Splendid Isolation

Oh Boo Hoo

Once again, we have handwringing when some young asshole, as the saying goes, “fucks around and gets found out”.  In this particular case, we’re supposed to get upset when a drunken college kid gets shot because he thought he was trying to get into his own home at 2am, but it wasn’t;  and the actual homeowner shot and killed him.

That’s how the media paints it, of course, but that’s not actually how it panned out:

Nicholas Anthony Donofrio, 20, died early Saturday after knocking, banging, and kicking on the front door of the man who shot him when he broke the glass window and tried to manipulate the doorknob.

Frankly, I’d have done precisely the same thing under the circumstances — and I bet there are more than a few of my Readers nodding in agreement.

Anyway, sanity has prevailed:

A police news release added that the investigation determined the shooter – who legally owned the firearm – was covered by South Carolina’s so-called ‘Stand Your Ground’ law and no charges will be filed.

I don’t know what this “legally owned the firearm” business is, unless that’s some South Carolina thing I’m unaware of.

Whatever, it’s a tragedy;  but when you’re an underage drunk trying to bust into a house, there might well be a shooting.  The kid thought he was trying to get into his own house, but that’s not how it appeared to the actual homeowner.

And if the kid’s family wants to sue someone, they should start with the booze company (just kidding, they shouldn’t be thinking of suing anybody).

Scumbag Ban

Here we go again.  Executive summary:  asshole loser shoots three people dead for no reason other than, apparently, their race.  Doubleplusungood:  with an AR-15.  Tripleplusungood:  AR-15 had swastikas painted on it.

Before the Weepies and Gun-Fearing Wussies get going with “Ban all eeeevil assault rifles NOW!”, let’s just face a couple facts.

  1. Said scumbag was 21, so no age ban would have affected him.
  2. The AR-15 was legally purchased (as was the Glock the asshole was carrying).
  3. Had the AR-15 been banned, and assuming he couldn’t get his hands on one illegally, he could have used the (legally-purchased) Glock to do the same job.
  4. Had he preferred to use a non-AR-type semi-auto rifle instead of a Glock, he could have used one of these (which would never be included in an AR-style ban) because hunting rifles (as evidenced by the wooden stock):

    …but which function identically to the AR-15.

Listen, I don’t want to downplay this tragedy.  Society has no place for scumbags like this, and had I been there and in a position to intervene, I would have shot this little cunt in the back of the head without a second thought, before he had a chance to off himself.

Maybe his parents (with whom he was still living) could have done something ahead of time to prevent this, and maybe they couldn’t.  There’s not much a parent can do with grown kids — they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do.

Sadly, freedom does not come without its abuse, and the Second Amendment is no different.  But nothing we do can prevent them being abused, and that’s just the tragedy of it.

And just to be clear on the topic:  there neither is nor could be any new law which would have prevented this.  Random assholes will always find a way to do their evil deeds, and that’s the truth of it.

Too Old To Rock ‘N Roll

…but too young to die, as a wise man once sang.

Now we have the political equivalent:

Former South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley said over the weekend that politicians should have to take mental competency tests once they hit 75 years old to ensure they are fit to serve the public.

“We need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75,” she said. “And I don’t say that to be disrespectful. I don’t care if you do it for 50 and older. What I’m saying is, these are people in D.C. that are making decisions on our national security.”

Of course, this tin-eared politico uses this argument to score a point off the noticeably-senile Joe Biden, but she does have a point nevertheless.

We don’t let people go into public office when they’re too young, because even among a poulation of ignoramuses, youthful wannabe-politicians are no more than the primordial ooze of society.  Young people, as it’s been said, argue with passion, vigor and conviction;  except that they’re almost inevitably wrong.

So given the inescapable fact that old farts start losing their marbles as they approach senility — forget the numbers, stats and medical studies on this, it’s an inescapable fact of human life — why not set an arbitrary upper limit on public service?  Forget that “testing” bullshit as suggested by Haley et al., that’s just busybody government attitude on display.  Carve it in stone — hell, stick it in the Constitution, why not? — but make it impossible for any Olde Phartte to govern.

Yes, I know:  some old people are commendably active, mentally speaking, and denying them office would have denied us of, to name but one, Ronald Reagan (at least his second term, anyway).  But even in Reagan’s second term, it was apparent that the old boy was losing his marbles.  And taking our cue from that, it’s not really how old a President is when he takes office, it’s how old he’ll be at the end of his first term that’s important.  Think about it:  70 years old on Inauguration Day means 78 towards the end of his Presidency, when he’ll still have his finger on the nuclear trigger and be proposing legislation that may suit the present but be a hopeless long-term proposition. Older than 70?  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:  Joe Biden.

Which brings me to the next issue about senior-citizen politicians:  the “I’ll be dead by then” attitude that is as inescapable a mindset as physical senility.  Oh sure, we’d like to think that our politicians are going to be statesmen like Washington or Jefferson and think of generations to come;  but the most likely scenario is that they’re going to be more like Barack fucking Obama.  (Tangentially, the only reason to allow older men to become president is because they’re more likely to die soon after leaving office, unless they’re named Jimmy Carter in which case they continue to meddle and foist their horrible ideas and opinions on us long after they’ve exceeded their useful date.)

If we think about this logically, politicians and lawmakers in general should have to live with the consequences of their actions, because then the urge to just say “oh fuck it, let the kids deal with it” is a lot less appealing.

Corporations, by the way, recognize this issue quite clearly, which is why we have mandatory-retirement policies in so many professions — airline pilots at 55 65 being the most noteworthy — and why so many people prefer middle-aged doctors to both young and inexperienced doctors and old doctors who may not be up to date with recent advances or do things “because I’ve always done it this way”.  There are limits to experience, of course, and particularly when that experience stands in the way of proper action.  Most corporate boards, by the way, have no age limit but that’s because the proper function of a board is advisory and not executive.

Here’s my suggestion:  all public servants, regardless of position, should be banned from running for public office after the age of 67 — the de facto  “retirement” age of current society.  I know that medical advances are wonderful and have done so much to ensure that the age of Man is no longer just threescore years and ten etc., but allowing much older people to run for office — yes, Trump as much as Biden — is an irresponsible indulgence that in general and in the long term will turn out to be harmful to society.  (Trump, for example, would be 78 were he to win the Presidency in 2024, which means he’d be 82 at the end of his term of office.  You sure you want an octogenarian Trump flailing around the Oval Office for two whole years?  And that’s assuming he’s still got all his marbles now:  by no means an established fact.)

As a bookie might put it:  yeah, there are some senior citizens who would function perfectly well while late into their seventies and even eighties — but that’s not the way to bet.

If we have a lower limit on political life, why not an upper one?

Legacy Issues

Reader Mike L. sends me this little snippet:

The U.S. Department of Education has launched a civil rights investigation into Harvard University’s policies on legacy admissions.

Top colleges’ preferential treatment of children of alumni, who are often white, has faced mounting scrutiny since the Supreme Court last month struck down the use of affirmative action as a tool to boost the presence of students of color.

The department notified Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, on Monday that it was investigating the group’s claim that the university “discriminates on the basis of race by using donor and legacy preferences in its undergraduate admissions process.”

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed its Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation at Harvard. The agency declined further comment. 

I’ve always thought that giving alumni preference for their kids’ admissions was a nice touch, in that it established some kind of continuum or legacy (hence the name) for families.  (My old school St. John’s College absolutely thrived on such a legacy — to see fathers and even grandfathers wearing the Old Boys’ tie was a sign of belonging like few others — and legacies always got automatic admission into what was an extremely limited enrollment.)

But nowadays, tradition and (especially, it seems) father-son or mother-daughter traditions are anathema to the Egalitarian Set, who equate what is essentially a courtesy into some kind of “inheritance” Bad Thing, akin to keeping title transference within the same family.

It’s a good thing we don’t have nobility titles Over Here, because otherwise some Human Rights pests in our Gummint would no doubt call for its abolition in the name of “equity”.

A pox on all of them.

By the way, I have no dog in this fight because I happen to think that any private institution should have the right to determine whom they prefer to see inside it as members — country clubs, universities, fraternities, companies, whatever.

The fact that Harvard, of all places, is getting bitten by this is satisfying, but only because Harvard is a stupefyingly-PC and much-overrated institution, and they deserve every bad thing that happens to them, the elitist bullshit artists.