The words “crackdown” and “getting tough” imply that government is actually going to do something about a problem they have vowed to solve. But sometimes they simply don’t have the resources. They’ve bitten off more than they can chew. For example the Mail Online says that visa checks on Pakistani applicants to britain are a sham. “Figures showed that just 29 out of 66,000 applicants were interviewed by officials since a ‘rigorous new system’ began operating last October.”
Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted in June that all passports of Pakistani applicants are checked, but not always their other paperwork. In July it emerged that the ‘hubs’ employ just 11 entry and clearance officers and two managers, meaning they have on average 11 minutes to examine each application. The Home Office says a further 200 backroom staff process paperwork but the shortage of frontline immigration officers contributes to the small number of applicants quizzed.
In other news British newspapers report that “dozens of convicted Islamic terrorists are back on the streets after being freed early from jail”. Twenty are being released now and and another 75 will are scheduled to leave jail in the next few years to be housed in “hostels around the UK and supervised by staff more used to dealing with drug dealers and thieves.”
But security sources say the cost of monitoring them in the community may be more than keeping them in jail. It costs the taxpayer around £40,000 a year for a prison inmate and £25,000 for a hostel place. But those who pose the greatest risk need constant police surveillance upon release, which is extremely expensive as it involves two 12 hours shifts of 16 officers on permanent duty.
In reality police control is a very expensive way of keeping order in a society. Culture does most of the heavy lifting. People avoid dumping trash on the sideway or shooting up their neighbors largely out of custom and social pressure. Once it is “OK” to do things that were formerly proscribed, the inhibitions fall away. Combined with setting a high standard for guilt, the amount of police resources that are necessary to hold back a tide of formerly unacceptable behavior becomes inordinate. Once a “culture of corruption” gets going it proves difficult to eradicate short of reprogramming a multitude of people
Officials at ACORN say they sending a clear message to those in its ranks that they will not tolerate voter fraud. The Miami Herald reports:
Eleven people hired to register potential voters in Miami-Dade County before last year’s presidential election were being sought Wednesday for falsifying hundreds of voter registration cards. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, (ACORN). By early Wednesday morning, six were in custody, authorities said. …
The arrests are “further evidence we’ve been policing our own folks and report people attempting to commit voter registration fraud,” said ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring. “This was really some individuals who were trying to defraud their employer.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle praised ACORN. “We’ve been very aggressive about a lot of these cases,” she said. “But we would not have known about these workers unless ACORN brought it to us.”
Apparently, suspicions were aroused when “Paul Newman and James Taylor” appeared in the cards submitted for registration. Such vigilance is to be commended. Let’s hope it is kept up. To some extent the problem that Pakistani passport control officers and perhaps ACORN officials have is that of counteracting signals, emanating from the unofficial culture that certain things are permissible. Official attitudes are not always the ones commonly held within the millieu and that can complicate things.
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“But security sources say the cost of monitoring them in the community may be more than keeping them in jail. It costs the taxpayer around £40,000 a year for a prison inmate and £25,000 for a hostel place. But those who pose the greatest risk need constant police surveillance upon release, which is extremely expensive as it involves two 12 hours shifts of 16 officers on permanent duty.”
9mm cartridge $0.18 each. Multiplied by all the terrorist scum in the U.K. That could go at least a little way to improving the abysmal primary education system or the health system.
Isn’t it odd that Obama and Co. believe they can register everyone, with a positive ID card, for health care benefits, but Voter ID cards are not feasible. Clowns. And not even amusing.
The situation in the UK is really scary–the Brits have gone haywire in terms of being in bed with the Pakistanis, and Muslims in general. Next attack on the US originates in UK, I bet.
“security sources say the cost of monitoring them in the community may be more than keeping them in jail. It costs the taxpayer around £40,000 a year for a prison inmate and £25,000 for a hostel place.”
What if they received some end-of-life counseling? If it’s good for our health, then it’s good for terrorists’ health too.
I fear that the comments by ACORN are made solely for PR. I think it is just a smoke screen while they go merrily on their way pursuing voter fraud. After all, with the Left, any dishonest tactic is OK if it helps you attain power.
I wonder how many times Paul Newman and James Taylor voted in the last election. This sounds like they are closing the barn door after the horse has left the building. feeblemind is right on target; PR nonsense, some useful idiot gets thrown under the bus. I await the trial and sentencing of these desperadoes, but am willing to wager that it will be plead-down and probation will ensue.
It is also interesting to note that the ACORN representative was more concerned about “This was really some individuals who were trying to defraud their employer” than the potential impact on the validity of the electoral process (BTW that is an oddly Capitalist point of view for a lefty organization to be taking, isn’t it?).
Regarding the Brits, I have really lost hope that they can be redeemed, short of a nasty civil war. The country is either under the spell of their PC nitwit pols or they truly subscribe to the idea that eleven people can screen 66,000 applicants. Either way, it looks pretty darned hopeless.
I fear that sixty years of Socialism has crushed the once mighty heart of the British Lion.
One of the scary moments in life comes when you realize just how feeble society can be.
* When it takes years for a criminal court case to reach a resolution, instead of months.
* When you learn just how few cargo containers coming in from overseas are inspected.
* That lawmakers vote on bills they haven’t read, full of provisions that cannot bear exposure in the media.
* When you realize that laws are enforced sometimes in response to the news of the day, not because they need to be enforced.
* That the areas of society that need resources to continue are being diverted to the fad of the day, and because no one gets praised for maintaining our infrastructure.
If anyone wonders why a socialized health service is a terrible idea, one need look no further than the deterioration of British moral fiber over the last 50 years.
When people no longer have to fight in order to keep the wolves at bay, they forget how.
Here’s an idea: “In other news: 25 former Gitmo detainees who were undergoing tranfer to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth were shot by the Kansas National Guard while trying to escape from custody….”
Obviously, there is more of this going on than ACORN actually reports to Johnny Law. And while I’m certainly glad they are seemingly cleaning house, when an organization is designed to inherently favor and encourage illegal activities in its employees… well, they just don’t get the benefit of the doubt, like Feeblemind @ 4 suspects.
Which leads me to wonder – how did the ACORN apparatchiks decide exactly who they would sacrifice on the altar of justice? Was there a blind lottery? Was it people with suspected Republican sympathies? Or was it simply the most blatant abusers who were turned in, with ACORN trying to buy continued time by sacrificing those employees who were about to caught anyways? (See “The Departed” – Frank Costello – “I never gave up anybody… who wasn’t going down anyway”)
Oh, what tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to deceive!
Funny how ID is not needed for voting but IS needed to get admission to a Congress person’s town hall meeting….
1. SpeakEasy: Positive ID
Thumb or retina ? Unfakeable, and,
if implemented properly, anonymous:
This person is a citizen, legal resident,
registered alien, or not in the system.
All the State needs to know.
6. Bill Peschel: Neglected Infrastructure
If people knew how bad, and how widespread,
the rot runs, they would be petrified that
the next AQ attack will be intended to
start a cascade of failures.
P.S.
Is the lewd pun in the title intentional ? :>
“they truly subscribe to the idea that eleven people can screen 66,000 applicants” anton@5.
Truth does not enter into it. The screeing is NOT MEANT TO BE EFFECTIVE, it is just a smoke-screen.
Labour is a crack-addict for the Muslim vote. It needs more Muslim immigration, always more, and will lie, cheat, steal and sell us into slavery, all for just a few more years in the well-stocked trough.
As to what “The country” believes, I think you should read the comments attached to the Mail’s report.
Snippets from Wretchard’s key paragraph:
“…keeping order in a society. Culture does most of the heavy lifting…Once it is “OK” to do things that were formerly proscribed, the inhibitions fall away. Combined with setting a high standard for guilt…resources that are necessary to hold back a tide of formerly unacceptable behavior becomes inordinate.”
This is America today, folks. People sense it. The Democrats abandoned ‘decency’ in public debate. Name calling, harassing people who sign petitions, welcoming “art” that threatens the President’s life, group identity trumping individual merit. They’ve lowered the bar: the only rule is what you can get away with.
The Democrats thought that people would magically become civil again once they gained power. Wrong. Conservatives have been told for years that they’re “The Other” and now believe it. This is a serious problem for America — it’s not just linked to one election or even to the political sphere. It’s spreading like a disease into every facet of our culture.
I know law-abiding people who are now serially cutting corners required by government regulations (permits, etc.) or are dropping any activity the IRS can monitor. You know you’re a disfunctional society when productive people prefer the illegal (“black”) market over the legal one. We’re not totally there yet, by any means, but we’re headed that way. Rapidly. To quote Wretchard, “the inhibitions fall away.”
It’s useful to compare the Clinton era with today. Bill Clinton cared about the polls. He didn’t share traditional American values but he recognized that you need to lead people starting from where they’re “at.” We’re now far beyond what Hillary (hypocritically) called the “politics of personal destruction.” The 21st Century Democratic Party, along with the Academy and the Media, routinely practice the “politics of CLASS destruction.” Someone disagrees? Get them fired if you can, bankrupt them with legal costs, at minimum make them pariahs. Even better, call all Republicans ___-holes. Smear insurance companies, Wall Street, shake down anyone who has money. This is the protection racket called “Hope.”
Perhaps the ACORNs of America are getting wise, learning that standards need to be enforced at some level? Or are we going the way of the UK, where lower standards just mean more law-breaking (often subsidized by taxpayers)? Some people wanted “Change.” Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Evanston, right you are.
Next on the block: Joe Wilson, who had the audacity to call our lying Savior Buraq a liar.
He will be demonized like Sarah, Cheney, Gingrich, and Joe the Plumber. He is already being accused of taking Nodoz in College. Now if only he would straighten up, fall in line behind Buraq and smoke some dope, all would be fine.
Evanston2,
You nailed it, well done.
Remember BHO worked for Acorn. Here is the story on the Baltimore Acorn office.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/10/in-the-bowels-of-baltimore’s-acorn/