What would happen if the police stopped responding?

I wonder what would happen if Chicago government refused to remove bodies from the streets, under a ‘You made the mess, you clean it up’ policy.

Just leave them. June, July, August... It would get ugly in a day or two, and stay ugly. I know, it’s a sick, dark, fantasy which won’t come about, but just what would happen?

I don’t know what can be done in the short run to reduce the violent crime rate in places like Chicago. Judging from news reports and commentary, as I don’t live in such an area, the politicians who represent those districts seem to believe the major problem is homicidally racist cops who leave home in the morning hoping for an excuse to murder some innocent minorities.

If they really believe that, then they should be calling for the police to stop servicing those area. Just stay out. Let the neighborhoods take care of their own issues. It actually would be an interesting experiment, but I think that in order to have any hope of a positive outcome (at least from a non-criminal perspective) one would have to allow non-criminals to arm themselves.

My guess is that in that scenario, the seriously bad guys wouldn’t last long. I lived in Milwaukee back during the crack wars. There was an interesting incident which kind of fits the scenario, though of course the police did intervene:

A guy complained several times to the police that crack dealers were operating on the sidewalk in front of his house. Broad daylight. Seriously degrading life for decent ie non-criminal people in the neighborhood.

Nothing happened. No arrests, no imprisonments, crack dealers just kept dealing crack in front of his house. For weeks, maybe months. It was a long time ago and I’m fuzzy on that.

So one day the guy decided he had had enough of crack dealers in front of his house and an unresponsive government. He stuck a 12 gauge shotgun out the window and ended that crack dealer’s career.

Then of course the police showed up.

So, suppose they didn’t show up anymore, and all the decent people knew they wouldn’t?

As a moral issue, the government has no legitimate powers which the People have not delegated to it. If the government refuses to exercise those powers in a responsible manner, then the People have a right to take back those powers. So, if government has a legitimate power to protect individuals and neighborhoods from violent criminals, it is only because the people, having that same right, have delegated it to government.

Now, ideally, that would mean going through the peaceful political process, but in real life that process has collapsed in places like Chicago. So, since government has clearly decided they aren’t willing to exercise their powers, maybe the decent people who have to put up with the reality of criminals openly operating could simply take back the powers delegated and do the job themselves.

I have trouble thinking that would be any bloodier or sicker or more immoral than the system we have today in parts of Chicago, Los Angeles, or Baltimore. Right now it looks to me that for practical purposes the government is on the side of the violent criminals. Government disarms all the potential victims but lets the criminals run free in the Disarmed Victim Zones the government created.

How sick a system is that?

Our Responsibility: Preparing for Low Probability/High Consequences Events

Juliette Kayyem, in The Atlantic magazine :

The “never again” standard is as absurd as it is simplistic. It is as vague as it is damaging. It tried to convince Americans, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that invulnerability was a possibility. This has hindered homeland-security planners for a decade and a half: Knowing that no security apparatus can stop all forms of harm, including “lone wolfs,” progress is better measured in how well people prepare and educate themselves for the inevitable. What if the United States simply accepted, as a nation, that bad things happen and get ready for that possibility?

I agree with Juliette Kayyem about preparedness rather than a hopeless focus on prevention, but what does this really involve at the personal level?

With the exceptions of hurricanes in hurricane zones, major earthquakes in earthquake zones, and the like, most threats are individually highly dispersed and/or low probability/high consequences events.

Just as we reasonably expect our home to never burn down, but have insurance anyway, should we consider these individually improbable events like terrorism against us personally something we should individually insure against? If so, what to do?

I suspect that government in a relatively free society cannot deal easily with highly dispersed threats like terrorism or even random crime: police cannot be everywhere at all times, nor should we want them to be.

Several million Americans have gotten concealed carry licenses, while millions more have gotten their state legislatures to do away with the need for CCW licenses entirely. So far as I can tell, there have been no great negative consequences to either of those events. If there have been, the news media, no friend of law-abiding private citizens carrying handguns, has done a lousy job of covering them.

Imagine what might have been different in Orlando or Paris if if even a few people had been carrying guns. Given the US experience with legal concealed carry, background crime would not have been 'blood in the streets', while one or two people shooting back might have saved dozens of lives.

Even a strong defensive mindset might have made huge differences in the kill counts: apparently no one in Orlando or Paris counter-attacked even though the murderers had to pause multiple times to reload. Imagine if someone had the defensive mindset to attack, either with a chair, a bottle, or even barehanded. Instead they got out their cell phones and shot videos.

Wrong mind set.

The less radical preppers may be on to something: personal responsibility for one's self and family. I'm not talking about the quasi-millenarianist End Of The World As We Know It people, but those who take preparing for disasters quite seriously, with food, water, medical supplies, defensive weaponry, communication equipment -at least battery powered receivers so one can hear news reports- a ready reserve of cash (actual cash in small bills, in case the ATMs and cash registers are down for a few days or weeks), sanitation, and the like, sufficient for a few weeks.

It seems outright foolish not to have such preps if one lives in a hurricane or earthquake zone, but perhaps people in the rest of the country might do well by considering their own circumstances and prepare for the more likely disasters.

An interesting aspect to preparing for 'normal' short term disasters is that the preparations are pretty much the same: preparing well for the more probable issues also prepares one for the less probable.

Kayyem:

I have come to believe—as a security expert but also as a mother of three—that among all of its flaws, the worst aspect of “never again” was that it let experts like me run the show. We have failed to show that the conflicts and choices inherent in protecting the homeland are really not that different from those Americans and people around the world encounter every day. In our day-to-day lives, people try to protect those closest to them, but they also plan for the bad things that will happen. The essential aspects of those two priorities—preparedness, planning, flexibility, communication, back-up systems, learning from mistakes—are essentially the same. By too easily separating the homeland from the home, experts have failed to nurture the vigor and resiliency which is the greatest strength of a nation that was built on vulnerability: the American public.

And if the United States could build resiliency one home at a time, maybe, in another 15 years, the country will have stopped asking the question to some anonymous bureaucracy with strange acronyms and esoteric risk assessments: “Are we safer?” Instead, people should start embracing, “Am I ready?”

Taking personal responsibility is self-empowering. What is right about that?

New Hampshire Democrat on Libertarians in NH

The Free State Movement seems to be alive and well in New Hampshire, and some Democrats are not amused:

...not everyone in New Hampshire is welcoming the libertarians with open arms.

Cynthia Chase, a Democrat member of the state legislature, described them as “the biggest threat the state is facing today” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.

In a progressive blog she wrote: “There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal.

“In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right.

“What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave.”

How's that Valuing Diversity stuff working for you, Cynthia?

Why NJ and NY Make Ebola Quarantine Mandatory

Here's the story of the quarantined nurse in NJ. It makes clear to me why quarantine should be mandatory, not voluntary.

Kaci Hickox,...has been caring for Ebola patients...in Sierra Leone. Upon her return to the U.S. on Friday, she was placed in quarantine at a New Jersey hospital....

I am a nurse who has just returned to the U.S. .... I have been quarantined in New Jersey. This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me.
I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see...quarantine....

Again, I wondered what I had done wrong...

I had spent a month watching children die....

I recalled my last night at the Ebola management center in Sierra Leone. I was called in at midnight because a 10-year-old girl was having seizures. I coaxed crushed tablets of Tylenol and an anti-seizure medicine into her mouth as her body jolted in the bed."

I think the level of denial shown in this is remarkable. It boils down to "I did a good and unpleasant thing by helping Ebola patients in Africa (true) and now you disgusting scary awful people are locking me up in quarantine. How DARE you question my medical status (just because many, many, many doctors and nurses have already contracted ebola and died)? How dare you question my right to take a cab, ride the subways, and go bowling any time I feel like it? I am a good person. How dare you treat me like I might be infected?"

And this is exactly why NY and NJ have, in my opinion properly, made quarantine mandatory and not a mere suggestion. Like exposed, probably exposed,and possibly exposed people before her in the US, she makes it pretty clear than voluntary quarantine is not going to happen, because SHE did a good thing and should not be made to suffer at all for it.

Locking up such people as public health hazards strikes me as one of the few things our government...oh wait, strike that...two state governments are getting right.

See the whole scary story in the Dallas News.

McDonalds Or Organic Food Delight?

Two wicked, wicked Dutch guys present McDonalds food at a food convention and get some interesting responses.



With over 3 million views so far, the Golden Arches folks must be snickering in their Egg McMuffins.

Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers Applauded By The Canadian House of Commons

Old Guy With Gun Whups Young Guys With Guns

Good for him. I suspect it will be the last time these armed criminals decide that people in an Internet cafe are safe prey.



As one of the criminals was quoted later as saying: "It doesn't feel good. It makes you think about life's decisions, and how you should live your life."

One should think about decisions to threaten innocent people with murder.

Yes, this is a couple years old, but still fresh.

The Blue Angels In Honolulu

The Blue Angels were zipping about the area yesterday and today. How do I know? This afternoon all six flew through our kitchen door and out the living room window.

Well, four of them got out, as you can see below, escaping over our shower tree from the Fanged Terrors of the Ko'olaus, Calvin Pi and Sweetie Pi, Guard Cats Extraordinaire.

The other two Blue Angels faired not so well, as it is rumored that Calvin and Sweetie, taking just umbrage at the invasion of their personal airspace by Unusually Large And Raucous Blue Birds, bigger and more raucous even than chickens, which is saying quite a lot so far as Calvin & Sweetie are concerned, bit their tails and gave them a thorough shaking. Below is Calvin, recuperating from the Defense of the Home Territories. He and Sweetie may burp up bits of blue aluminum from time to time, but that's OK: They're Cats With A Mission.

Sweetie is tuckered out from all the excitement, but she remains ever alert to invasion. It will take more than an Unusually Large And Raucous Blue Bird to get past her.

Some People Watch, Others Do

A truly inspiring bit of daftness:

An Omagh plumber tunnelled a hole from under his bed to the local pub 800 feet from his house over the course of 15 years, a court heard today.

As Patsy Kerr told the county court after he was finally caught:

“The wife has a bad snore on her and...so I waited til she was in a deep sleep and then set about digging a hole under the bed in the direction of the pub. I used all manner of tools from spoons to a heavy duty tunnel boring machine I managed to sneak down there when she was at the shops. It wasn’t until 2009 that I hit the jackpot and came up through the women’s toilet mop and bucket room.”

Such dedication is truly ennobling. Mr. Kerr deserves to have his mates buy him a pint now and then.

Read the whole thing here.

If this story turns out to be Onionesque, it matters not: George Washington didn't chop down a cherry tree, either.

Honolulu Prepares For Hurricane Iselle: Pictures

Pictures here.

Several are in a CostCo, and are pretty much what I saw there on Tuesday. Full, but orderly, people buying lots of water, Spam, rice, Vienna sausages, batteries.

Late, but not too late: There was still plenty...except for water: CostCo apparently ran out shortly after noon Tuesday and Wednesday.

Maybe some people will figure out that they should not wait until everyone else is shopping: They should keep the basics in stock all the time. Everything one buys at the last minute is something unavailable to others who stock up at the last minute.

Pentagon Has A Plan For The Zombie Apocalypse

As well they ought. Just look at DC.

Under "Zombie Threat Summary," the plan highlights the different kinds of zombie adversaries one might find in such an attack. They include not only vegetarian zombies ("zombie life forms originating from any cause but pose no direct threat to humans because they only eat plant life"); evil magic zombies ("EMZs are zombie life forms created via some form of occult experimentation in what might otherwise be referred to as 'evil magic'"); and also chicken zombies.

Well finally they are getting with the program.

I wonder if vegetarian zombies can be combatted with Salad Shooters...oh...wait...I guess that would be vegetable zombies. "Attack of the Undead Carrots"

More here.

New York Times Covers Disaster Preparedness Expo In Tulsa

Alan Feuer has a decent article about people selling to the disaster preparedness crowd at the third annual National Preppers and Survivalists Expo, in Tulsa, OK.

TULSA, Okla. — Disasters happen. It is a fact as certain as income taxes. And when a solar flare erupts or a flu pandemic hits, there is only one question that will matter: Are you, or are you not, prepared?

Not too surprisingly, his article tended to highlight the more extreme aspects, but at least he admitted right up front that disasters do happen, and will happen in the future:

Ever since Isaiah, someone somewhere has been talking about the imminent demise of civilized society. Still, one could argue that today’s connected world of globalized supply chains and multinational banks is especially susceptible to a catastrophic failure. This is not the exclusive opinion of the fringe groups of society: Just last month, a study financed by NASA found that, because of financial inequality and environmental problems, the industrial world could suffer “a precipitous collapse” within decades.

NASA suggests preparing for disaster? Another formerly respectable government agency gone moonbat, I guess.

One attendee who does not sound moonbattish, though:

Alvin Jackson, a jazz musician from New Orleans, wants to be ready....

“...I went through Katrina, and I’m not crazy. I know from experience that things go south, and it can happen just like that.”

Hard to argue with that.

it would be easy to assume that a prepper convention would be peopled with right-wing zealots with a taste for guns and gold.... But...there was also a countervailing element of organic gardeners, homeopathic healers and publishers selling books on the commercial uses of hemp.

While Feuer lets us know that there are some tin hats around, the article seemed more respectful of prepping than another might have been some years ago. Perhaps even some at the New York Times are coming to understand that when a another Hurricane Sandy strikes, taking responsibility for one's own well being beats waiting for FEMA.

More here.

UPDATE: I decided to write Mr. Feuer:

Dear Mr. Feuer, Thanks for your article on the prepper convention in Tulsa, a shortened version of which I read today in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

My wife and I live in Honolulu, and while we do not prep for the end of the world, or even a minor global economic collapse, we do prepare fairly seriously for hurricanes.

I wish a lot more people around here were preppers, and that the state and local governments were loudly and repeatedly telling us: While the Board of Water Supply has 200 pumps for the water system, which provides 900,000 people with drinking water, none of the pumps -none- are in hurricane proof buildings. Nor are the four back up generators they have for those 200 pumps, which are otherwise dependent on Hawaiian Electric.

When Honolulu gets hit with a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane, the electric lines and poles go down, and destroyed houses sever their water laterals, 900,000 of us may well be without municipal water for a long time.

That is why we store water, and water filters for neighbors' swimming pools, as well as food, light, radios, and first aid kits.

We have been told by several government people (water, police, fire department, and emergency response people) that no one is coming to help us for a minimum of a week.

We believe them.

And we believe them when they say "minimum".

Thanks again.

Tom Bosworth
Aiea (Honolulu) HI

The Pincushion Man: Good vs Evil

The characters are a bit cartoonish, and it is less scary than when I was 4, but it works.

Emily Miller on Pro-Gun Police

Ronald Noble, Interpol’s secretary-general, made a surprisingly honest statement last October about the horrific multiday terrorist attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Colorado, if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly?”...

...(I)t was a tectonic shift in the gun rights movement when Detroit Police Chief James Craig said in January that legal gun owners can deter violent crime and that people with concealed-carry permits contributed to crime going down in his city last year.

Chief Craig spent almost 30 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he was indoctrinated with the belief that taking guns away from good people was the answer to crime.
His beliefs shifted, though, after becoming chief of police in Portland, Me., where the number of carry permit holders was high and crime was extremely low.

More here.

ABC News has more on Secretary-General Noble's comments here. I have seen very little follow up on it though.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill

More here.

Booth Tarkington's "Penrod"

“Penrod” was a childhood role model of mine. Booth Tarkington’s Penrod, that is, who lived in Indiana some time after the horse died, but before the stable was turned into a garage. Penrod was a boy after my own heart, or perhaps the other way around.

There is no finer exposition on American boyhood -nor any funnier- than “The Great Tar Fight”, which took up a couple chapters in Tarkington’s book “Penrod”. It is well worth the time to read. I read it many times as a boy, and as a man it still holds up as wonderful American literature about boyhood. Every 11 or twelve year old boy should read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “Penrod”, and “Penrod and Sam”.

I would add, as was added to my own reading list, anything by Ernest Thompson Seton, founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Most especially “Rolf in the Woods” and “Two Little Savages”, both of which would in their day have been categorized as “morally instructive novels for adolescent youth”. Rather than beat boys over the head with “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” Seton let lessons flow by osmosis from his pen to his young readers.

Penrod was perhaps more subversive than Seton’s characters, but still moral, and very much a boy in an un-PC day. The next generation would be the better for having read all those books.

Just Another Ho-Hum Day Overthrowing Caesar.

Not your stereotypical priest pic.

The Monuments Men

We went to see the movie several days ago and enjoyed it. I had read Lynn H. Nicholas' book, "The Rape of Europa", several years ago and just came across her column in the Wall Street Journal.

Her column and her book are well worth reading. The story of tracking down and preserving the artistic heritage of Europe from the Nazis is one of the great little known stories of the war. Hitler was determined to destroy all that he could not have, and he came very close to doing exactly that.

Defending Yourself Against Unlawful Arrest

I have long wondered if one may lawfully defend one's self against illegal arrest, and if so, what degree of countervailing violence one may use.

These court cases suggest that courts have long held that potentially deadly force may legitimately be used.

Which, of course, will not prevent the police from killing you.

See here.

I'm not sure if attempted arrest under a statute later held to be unconstitutional falls under this, but I think it should. My understanding is that the Supreme Court held long ago that a law not authorized by the Constitution is no law at all.

Some New Zealand Schools End Playground Rules

Apparently with good results.

Chaos may reign at Swanson Primary School with children climbing trees, riding skateboards and playing bullrush during playtime, but surprisingly the students don't cause bedlam, the principal says.

The school is actually seeing a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism, while concentration levels in class are increasing.

Principal Bruce McLachlan rid the school of playtime rules as part of a successful university experiment.

"We want kids to be safe and to look after them, but we end up wrapping them in cotton wool when in fact they should be able to fall over."...

"When you look at our playground it looks chaotic. From an adult's perspective, it looks like kids might get hurt, but they don't."

Fancy that. I wish this idea would run amok here.

And let's abolish zero-tolerance policies while at it. They are anti-American at their very core. Unless, of course, you think America is all about training children to become docile drones in a police state.