Politics – Page 415 – Shall Not Be Questioned

A Philadelphia Landmark

Don’t tell John Street or any of the other Philadelphia politicians, but one of the city’s landmarks, relatively unknown landmarks, is gun related.

The Sparks Shot Tower.
The first shot tower in the United States.
Circa 1808

Molten lead was poured from the top of the tower through grids or screens of different sizes. The drops that formed became perfectly round as they dropped. There was a vat of water at the bottom of the tower to catch the drops and cool them.

The lead shot was used for small arms, muskets, and shotguns.

I’ll have to pay this site a visit at some point.

I noticed some people picking up links to Bitter’s post about our law enforcement encounter in Jayton. I just wanted to note that I didn’t have any intention to make the town look bad, or to malign the Sheriff’s deputy, who, as I said, was very polite, friendly and professional during the entire incident.

But I do want the message to get out to small town folk that they should not be automatically suspicious of out of towners. As a legal technically, even though I’m not a lawyer, I’m pretty sure that two people sitting in the parking lot of a public library, with out of state tags, doesn’t amount to probable cause for the police to stop someone.

I’m not upset about what happened to us, nor do I think it was outside the bounds of tolerable. Truth is, I find the whole thing pretty amusing, and figured it would be something fun to blog about. But the whole thing does kind of sit badly with me, mostly because I have a pretty simple philosophy when it comes to the law.

The law should not be created or construed in such a way that an ordinary, decent person going about his daily business has to pay much attention to, or worry much about it. Ordinary people should never fear the strong arm of the law. That should be reserved for people who are truly causing harm to others. That’s why we establish concepts like probable cause for stops, and why, at least in theory, we restrain the federal government and, to some degree, the police power of the states.

As we become a more increasingly connected world, the definition of “outsider” will become increasingly fluid. Consider that the old lady in the library that called us in actually knew Carrie’s great-grandmother who owned the farm. I know Carrie’s family through the magic of Al Gore’s modern Internets. It’s an odd meshing of the old world and the new, but the old world will have to get used to the new, and learn to tolerate the way it works. The end result will be a lot more out of town tags and strange people in places like Jayton, Texas.

The Silence of John Street

…is deafening.

This week, students assaulted at least four teachers in district schools, and there were seven attacks at West Philadelphia High alone over the last 10 school days. The issue has dominated nightly newscasts and appeared on newspaper front pages.

The mayor’s relative silence on the issue of battered teachers stands in stark contrast to the badgering he gave schools chief Paul Vallas late last year over the district’s $73.3 million budget deficit.

Then, Street spent nearly 14 hours over four days sitting in the front row during public hearings on the fiscal problems, interjecting his criticisms. He also testified before City Council on the issue.

The article goes on to say that getting out and front of the media to rant and rave just isn’t John Street’s style, and that’s fine. However, his silence on the issue when there have been such a rash of school incidences isn’t doing anyone any favors. He’s coming across as either vindictive towards School District CEO Paul Vallas or an aloof lame duck.

The article also contains a passage I find laughable:

The Street administration has launched a $3 million program to hire more truancy officers and also is establishing 12 curfew centers that will give youths safe havens from the streets. Education Secretary Jacqueline Barnett also participated in a March 6 meeting with Vallas and Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson that spelled out a tough new security policy for schools.

“The mayor takes a systems approach,” Barnett said. “For him it’s how do you get at the root of the chronic social issues we have. He’s absolutely passionate about it.”

Systems approach! To steal a quote from Dr. Evil, “I haven’t laughed that hard since I was a little girl.” Curfew Centers and truancy officers is a system’s approach? No, it’s still component tinkering, which as I’ve said before, might work for fixing cars but isn’t going to do anything when it comes to the social fabric. The inner cities have become bereft of opportunity and hope, and no amount of tweaking is going to fix that.

Pitt-for-Brains

The Pittsburgh Penguins have become the latest sports franchise to hold the state of PA hostage so they wouldn’t have to get their own financing for a new arena. Today, Gov. Ed Rendell announced a deal that would keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. The Penguins had threatened to leave to Kansas City, MO if they could not secure a new arena when their lease with the 40 year old Melon Center expires at the end of this hockey season. In this new deal, the Penguins will get help from PA slot parlor revenue.

A Pennsylvania law signed last year allowed for a certain number of slot parlors to be built in the state. A percentage of the revenue from the slot machines will go towards reducing property taxes. Another portion of the revenue is slated for other economic stimulus projects. However, there is absolutely no evidence that a stadium provides any sort of economic boost. In fact, studies have shown that, on average, they reduce workers’ incomes by $47 per year. Further more, a 2004 study showed that teams never need help in financing the stadiums. The stadium generate enough revenue to cover construction costs and more.

People can try to spin this, saying that it’s slot machine money and not taxes that will go towards financing the arena. I contend that with Pennsylvanians looking down the barrell of a 1% increase in the state sales tax and other ills such as our crumbling transportation infrastructure and our awful inner city crime rate, the slot machine revenue could be put to better use than helping to keep hockey, a second-rate sport, in Pittsburgh. I also contend that slot machines are just another tax, one that disproportionately affects the poor – you don’t see people with a lot of money habitually gambling at slot parlors.

Lastly, Mario Lemieux completely disrespected the people who paid money to watch him play for the Penguins during his career. The Penguins have some of the best attendance figures in hockey, and it’s a sham that he would even consider giving up standing room only crowds 17,000 strong to play rent free in front of 7,000 “fans”.

Time for Louis Gosset, Jr?

West Philadelphia High gets evacuated again. I expect that Mayor Street will finally cave to Paul Vallas’ wishes to have police patrol the school.

That might be a good short-term solution just to make it through the rest of the school year. In the long term though, instead of thinking large-scale about systems, they’ll just shove a “Crazy Joe” Clark principal into West Philadelphia High and hope that the rest will fall in line.

Thoughtcrime

One of the websites I frequent is The Martialist, and it’s attendant forums. The owner/author of the Martialist is Phil Elmore, who is a figure of some controversy in the self-defense world.

I don’t always agree with him, but no matter what my stance on his various opinions is, he is an excellent writer who both turns a phrase well; as well as takes a thoughtful approach to his topics.

His latest piece is on “Thoughtcrime”, and while it’s rather long; it’s also an excellent read. I may not always agree with him, but in this case I’m in absolute agreement. The whole post can be found here.

Thoughtcrime in contemporary society began as “political correctness” and “multiculturalism.” These are cultural movements that hold as their central tenets the notions that some terms, phrases, and lines of thought are intrinsically offensive and inappropriate for public discourse, and that history has traditionally been the exclusive domain of dead white European males whose injustices to all other cultures have been whitewashed (while the historical contributions of other cultures have been simultaneously omitted from the record), respectively. The scions of political correctness and multiculturalism took root in our schools and in our government, teaching our children and pushing through legislation that made it thoughtcrime to adhere to the old ways of the culturally insensitive, ethnocentric Anglos whose evil designs on power the movements were designed to foil. As these movements gained in influence and in converts, it became a cultural crime — punishable by social censure — to engage in politically incorrect language or ethnocentric attitudes. Thus, kicking and screaming, would those who adhered to traditional values be dragged into the brave new world advocated by political leftists (who are at the forefront of the establishment of thoughtcrime).

I have seen the above example first hand, where the positive actions of my ancestors are dismissed out of hand because simply because there were rich Anglos. I now celebrate my heritage with a certain amount of guilt, simply because even I have been indoctrinated to the point where I feel as though I should be remorseful for the actions of people long dead.

Legally, the first of the “hate crime” legislation gave political correctness and multiculturalism the force of law. Now, the government is not merely supposed to concern itself for punishing you for what you’ve done. No, now we presume that it is possible to know what you were thinking when you committed a crime, and to punish you more severely for thinking incorrect thoughts while engaged in your crime. It is not enough to prosecute you for assault or vandalism, for example; now we must further punish you if your victim was one of a number of protected socio-political and/or ethnic pressure groups (and thus a member of a specially protected class). While prosecution under “hate crime” legislation is notably rare (if not absent entirely) for crimes committed by ethnic minorities whose victims are white, any and all crime commited by white men and women against persons of color or those who are members of other pressure groups (such as homosexuals) usually becomes national news and prompts calls for further indoctrination — excuse me, sensitivity and anger-management training — in our government and educational institutions.

I am a huge opponent of “hate crime” legislation, as it does in fact created a protected class. All crime against another person is a hate crime; regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, or religion. By making it worse to commit a crime against a person because of the color of their skin, you actually feed racism instead of curtailing its spread.

The entire article is excellent, and well written. You should go check it out.

Welcome to The Jungle

This Sunday Inquirer piece sums up what’s been a bad year and a bad week for Philadelphia teachers. Teachers and aides have been attacked, assaulted, and threatened by students. Things got so bad at West Philadelphia High school that the principal was removed earlier this week. And then things got even worse by last Friday, so the school district decided to split the school up four ways to reduce the number of students.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is pointing the finger at the school district for under-reporting the incidences. Also, even though incidences may get reported, violent students may just get shuffled around to different schools. Most of the time, the student stays at their current school: according to one study, 19 out of 100 of the worst cases of assault (called Level-2) result in the student getting moved. While the Philadelphia Schools CEO Paul Vallas said that students who assault teachers will get an immediate 10 day suspension and possibly get sent to an “Alternative School”, he is facing a surprise $36 million deficit. It is this hole in the budget which forced the district to cut back on hall monitors.

While the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ head Ted Kirsch can clamor for the district to “Put money in the schools,” he is failing to mention that two years ago, he had nearly twice the number of hall monitors than this year, and there were still 897 reported cases of students assaulting teachers. There were 791 reported incidents last year. This school year, to date, there have been 409.

When dealing with problems in a system, you isolate the component that’s causing the problems, fix it, and the system works like it’s supposed to. This is true if you’re fixing cars or writing computer software, but it’s different when it comes to the social fabric. Change one part of the social fabric, and every other component reacts, changes, and possibly disrupts other parts. The struggle in Philadelphia schools may actually have nothing to do with the amount of funding it receives, whoever is principal at West Philadelphia High, or how many bouncers you have roaming the halls.

Philadelphia is a hostile business environment with its wage tax on those working in the city regardless of where they live and those who live in the city, regardless of where they work. There also exists a business privilege tax. Philadelphia is the second most heavily taxed city in the country. Over the past 30 years, Philadelphia has hemorrhaged population and business have gone with them. So even if these students settle down and get a modicum of education, where are they going to work?

David Simon, who wrote the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and is a producer and writer for HBO’s The Wire, summed this up perfectly in an interview with Reason Magazine.

For 35 years, you’ve systematically deindustrialized these cities. You’ve rendered them inhospitable to the working class, economically. You have marginalized a certain percentage of your population, most of them minority, and placed them in a situation where the only viable economic engine in their hypersegregated neighborhoods is the drug trade. Then you’ve alienated them further by fighting this draconian war in their neighborhoods…The solution is to undo the last 35 years, brick by brick. How long is that going to take? I don’t know, but until you start it’s only going to get worse.

While Philadelphia can’t and won’t just up-and-end the war on drugs, which is a good chunk of Mr. Simon’s solution, they can do something about the business climate in Philadelphia. And by demolishing the wage tax and the business privilege tax, they will experience some truly delightful un-intended consequences when the students actually start giving a damn.

Question For Philadelphia Mayoral Candidates

Why do you think disarming this man would help Philadelphia’s crime problem?

The owner of a West Oak Lane luncheonette pulled his licensed revolver and fired on a pair of armed robbers yesterday, killing one and wounding the other.

The owner was identified as Jason Lee, whose Sunrise Breakfast on the 1900 block of East Washington Lane had been the target of at least one stickup before.

“He was defending his family as far as I’m concerned,” Chief Inspector Joseph Fox, chief of detectives, said earlier in the day. “He did what he had to do.”

Lee told 6ABC last night that he was “sorry” for what happened. “I did not have a choice,” he said, adding he feared for his life and that of his wife.

That’s one, possibly two more people who won’t be menacing the streets of Philadelphia anymore.Â It’s not a bad thing when good people are able to fight back.Â I wish more Philadelphia politicians agreed with that.

HR1022 – Twelve Congressworms Who Can Kiss My Ass

Over at Josh’s, he has the list. This is the usual suspects of Congressional gun haters. I would say, given this, it’s time to go to DEFCON 4 on this bill, and write your Congress Critter, but this still isn’t serious co-sponsorship yet.

I notice Chaka Fattah is on the list, as I would expect. He’ll want to play up his gun owner hating credentials for his Mayoral bid.

I guess Carolyn McCarthy, feeling bad about how utterly ineffective she is as a Congressworm, felt the need to tap some of her more friendly colleagues to bail her out of her embarrassment.

Our Best Hope?

I think Rudy might be shaping up to be our best hope for avoiding Hillary ’08. I’ll admit, I don’t trust Rudy on the gun issue, but I’ll say one thing for him; he said he wouldn’t sign a new assault weapons ban. That’s more than I can say for Bush, who I don’t think has honestly done much for us, other than signing the PLCAA.

Other than on guns, I honestly don’t have any problems with Rudy on too many other issues. He’s always been a little strange and quirky, but considering my other choices are Mitt the Shit, and John “Screw The First Amendment” McCain, so far, I’m starting to warm to the idea of Rudy.

I know there are other Republican candidates out there, but I’m looking for someone who can defeat Hillary Clinton. I don’t think I have to explain to anyone how much of a disaster a Clinton presidency would be for us.

Of course, if the Democrats run Bill Richardson, that could alter the whole equation. But if you want my take, Hillary has already been anointed. Obama is just trying to get some exposure for his real run in 2012 if Hillary doesn’t win.

Via Instapundit

Category: Politics