space of few minutes you can say those ill chosen words that cost you a career or the love of your life.  In the space of a few seconds you can push the plunger on a syringe or swallow the pills that obliterate life.  A moment’s carelessness can blow up a factory or kill dozens on the highway.

Such is the case in Ferguson, Missouri.  Within the space of three and a half minutes, two young men made tragic decisions and took irreversible actions that cost the life of one, tore apart a community, polarized an already overstressed nation and will have untold but severe and lifelong consequences for the other.

I use the words “young men” as a formality.  From my venerable perspective they are still both boys, younger than my eldest son and still finding their footing in an uncertain world.  This makes it all the more sad thinking that either could be my kids.  Like my sons, they are neither demons nor saints. Both are kids given to impulsivity and rashness and prone to ill judgment in moments of pressure.

Michael Brown was slated to begin college the week following his death and had no prior criminal record.  If he were my son, I would be proud that he made it through high school with a clean record and was on track to productive future.

Brown’s first life altering decision of the day was made about ten minutes before he was shot.  What was he thinking when he robbed a local C-Store of cheap cigars in broad daylight and in front of video surveillance cameras?  To make matters worse he assaulted the store clerk on the way out.  Brown was a big guy in a small town.  I’ll bet everyone knew him.  He couldn’t hide.

In a moment’s time Brown made two poor choices that may have postponed or even preempted his college education and cost him any opportunity for a “good” job later in life.

Police Officer Darren Wilson is a 28 year old with a nice job, one that typically comes with decent pay, high job security and good benefits.  He was a lot better off than many other people his age.  I think most of us would be proud to have him as a son, too.

Then in less than four minutes things went horribly awry.  What we know is that Brown and his friend were walking in the middle street when Officer Wilson asked them to move to the curb.  Somewhere between the time of that request and the death of Michael Brown, that is three minutes, a lot of unfortunate decisions were made under duress.  Investigators and grand jurors will sort the sequence of events out.

Perhaps Brown was shaken up by what he just did at the store moments ago and then panicked at sudden appearance of a cop.  Perhaps Officer Dawson was in over his head in a one on one confrontation without backup.  Perhaps Dawson simply acted in an instinctive human mode of self preservation when confronted with an angry NFL sized adversary.

Maybe two young guys in a tense situation misread each other and back up came a minute too late to mediate.

I do not believe that Michael Brown got up that morning intending to embark on a minor crime spree.  Nor do I believe that Officer Dawson woke up that day intending to kill anyone.  And I do not believe for one minute that race played a role in a role in this simple tragedy of human error. 

The sad fact; however, is that human error and stupidity are so mundane so as not to justify Federal intervention.  Simple human error and stupidity do not whip up the base.  Human error and stupidity cannot be legislated away.

Therefore for the media and political class, simple but tragic human error and stupidity are not acceptable explanations.  They need an exploitable platform to advance their agendas and power bases.  What they are making of this tragedy is far worse than human error and stupidity.  It is cold, calculated and cynical.  It tears at the fabric of community and sets people against one another.

When America needs prayer, forgiveness, dialog and healing, the exploiter class leads us instead to heightened hatred, mistrust and divisiveness. 

To err is human.  To forgive divine.  To capitalize on tragedy is nothing short of diabolical.

 

Related Posts:

Why Did You Make Sister Hit You?”
Who You Gonna Call?

Cliven Bundy – Sorting Through The Rubble


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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
Paul Simon



Friday, August 22, 2014

A Note From The Sports Desk


Philadelphia, PA - Under the deft guidance of Sam Hinke, the 76ers lost spectacularly during the past season and anticipate a repeat performance next year.   They are doing so on a shoestring payroll with young players and an eye to future glory.
A few blocks up the street, the Phillies are doing an equally fine job of losing. Unfortunately, the Phils are doing it with expensive older players who will only get worse with age.
American in 2014 may well be the 2014 Phillies – old and overspent with no real plan for a better future.   
Like the Phillies, we could dump existing lineup, but is there really anything better in the farm system?  What we have is another crop of palookas intent upon clocking in time to qualify for pensions and earn their slots on banquet circuit.
America should take a cue from Coach Chip at the Linc and put in whole new system.  Maybe the whole liberal democracy thing has run its course.  Maybe Lord Action was correct in saying that “power corrupts”.   Perhaps 250 years of corruption has rotted the hull of our sinking ship of state.
Maybe a whole new playbook, a New Liberty is called for.  Let’s concede that American constitutional democracy created greater opportunities for individual social and economic advancement than monarchy, feudalism and all of the aristocratic caste systems that preceded it.  Still our best days seemed to have passed as prosperity wanes, debt rises, dependency grows and the ruling parties slather on war paint.
Fueled by the chicanery of central bankers, nation state economies the world over are teetering on collapse.  This includes Russia, China, Western Europe and the Developing World
No one wants to see hardship but the worldwide house of cards is due to collapse and a global correction is coming.   
When that correction comes it will serve us well to look to the prescriptions of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard and the Austrian School in rebuilding.   This generation may have a golden opportunity to reboot a world that is free of heavy handed statism with its never ending wars, intrusiveness, welfare dependency and monetary crises.
And that’s all she wrote, sports fans.

This blog is dedicated to the late sports editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, Raoul Duke, and to the Vincent Black Shadow.

Related Posts:

The Lie of "Tax Expenditures"

Adam and Eve Visit Vienna


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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
Paul Simon



Wednesday, August 20, 2014

The State (Huh - Good God Y'all) What It Is Good For?



If Diogenes were still wandering the world in search of an honest man, perhaps he may have liked Detroit Police Chief, James Craig.  James “has repeatedly called on ‘good’ and ‘law-abiding’ Detroiters to arm themselves against criminals in the city.”  

Sixty-three year old Patricia Champion is a lifelong Detroit resident and a recent gun owner.  She puts in bluntly, “The police are not going to protect you when something is being perpetrated on you. They may turn up after the fact and run after that person, but you have to protect yourself.  If somebody chooses to come in and I didn’t invite you, between the Glock and the dog, you’re gone. If one doesn’t get you, the other one will.”
Meanwhile in the Crescent City, French Quarter residents and businesses are debating whether to pay out-of-pocket for private police protection beyond what the city provides.  This is already happing in Detroit where “downtown peacekeeping is supplemented by private security financed by downtown’s businesses – notably Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans, both owned by billionaire Dan Gilbert. Midtown peacekeeping is heavily supplemented by Wayne State University Police, whose response time is famously just 90 seconds.”
In fact, private security is one of the few growth industries in our otherwise bleak economy.  A study from the Fredonia Group, a Cleveland based marketing research firm, shows the market growing at 5.4% annually with the greatest increases coming in the commercial sector.  Quoting Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, the Christian Science Monitor reports that, “the private security industry is projected to grow by about 19 percent – from 1 million to 1.2 million guards – between 2010 and 2020. Most of that growth will come because private firms are doing jobs once held by law enforcement.”

Excuse me for stating the obvious but this represents an absolute failure on the part of governments to fulfill their most basic obligation; that is, to protect us.  The Revolutionary firebrand, Thomas Paine asserted that “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one,” with security being its singular purpose.
John Locke, the father of the classical liberalism upon which America was founded, states clearly, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property”.  Two and a half centuries later, Ludwig von Mises concurred, “Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies.”

Yet this is what governments at all levels are failing to do.  That is why more and more Americans are finding it necessary to arm themselves or to contract with private security services.  With government debt reaching unpayable levels, don’t look for improvement anytime soon.
In a related story, the city of Milwaukee has declared that every public school student is eligible for a free breakfast and lunch every day.  Yo! Pouring a bowl of Wheaties and making a baloney sandwich for a kid is easy.  Fending off predators and criminals is hard.  We’ll handle the kitchen detail; get government back to the business that it was made for.


Not only are our cities finding ever more difficult to police the streets but the Federal government is making our lives less safe every day.  Foreign adventurism, particularly in the Middle East, is breeding generations of new enemies.  Ironically, today’s enemies are yesterday’s allies and are using our weapons and the training that we provided to act against our stated interests of stability, toleration and democracy.

As if miraculously, our Founding Father left us a clue as to how to remedy this systemic failure.  Our founding charter states unequivocally that when it becomes evident that the prevailing government proves itself incapable of fulfilling its sacred duty of securing the people’s natural rights that, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”.

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the above prescription asserted that “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

“Radical” ideas such as a return to Federalism and autonomy for the individual states would be a good first step.  Let the go back to being the laboratories of democracy that each was intended to be.  Let each experiment with more or less restrictive governance and see which produces the greatest happiness, prosperity and security.  Let us also follow President Washington’s advice to refrain entanglements and meddling in the affairs of other nations.

 Let us finally abolish the central bank and its fiat currency.  The Fed’s money creation deludes markets, creates bubbles and financial crisis.  Worse yet, it hides the real cost of the welfare / warfare state and passes the debt on future generations.

Maybe it’s time to re-privatize community functions like schooling, charity and almsgiving.  Perhaps we can let markets work to reward those who successfully please consumers and those that fail to do so, to fail.  And just maybe, the state can butt out of the doctor-patient-insurer relationship and let freely acting humans create workable healthcare solutions.

These are ides that are truly conservative as well as libertarian.  They should be at the core of any alliance to reclaim America from the brink of failure dissolution.

Related Posts:

Occupy The Tea Party
The Failure of Conservatism

 


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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
Paul Simon



Friday, August 15, 2014

Guns, Common Decency and Common Sense: The Shaneen Allen Case


This post is to urge immediate action on behalf of one Shaneen Allen, a peaceful and law abiding mother of two who is facing a long term prison sentence in New Jersey if convicted.
As explained, Ms. Allen is a licensed handgun owner in Pennsylvania with no criminal record.  Ms. Allen obtained a gun permit in her home state because she, herself, was a two time crime victim.  Like many of us, she simply wanted to provide her family with the protection that the police cannot give.
While on the way to the Jersey Shore, Ms. Allen was pulled over for a routine traffic violation.  She gave the police officer her both her driver’s license and her gun license.  She was unaware that her PA license did not apply in the Garden State and this has landed her in a world of trouble.
She is facing the prospect of long term prison time.  Her kids are facing childhood without a mother at home.
I am asking for your help in three ways:
1.       Help us to publicize her plight.  Please feel free to use the letter below as a template to pass along on social media, send to media outlets and to elected officials.  If you are from out of state, write to Governor Chris Christie as he has national political ambitions.    Please click here for the e-mail addresses of the Governor and other relevant New Jersey officials.  Let them know America is watching.
2.       Donate to her defense.  Click here to contribute.
3.       To avoid this situation in the future, please contact you elected federal representatives and demand that they support reciprocity of carry licenses from state to state.

The following is the text of the message that I sent to Governor Christie and then modified for other recipients.  Feel free to use any or all of it:

“Dear Sir,

I am sure that by now you are aware of the Shaneen Allen case.  Ms. Allen is a peaceful, law abiding Pennsylvania resident.  She is a mother of two and an employed health care worker.   Allen is also a crime victim who obtained a Pennsylvania gum license in order to protect herself and her children.

Ms Allen was pulled aside for a lane change violation on the way to the Jersey Shore and gave the police officer both her driver’s and handgun licenses as the law requires.  She was unaware of New Jersey’s gun carry laws and therefore made a couple of innocent mistakes.

New Jersey requires that guns be carried unloaded and contained in a closed and fastened case, gun box or securely tied package or locked in the trunk. The state also imposes strict limits on how and where weapons can be transported, and it doesn't recognize carry permits issued by other states.

As an officer of the peace, whose sworn duty is to protect and serve the people, the policeman may have exercised a bit of discretion and judgment.   Perhaps the officer could have advised her of her mistake.  Perhaps he could have impounded her weapon and ammunition.  Instead he arrested her.

The local prosecutor could have also shown some common sense and decency.  He may have given her a stern warning and arranged to have her gun sent back to Pennsylvania at her expense.  No, he wants to go to trail and put this peaceful mom behind bars for three and a half years.  How does he think that this will help her two kids who will be without a mother for a large chunk of their childhood?

Governor Christie, please show some compassion, common sense and decency and weigh in on this case and to stop the madness.  Putting this woman behind bars is not justice.  It is criminal and the people who are perpetrating this miscarriage of justice are criminals themselves.”

We are a nation of laws and no one, including Ms. Allen herself, denies that she is in violation of New Jersey statute.  Therefore let me close with this passage from John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government on the prerogative of the executive and his magistrates:

"(A) man may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which makes no distinction of persons, by an action that may deserve reward and pardon; 'tis fit the ruler should have a power, in many cases, to mitigate the severity of the law, and pardon some offenders: for the end of government being the preservation of all, as much as may be, even the guilty are to be spared , where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent.

This power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is called prerogative: for since in some governments the law -making power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, and so too slow, for the dispatch requisite to execution; and because also it is impossible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for, all accidents and necessities that may concern the public , or to make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigor, on all occasions, and upon all persons that may come in their way; therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power, to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe."

In so many words, let’s show little bit of commonsense, common decency and compassion here.  Why destroy a life and a family over a technicality?

Related Posts:

Blessed Are The Peacemakers
God, Guns And Misplaced Faith
A Well Regulated Militia
D.C. Gun Ban Lifted


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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
Paul Simon



Thursday, August 14, 2014

Stay The Course, Mr. President

The French Foreign Minister is imploring President Obama to cut his vacation short amidst the deepening Middle East crisis.  Meanwhile, the Washington Times chides the President that he is poised to surpass Tiger Woods in the number of golf rounds played over the past five years.
My advice to our Commander in Chief is “stay the course, do not leave the links”.  We’ll be just fine without you.
In his 1973 novel, Breakfast of Champions, author Kurt Vonnegut created a fictitious novelist named Kilgore Trout.  In one of Trout’s short stories, Hail to the Chief, the people elected a chimpanzee President of the United States.  The chimp would dress up in a little blue blazer with the Presidential Seal on the breast pocket and then jump up and down whenever Hail To The Chief was played.  It was a real crowd pleaser. 

Political junkies may also remember the 1980 Presidential debate in which Governor Ronald Reagan squared off against Independent John Anderson while President Carted boycotted the event.   Carter was represented onstage by an empty chair.  Saturday Night Live spoofed this fiasco and had the empty chair winning the election.  The chair’s getaway home was the Winter Warehouse, the Casa Del Levitz.
 "That government is best which governs least" was a popular axiom in the early Nineteenth Century and it remains true to this day.  Our elected leaders may provide entertainment value but it comes at the high cost of misgovernance. Therefore, so as not appear to be picking solely on the Executive, allow me propose a program to keep our elected representatives safely away from their desks so as to minimize the harm that they normally inflict.
Firstly, I suggest that we implement a series of substantial bonuses for athletic achievements such as $100,000 for each stroke that they take off of their golfing handicap.  Other incentives may include $50,000 for each marathon completed or $100,000 for each triathlon.  We could instate further bonuses for improving their times.  We may want to reward them for extraordinary feats of skill such as scaling high mountains or rappelling down dangerous cliffs.  This should keep them busy on the course, in the gym, on the road and in training.
While this may sound like a lot of money, it is a mere pittance compared to what they squander when Congress is in session.  The savings will be enormous.
Furthermore let me propose some ideas that will pay for themselves and may even turn a profit.

The first moneymaker is a revival of the popular Battle of the Network Stars which scored big ratings in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  This time it will be Battle of the Beltway Pols, where our legislators divide into Team Red and Team Blue to compete for big money prizes in a wide array of events.  Funding would come from advertiser sponsorships as well as through licensed pari-mutuel betting.
Imagine coverage and commentary provided by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher.  What could be more fun?
An even bigger idea might be one-on-one mixed martial arts bouts on pay per view.  Who would not want to see Nancy Pelosi slug it out with Michelle Bachman or Ted Cruz get it on with Chuck Schumer?  To heighten local interest, a “pork barrel” slice of the purse would go to each winner’s district.  The district would be free to use their winnings as they see fit – public works, a party at Hooters or anything in between.
Of course, this will affect the qualifications that voters will look for in the representatives.  These qualities can be developed in similar state and local contests.  The fittest will survive and move onto the Federal level over time.
Such a system will maximize the entertainment provided by our politicians while distancing them from the halls of government where they do real harm.

Related Posts:

Democratize the Fed
Get a Free College Education
Comping America’s Guests

 

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
Paul Simon