Tag: Government

Pigs

Bad News, Disaster, Gummint, Law and Order

I never fell for that “counter-culture” trope of referring to all police as “pigs” because I thought it was unfair.  An old Dave Berg cartoon in MAD  Magazine encapsulated my opinion perfectly:

Protesting hippies:  “Off the Pigs!”  “Pigs Off Campus!”  etc. etc., all screaming at a tubby police officer standing in front of them.  Suddenly, a bunch of hard-hat construction workers dive into the group and start kicking the shit out of them.
Hippies:  “Help!  Police!”
Policeman (smiling):  “Ain’t nobody here but us pigs…”

However, it is an undeniable fact that under this lockdown insanity, many police forces have let their enforcement mandate get out of control (arresting lone paddleboarders, snooping into people’s shopping bags for evidence of “non-essential” purchases, and so on).  Then we have bullshit like this:

The New Jersey woman who helped organize and film a protest in the state capitol of Trenton against Governor Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home orders was charged by the state police with violating the emergency decrees.

…not to mention this little injustice:

Artur Pawlowski was feeding homeless people in downtown Calgary when over half a dozen police officers surrounded him and issued him a cool $1,200 fine.
Apparently this gathering was in contravention of new coronavirus lockdown laws, but there were more police officers attending this “crime” than there were alleged offenders.

…not to mention this excellent use of state resources:

A skate park in San Clemente, CA, was filled with 37 tons of sand by local authorities to block skaters from using it during the coronavirus outbreak.

I would go on and on, but as Insty would put it, I’d probably need a bigger blog.

What worries me most about all this is not just that the (mostly Democrat) state governors are going apeshit over this golden opportunity to oppress and control the people who voted them into power.  That’s what socialists do, all the time.

What depresses me is that so many police forces are jumping right in and enforcing — in many cases over-stringently — the stupid and ineffective regulations.  Even stories like this depress me rather than inspire me:

Wisconsin’s Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling indicated in a statement on Friday he will not enforce the state’s stay-at-home order, which Gov. Tony Evers (D) extended through May 26.
…
While Wisconsin law gives both the governor and Wisconsin DHS “the authority to develop emergency measures and enforce rules and order to protect the public during a health crisis,” Schmaling emphasized that state law “does not have the power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens.”

Good for him, say I;  what saddens me is that every  sheriff should be saying and doing this kind of thing, but most aren’t.

So to all my law enforcement friends out there:  take your foot off the gas pedal, because at some point you’re going to start encountering increasing backlash from the people you’re supposed to be protecting — and nobody  wants that to happen.

Nobody, that is, except the socialist politicians who will respond, as statist authoritarians always do, by increasing  the level of oppression (e.g. by trying to pass more gun-control laws and imposing curfews) instead of ameliorating it.

Don’t make us start thinking of calling you “pigs”.

Add To The List

Gummint

A summary of more than a few emails I’ve received on the topic:

“Kim, when you talked about disbanding the FDA, how about the CDC?”

An excellent point.  Here’s a piece which catalogs the awfulness of the CDC, who while investigating “diseases” such as childhood obesity and gun violence, completely fucked up when it came to their actual mission.

Toss ’em all overboard, say I, and forget not the concrete boots.

Enough Already

Bad News, Disaster, Gummint

Via somebody else, I see a couple of pleasing statistics at ZeroHedge (my emphasis):

Jurgen Brauer, chief economist at Small Arms Analytics, told Bloomberg News, that handgun sales increased 91.1% year-over-year, per Brauer’s analysis, and long-gun sales were up 73.6%.

Well, they’re pleasing statistics for me ;  for some others, not so much:

Governor Ralph Northam (D) signed legislation Friday creating universal background checks in Virginia and limiting law-abiding Virginians to one handgun purchase per month.
Northam’s office announced his signature on Senate Bill 70 / House Bill 2, creating the universal checks and thereby outlawing private gun sales.
He signed Senate Bill 69 / House Bill 812 resurrecting Virginia’s “one-handgun-a-month rule to help curtail stockpiling of firearms and trafficking.”

So… let’s just say ad arguendum  that this were to happen nationwide (I know, I know;  but run with me on this one).  Now we’d be faced with a situation where private gun sales are outlawed, you can’t buy more than one at a time, and if gun dealers were the only sales outlet, a simple order of mass denial at the poxy NICS would prevent any sales, at all.

But why Kim, you may ask, is government so afraid of all this?  ZeroHedge gives this simple and succinct reason:

It’s only matter of time before this lockdown of American — leaving citizens jobless, broke, and without options — becomes the flashpoint that leads to an explosion of civil unrest and violent crime.

So as the title of this post suggests, it’s time to end this sanitation theater, and let Americans go back to work.

And it’s not just commerce I’m talking about.  We also need to start dismantling the mechanisms that federal and state governments have installed (starting with this bunch of assholes) that have enabled them to deprive citizens of their liberty, their ability to work, and (in some places) their ability to gather the means of self-defense.

Here’s a quote from the late- and much-missed Joseph Sobran on just this topic:

“By today’s standards King George III was a very mild tyrant indeed. He taxed his American colonists at a rate of only pennies per annum. His actual impact on their personal lives was trivial. He had arbitrary power over them in law and in principle but in fact it was seldom exercised. If you compare his rule with that of today’s U.S. Government you have to wonder why we celebrate our independence…”

George III would never have contemplated arresting Americans for walking in parks, going out to dinner, selling the “wrong” merchandise or swimming alone in the ocean.  Never in a million years would he have shut down fish markets, outlawed the sales of seed, or spied on our religious observances.   Yet our post-Revolutionary government is doing all that to us — and, apparently, without much public resistance because “it’s for our own good”.

We need to get back to work, and tell the government to fuck off and leave us alone.  Or else.

Wait… You Mean This Is NORMAL?

Disaster, Gummint, Lies and Untruths

Hector Drummond (who is rapidly becoming my go-to guy in matters of Britishland Chinkflu stats) has some graphs*, and comes to this conclusion (my emphasis):

Even I am astonished by these graphs.  I was expecting to see something in the graphs by week 13, even if I wasn’t expecting anything scary.  But there’s just nothing.  And you can’t say the lockdown caused this, because the UK lockdown had only been going for four days by this time.  We’ve locked down the country for a supposed mass killer that still isn’t visible in the stats even after the lockdown was declared.  We locked the country down for something that at the time only existed in Neil Ferguson’s dodgy computer models.

Our numbers may (repeat:  may ) be better than the BritGov’s, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that our response to the Chinkvirus has been as overblown and pointless as theirs.

*I’m not sure, but I believe that “ONS” stands for Office of National Statistics.  Maybe one of my Brit Readers can confirm.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Insty (in response to this bullshit):

“People entrusted with guns and the power of arrest need to have good judgment, and the ones who judge poorly need to be punished or sacked.”

…or horsewhipped, or beaten with chains, or…

I’m thinking of those “no-knock” warrants served at the incorrect address, where someone gets killed by overzealous policemen acting like Imperial stormtroopers.

Sanity

Disaster, Gummint, Two-Minute Hate

Very long; well worth the read.  (Come on:  you’re shut up indoors with fuck-all else to do;  read  the damn thing.)

If just about all the diseased are old-timers and/or people set with preexisting diseases, the entire response to the pandemic, by individual countries as well as by the global community, may very well be one huge overreaction.
…
According to the video of a Frenchman who claims to have lived 25 years in Hong Kong, one part of the world (and of China!) that is experiencing a low number of deaths in spite of all, or most of, its businesses remaining open. What is the secret? Every single person in the street is wearing a mask.
…
A nationwide scandal erupted in France a week or two ago when a Nice Matin journalist interviewed a woman on the town’s rocky beach. Christiane was tanning in a bikini, and declared that she wasn’t about to give up the sun rays. The next day, the written press picked up the story. They would quote her remarks, only to mention with disgust to what extent she was irresponsible, and selfish, and a shame to her community.
Truth to tell, Christiane may have come across as a bit snobbish and self-centered, but there was just one problem. Christiane was almost entirely alone on Nice’s long rocky beach near la Promenade des Anglais. The beach was virtually empty of people. There were perhaps 3 or 4 sunbathers or sunbathing couples in the background, perhaps 50 to 100 meters away, but otherwise it was deserted. (Indeed, the only time that Christiane was in potential danger or that she was a danger to others was when the Nice Matin journalist showed up!)

Makes sense to me.  Instead of our local KrimPo (Kriminal-Polizei)  arresting people for sunbathing on a deserted beach, or buying “non-essential” products to take home, why don’t they just arrest, detain or fine people for not wearing a mask in public?

Oh, but that would be too simple, you see;  not enough incentive to bully and/or fine people or look into their shopping bags.

Fuck ’em.  At some point, the history of this sad era will be written dispassionately, and the overarching conclusion is going to be that we overreacted, massively, our economy was shut down for no good reason, and governments needed to print trillions of non-existent dollars to “bail” people and businesses out of trouble — when all we needed was several hundred million cheap paper facemasks, and a temporary public order for everyone to wear the damn things outdoors.