No Hell Below Us, Above Us Only Sky
Art imitates life. But does life imitate art? The superficial similarities between real-life neuroscience Ph.D. student James Holmes, the shooter at the Aurora, Colorado massacre, and the villain of Stephen Hunter’s not-too-well-written thriller Soft Target are uncanny. The fictional mastermind in Hunter’s book is a genius-level, upper-middle class white kid who is bored with the world. He recruits some jihadis to attack a mall (loosely modeled after the Mall of America) in a Mumbai-style attack to provide him with a little stimulation. He wants to turn the mall into the ultimate first-person multiplayer shoot-em-up game and commits the act not for money, not even for power, but just to do something way cool.
Any good novelist captures his life and times, so it is no surprise that Hunter, a competent writer who sometimes rises to brilliance in the action genre, should also capture the political spirit of the age. When news of the attack spreadw in his story, Hunter describes the reactions of “the superintendent of state police … Colonel Douglas Obobo … the son of a Kenyan father and American mother … educated at Harvard Law.” Obobo immediately knows who the perp is, who it has got to be:
Some crazed white militia, some NRA offshoot, some screwball Tea Party gone berserk. In his mind, one never could tell about the right in this country, particularly deep in the glowering Midwest, where men clung to guns and religion, cursed bitterly as America changed, and still believed, fundamentally, in the old ways.
Unfortunately Obobo is wrong; and because the mall is a “gun-free zone,” the evil boy genius’ not very bright killers drive the crowds before them like sheep before wolves — until someone who didn’t get the word decides to fight back and kills the perps.
Hunter’s evil boy genius never sees himself as evil at all. The concept is totally foreign to him. He lives in a universe in which the concept of evil has no meaning. And when the hero eventually guns him down, the genius mastermind’s only regret is that in the game of real life there isn’t a restart button to do it all again. He dies without regrets, without remorse.
The Rabbis held that God originally created man with two propensities, one to good (yetser tobh) and one to evil (yetser hara). Edersheim states: “in a sense it’s [evil] existence was necessary for the continuance of this world. The conflict between these two impulses constituted the moral life of man.”
Wretchard,
I think that Ziaul Haque you’ve cited “the second round went to Marx, since his theories produced a revolution;” is correct in spirit but not technically: Marx expressly stated in his writing that it is impossible (and probably not even desirable) for the revolution to succeed in a single country. Lenin modified and extended Marx’s theories to justify (in his own and his comrades’ eyes) the Russian revolution.
Right now we are witnessing worldwide application of Marx’s original theories.
Now it’s obvious to me that Richard is a JavaScript coder
Wretchard, with regard to the shooting at the movie theater in Colorado,what is the proper tactic for a member of the crowd of victims to follow ? Crouch in your seat ? Get on the floor ? Get close to the perp and attack his feet ? What did the actual victims do ? If you happen to have a pistol, don’t fire until you can touch the perp with the muzzle of your gun ? When I was a kid, opening the emergency door to our little neighborhood movie theater turned on the lights. Only management could switch them off. Sneaking your friends past the ticket taker through the emergency exits didn’t work so good.
God never fights with Satan “Lucifer” the Devil neither does Jesus, The Devil is a Fallen Angel, Michael the Arch Angel and Lucifer can fight but not God, the Holy Spirit or The Word of God made flesh (Jesus)! There would be no fight, nothing, there’s no equivalence. Evil is Mans choice. The lost soul chose to do this evil, he maybe chemically or Physically impaired but he still made choices and it seemed that he made many over a length of time and not just suddenly, it was his “higher” education which led him to his morale and conscious less act. Can his family and those of his victims sue the schools which lead him to this delusion?
Wretchard, with regard to the shooting at the movie theater in Colorado,what is the proper tactic for a member of the crowd of victims to follow ? Crouch in your seat ? Get on the floor ?
Any advice I could give you not having been there and with no expertise on the subject would be useless.
However I will point out that in military history the scenario of men against those equipped with firearms is a pretty common one, as when individuals run out of ammo or are primitive tribesmen against men with guns.
The historical concepts always involve using thrown missile weapons and getting to close quarters. The opportunities are provided by the inability of a shooter to move his weapon fast enough to cope with onrushers from different directions and the necessity to reload.
That’s why the Mumbai killers worked in buddy pairs. One would fire and cover while the other reloaded.
James Holmes was alone, so the need to reload could not be covered by a buddy. Remember how everyone talks about the “Garand ping” as a weakness, as if the German infantry could listen for it in the din of battle? Well Holmes would have had to reload at some point.
Missile weapons are pretty good too. It worked for the Zulus versus Chelmsford’s men. As a kid I remember pitching glass coke bottles at a man who was stabbing another. Now those old time glass bottles hurt when they beaned you. There are no longer glass coke bottles, alas, but a cell phone would do in a pinch or a tablet thrown like a frisbee. Even a bunch of keys.
But ultimately all historical solutions rely on the man without firearms getting to close quarters. That means a bunch of attacks from all points, where some will die but some will close. Once at close quarters, you have him. In fact, some historians claim entrenching tools or rifle butts, rather than bayonets or knives are king at the one foot distance. I think that’s what the historical record shows is most effective.
But as to personal experience, I never rushed a man with a gun. Maybe someone who has knows how to do it.
If you had some airsoft or paintball equipment, you could test out the charge theory. At the short ranges involved, the differences versus a real firearm would be minimized. Also, many shots would not be immediately incapacitating- allowing the injured person to come into contact with the shooter.
I don’t argue charging a shooter from the perspective of heroism, but rather because it minimizes the amount of time he has to aim and shoot at you versus running away or trying to hide (when already found).
Also, one of those big theatre drinks are pretty heavy when full.
The psychiatrist claims it’s all seratonin and repressed perversions. The politician hatches plans that enslave our minds and bodies, while protecting no one. The blogger writes words of great truth and interest, but of little consequence.
What to do with losers but send them to their rooms is a hard question. It’s also a microcosm for why we’re stuck on earth; it’s the single reason we shouldn’t make them fight and kill each other- not in Baghdad nor in bed.
Still, as technology advances man has less to do but create his own answers to the unsolvable puzzles of this universe, and more time to do it in. As always, that means peace, love, and progeny for the sane – cool, queer, and comics for nuts. Only the proportions seem to change as the end draws nearer, whatever “the end” may be.
4. SamW—there is training for this; I recommend your nearest Krav Maga instructor.
Two possibilities: if he’s firing, but away from you, knock the gun upwards with your forearm or open hand, then sink the thumb of the opposite hand as deep as you can into his eye.
If you’re behind him or to the side/rear, make your hand into a tight fist and club him as hard as you can on the back of his neck or to the side—more than once if possible; flex your knees and lower your center of gravity as you do so.
If he falls stomp your heel as hard as possible into his throat; jump up and come down hard in the center of his chest with both feet.
If you can enlist others, rush him from different directions, as previously suggested.
As I said, there is training. The enemy is the tendency to freeze and find yourself unable to think. Rigorous training increases your chance of reacting quickly.
And, no, I haven’t done this but have had years of training. I do carry a knife and pistol (all legal).
After years of enjoying these posts I actually get to disagree about something. Good is an entity in itself. Respectfully I assert it to be the human analogue of God’s internal character. Evil is simply that which is the contrary, the inverse, or the distorted substitute. As such it can only exist as a posterior reaction to good. To say otherwise is to embrace some form of dualism. This sucks the essence of evil away. It becomes no more than the reverse side of the good/evil coin and thus loses its meaning. A mere word for things disliked. The badness of a thing is based upon its twisting of the original good. As an aside it seems to me it possesses a more than passing resemblance to the relationship between illusion and reality.
Foolish man takes great care to feed his body wholesome foods, the debate over sugar/no sugar, whole eggs/egg whites, fat free/real butter…On & on it goes, the concern given the body..What is not ever up for discussion, unless you don’t mind being called a “whacko or nutcase”, is the needs of the soul…Have a care for your soul, avoid evil, feed your soul, it is going to outlast the body..
This tragedy reminded me anew of the late Eric Hoffer’s meme in “True Believer” where self-esteem is critical to the psychological well-being of our ids, in whatever class we find ourselves, except those in the lowest sub-poverty strata of society. (Exceptions only because they are too busy scrambling each day to barely survive).
It chilled my soul to learn his own mother, upon first hearing of the crimes, replied, “You’ve got the right guy”! Smart as a whip but one whose self-esteem levels had to be scraping the ocean floor, how else was his ego to survive without creating a phantasy world – which in his case turned out to be more nightmarish than fantastic?
Stephen Hunter in the admittedly pretty crappy little book “Soft Target” nailed it in the perp “living in a world where the concept of evil does not exist”. For Professor Smedrick at Yale, relativism is an abstract concept, something to titillate the itching ears of the moon- eyed co-eds (might even get him some) . Down the stream, Crazy Jim Holmes feels like a righteous dude blasting six year olds. After all he’s practiced the Joker’s smirk a million times in front of his mirror ala Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver” “Are you looking at me?” . Maybe one day in the prison at Canon City , Colorado, Holmes will have an epiphany and realize Satan directed his cameo in the dark night of his soul.
Here’s the thing, there were probably a hundred Batman, Catwoman, and other costumed characters already in the audience, at past premieres it was not unknown for management to supply additional, so when one more showed up and started making noise I’m sure there were those who stood up to get a better look. Too bad they didn’t come with fully equiped utility belts. But it must have made a bad situation worse, delayed any constructive reaction by seconds, making it that much harder to close with the perp if that was anyone’s intention. Which it might have been, “Let’s roll!” is in the vernacular. Just pelting him with three or four of those full-quart soft drinks might have slowed him down, I don’t gather he was any kind of warrior. Plus I’m assuming he had his back to the wall, and it’s hard to charge over packed theater seats.
He apparently exited on his own and although there is no report of anyone tackling him physically they were there when the cops showed up (in under two minutes!) to point him out, so someone did something other than run from danger – although it might have been stand around in danger.
“hardened criminals in the Arapahoe Detention Center wanted to kill Holmes”
I don’t mean to sound like an anarchist, but I can’t help thinking of the time, money and pointless drama that would be saved by simply releasing Holmes into Arapahoe Detention Center’s general population and having the administrators just turn their backs for, say, 72 hours.
Is it evil? Or is it simply the psychological inability to recognize that one is part of reality?
There have been mutterings for some time that no-one knows what the long-term effects will be of treating so many school-age children with medications for ADHD. Some have argued that there is no such thing as an Attention Deficit disorder in young boys; they simply can’t sit still for hours at a time while some harridan drones on about Heather’s two mommies. But I know parents who were strong-armed by the school bureaucracy into authorizing the administration of medications which would make their little boys sit quietly in class.
Pop quiz. Let’s stipulate that the Aurora shooter had been prescribed ADHD medication for a decade or more at grade school, and that that may explain the disassociation which allowed him to murder & maim strangers who had done him no harm. Who will get sued? (a) The School District which insisted on his being medicated? Or (b) the drug manufacturer which sold the medications with FDA approval? Silly question — we all know the answer.
Why do we prevent suicide for violent criminals? I think each holding cell should have a ‘confessional’ where criminals could record their regrets and make their peace, then a method of instant, clean (relatively) suicide should be available, such as a Cyanide pill. Why waste time, money and tears on a guy like this? Give them an out and spare the rest of us the circus and the cost of trying and housing this trash for a lifetime or 30 years of appeals. And speaking of circuses, there should be ZERO coverage of these events other than sterile facts. That would discourage those who look to become famous by committing violent crime.
There was a “Twilight Zone” episode where a petty crook dies. He finds himself in a place with unlimited supplies of free money free booze and loose women. Slowly he realizes that it is Hell.
Another shooting in Aurora CO in April 2012.
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/04/22/2-shot-outside-aurora-church/#.T5WjZzkp8hQ.facebook
As to my favorite soft drink..Coke is still available in the bottle in the US.
A coke is not a coke unless it is in a bottle.
Kinuachdrach @ 16
“Let’s stipulate that the Aurora shooter had been prescribed ADHD medication for a decade or more at grade school”
Interesting point.
Whereas traditional school systems tried to channel a boy’s innate aggressive energy into productive persuits, modern schools simply drug the energy out of them, so that they’ll behave more like little girls.
And then they act suprised when that aggression turns out not to have been eradicated, but merely suppressed.
Josh #14
Just pelting him with three or four of those full-quart soft drinks might have slowed him down
Paging Mayor Bloomberg– Big Gulp control needed in a movie theater near you as well as gun control . . .
Hey, guys! Hunter’s book wasn’t that bad!
His characterization of the State Police guy was spot on. Yeah, it’s not great literature, but I found it entertaining and remarkably PC-free, especially from a guy who was the Washington Post’s movie critic for 20 years. Try some of his Bob Naylor books. The plots may be hokey, but the tactics in the action scenes are pretty good. And the movie The Shooter with Mark Wahlberg was better than Contraband.
I feel a gun creates the lowest order of damage available to a deranged person wanting to kill people in a crowd. Lots of shots – not many killed. Get rid of guns and that person moves to bombs, poison, fire bombs and the like. A propane truck can kill a lot more people in a few seconds than a semi-auto rifle. Food for anti-gun un-intended consequences.
“If you had some airsoft or paintball equipment, you could test out the charge theory. ”
No you couldn’t. What those who have never seen the elephant don’t realise is that in a gun fight, the fact that you are trying to kill somebody and somebody is trying to kill you is the critical part of the equation. If you have ever been hunting, it’s called “buck fever”.
In a firefight it’s thousands of times worse.
That is why the military trains so hard. Most people lock up in a firefight. It’s loud and everything happens so fast the the normal brain freezes. So you do what you are trained to do. The training doesn’t make one effective, it just gives them a chance to stay alive.
I think the P-shrinks use the term ‘Sensory overload’.
So far I have seen no reliable reports on what happened. Claims the nutter committed suicide followed by claims he is in jail. I have built movie theatres. They are concrete boxes. The floors, the walls (exterior) and behind the screen. So bullets will bounce (ricochet). Until they hit something soft.
The idea of a gunfight in a crowded concrete box fills me with disgust. Any civilian shooting back should be arrested and charged. With murder if they pull a bullet out of a victim that matches his weapon.
Wanna be a hero? Go to work. Do your job. Go home, love your wife and kids.
A retired Campus Cop I used to work with in Atlanta and another active Campus Cop that I spoke to on the internet:
Retired cop: “Find your house on a map and draw a 10 mile circle around it. Then know…if you knew the incredible number of depraved child molesters, sexual deviants, and gang members (legal and illegal) that live in your vicinity, you would wet your pants.”
I offered, “But I live in a suburban area characterized by fairly expensive homes.”
“Well that changes everything – make it a 5 mile radius circle.”
Texas Campus Cop (active): “We worry all the time about the fact that our administration has chosen to designate our campus as a ‘Gun Free Zone’. The guys and gals have a different wording for it: ‘Target Rich Environment.’ Thinking that it really truly is ‘gun free’ and thus ‘safe’ puts many to sleep. The worst thing that could cross your mind is ‘This can’t be happening’ because it forces you to waste 10 seconds of very valuable escape time.”
Being hit or missed in that theatre seemed to be not the result of either good or bad tactics, probably because there were no good tactics – only luck or proximity to the shooter. Had a Seal team been in the front row, I believe a physical and effective response whould have bee n instigated immediately, but alas, Seals are probably only “off-duty” in San Diego Theatres.
9. Jockstrap
I offered in the other thread that probably five .45 ACP rounds hitting the shooter would put him on the ground and the remaining 2, if necessary, could be used as head shots up close (although killing him would have been a mistake if you could effectively incompacitate him).
What is your experience with .45 ACP against pistol level body armor? Wouldn’t it break bones (ribs especially)even if it did not penetrate?
In your opinion, couldn’t that pistol caliber be used to eliminate him as a threat – even with body armor?
Yet from where I am today on this fine Sunday eve all is good with the world. No place special. Just an American city that has seen its better days.
As the sunlight fades families are calling in kids for dinner. Someone is playing old rock tunes a bit too loud (that would be me). A teenage couple are flirting at the lake. The Joker is not here. Tomorrow we will head back to work or whatever we do.
Small things are where the good overpowers evil. It happens every day in our backyards. It happens at the stop we made on the way home for something and the kindness you forgot about minutes later. Evil cannot compete with that.
24. stoicheion
I feel that you misunderstand my point. I’m examining the scenario of whether a charge could conceivably work in ideal conditions, but with the same limitations of room design and layout versus a real incident. That was the idea raised above (the concept of charging a shooter).
This is why we would employ non-life-threatening weapons. From that you could determine a range of possibilities. If too many of the charging folks would receive injuries that would prevent them stopping the attack (we could judge by where the paintball hits were), then we could conclude that even under ideal conditions it is not an optimal strategy. We could adjust for a large charge or a small charge.
Doing a bit of math and based on studies of rates of “freezing up” or inaction we could even determine the minimum number of “chargers” necessary to stop an attack.
Obviously in real-life conditions we would not see the optimal. But having said that, the experiment would show us what is and isn’t possible, and allow us to adjust accordingly.
Of course, perhaps the only real answer in the end is that things are what they are, and that’s that.
@ 11 Shylurk: You are absolutely correct. And, a great place to “have a care for your soul” is a Masonic lodge, where good men are made better. I think you’d feel at home.
Sgian Dubh—it does seem that 5 .45 ACP rounds would do it but you can read some amazing things of criminals shot multiple times who keep on coming.
Re body armor: have no knowledge at all except one friend who was hit in his armor by a rifle round in Iraq. It knocked him off balance but he didn’t fall and had a huge painful chest wall bruise. Me, I’m just a gun range shooter, pistols only.
@24. Stoicheion;
I have been on the two way range. You are WRONG. Google Suarez International and educate yourself. Gabe has been training ever since he left LAPD. He can show you exactly how and what to do. His classes are available to everyone that can pay except certain folks of certain religions.
As to the bullets ricocheting around until they hit a soft target is just wrong too. The impact energy is dissipated fairly quickly and the bullet does not travel far or with much energy unless it is a glancing blow of less than 30 degrees in which case the bullet will retain enough energy to cause damage. The walls are covered with sound deadening material to reduce echo.
Believe what you want, but at least try to do the research first.
True, some may take the coward’s way, some may fail to act soon enough but if one man had some old school training and a way to respond (the theater was a posted “gun free” zone) it may have turned out like the attempted mass shooting at the church where the shooter was responded to by an off duty officer carrying in church against church rules and stopped the shooter. But we will never know because the moment has passed.
“As he points out, “a world without evil” would also a world without good;”
Well, if a world without evil means a world in which nothing is judged to be evil, I would agree. But a world in which all of bad guys are dead and their philosophies discredited sounds pretty good.
I recall feeling such despair when 9/11/01 occurred. Instead of exploring the universe and developing cures for disease, and, the poet be damned, even devising the perfect refrigerator, we were going to have to go spend our blood and treasure to blow some crazies out of their holes in Afghanistan. That’s one reason I say “Nuke Em Till They Glow.” We got better stuff to do.
As for what could be done in such an attack, some nutjob recently shot up a restaurant, I think it was in NYC, using two .45’s . The casualty count was much reduced when one person kept throwing chairs at the guy.
At one large church a few years back they must have gotten some advance notice from the Big Intel Guy upstairs. They had two of their members stationed in the parking lot for each service, armed. An armed nut showed up and they took him out; a woman in her Sunday Go To Meeting Clothes scored the kill.
In WWII the OSS devised a Pen Gun, a slim weapon about the size of a pen, carrying a single .22 round, fired by lifting and flipping a lever. It was so small it could evade detection in the normal pat down. It’s useless for robbery, since no one knows what it really is, but a whole lot better than throwing chairs or Coke bottles. I have often thought about making one of those gadgets.
But I think the NRA could make a lot of friends if they offered to provide free, unobtrusive armed guards. There are a lot of retired military and cops who would be glad to do that rather than sit on a park bench throwing cigar butts at pigeons.
I think playing possum makes some sense in mass shootings like this one.
If you don’t have a weapon and if there are not enough brave people standing to organize a charge at the perp, then playing dead becomes adviseable.
Especially if you have a dependent with you that you want to protect…you could lay your body over her to serve as a bullet-shield, and your mass might conceal her from the roving killer’s eye should he choose to reconnoiter the field for survivors to shoot.
A world without evil would not necessarily be a world without conflict. There would still be shortages of resources, and there would still be the natural tensions which arise because men have different priorities for the use of those resources. And there is also an entire universe to explore. Other species (even if they are also without evil) would still present challenges and conflicts for us. This world without evil would not have to be a boring waste at all.
Back to the Real World, RWE, I have an aircraft question for you in the previous thread,
55. Doug…
Hey Mom, No Tail!
10. TJ
I think I agree. It is hard to envision a world without evil but I hope we will soon experience such. And if not me, then maybe the rest of you will.
Some speculation for consideration;
Prior to the 1960′s crimes like this were unknown. So far, there’s been little, if any, discussion of the great increase in crimes such as Aurora. What changed?
I suspect it’s connected to the abandonment of societal taboos that started in the 60′s with the baby boomers. By definition, taboos are absolutes. The triumph in Western Academia of post modernism’s inherent rejection of objective reality to its embrace of subjective relativism meant that public and institutional support for taboos has progressively decreased over the preceding decades and continues to decline ever further.
Holmes himself has provided insight into his motivations by labeling himself the “joker” who is an individual “who just wants to see the world burn”. The end product of post modernism is nihilism. Neither the joker in the movie, nor Holmes are insane. Both display the ability to dispassionately create detailed and complex plans. Both are ‘un’sane. Both know right from wrong but embrace evil (live spelled backwards).
Insight may be gained into the nature of evil from the biblical story in Genesis.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent is the distilled essence of God’s shadow. In the dualistic universe that God has created, light must have its shadow, its opposite. That is why God only appears to Adam and Eve in the evening, when the light of day is lowest. He seeks to limit the creation of evil, the serpent. God can’t eliminate the serpent (which any loving father would do) because evil (the serpent) the opposite of good, is a conditional aspect of the dualistic universe that he has created.
Eve embodies the irrational creative impulse, Adam the rational; the ‘logic’ that order and the willing obedience to ‘the rules’ is ultimately, in our own self-interest. Just as there are in mathematics, the sets of rational and irrational numbers, so too are the creative and orderly aspects of our universe. Humanity embodies those aspects as well.
The serpent’s seduction of Eve rather than Adam is of course intentional, its cunning recognizing that by appealing to her naivete and ‘irrational’ openness to gambling (“you won’t surely die and then you would be as Gods”) as in “you might win the lotto and look at the reward” is an argument that would be particularly appealing.
When Eve and Adam eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they ingest the ability to act without the ability to discern good from evil and humanity’s long nightmare begins. And the Buddha’s first noble truth obtains, “Life means suffering”…
Consider that billions of ‘wrong’ decisions, intense emotions of hate, envy and greed may coalesce (in a manner that we are yet unaware of the specific mechanism), into the psyche’s of society’s most vulnerable and resonant… And when a society abandons its taboos, the anarchy of unrestrained impulse reins.
If such speculation contains some truth then every generation will provide a certain percentage of those who embrace evil.
I believe Wretchard has quoted this before “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Verbal Kent – The Usual Suspects
I have few questions in no particular order: 1. how much does it cost to buy all his weapons, ammunition, protective gear, and explosives?
2. How nobody noticed?
3. Where he got the money?
4. How long did it take for him to prepare?
and, finally, was he alone, or there was some unknown help?
In the situation that existed, no one needed to “ORGANIZE” a charge- the ones closest to the shooter needed simply to charge. Everyone else should have been throwing things. One or two large theatre sodas to the gas mask, the perp would have been effectively blinded and incapacitated- he would have had to use his arm to wipe down the lenses. Everything else hitting him would be a major distraction, though each be minor.
He counted on sheeple- and got them.
In the distance from the front row to the shooter he would have had the time to shoot 1 before the rest were upon him, if they had simply charged towards him.
Running away ensures a target rich environment for the shooter in a packed room like this. One or two of the charging people may die, but there is greater chance of their dying if they present their back and get stuck at a choke point- the exit.
Buraq fits the mold of a nihilist. Nice work Bogie.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/07/22/Witness-Someone-let-gunman-inside-Colorado-movie-Theater
I find it interesting that he was working on a PhD in neuroscience. Back in the 1960′s I developed a theory that those who majored in psychology were first trying to figure out what was wrong with themselves.
I knew this girl who was a psychology major who was quiet and quite attractive with a rather sad smile and watery eyes like she was on the verge of either laughing or crying. I’d be talking to her at the bar thinking it could go either way. I took her to a friend’s party but she seemed a bit, well, damaged. So I decided not to get involved. Also, she had a pet monkey which maybe moved her up the weird scale a bit.
I didn’t see her for 15 years. Then one day I’m walking in the park and I meet her coming the other way. She was an attractive lady and even fifteen years on she looked good. I talked to her and she still had that same happy-sad vibe going only with a bit more happy then I remembered. I asked what she’d been up to and she told me she lived in Arizona for the last fourteen years. “Well, what were you doing out there?” I asked.
“I was in prison,” she said, as if that were a job at the Home Depot.
“Don’t say. What were you in prison for?”
“Murder,” she said, like she might say she sold fasteners at the Home Depot.
The casual way she talked kind of threw me. “So, ah, hmm, did you actually, you know, do it?”
“Oh, yes” she says, and smiles sweetly.
“So, ah, who was it you murdered.”
“My boyfriend,” she said.
“Oh, well, hmm.” At least she wasn’t showing me pictures of him. “And for that they gave you–”
“Twenty-five years.”
“Hmm.” I thought with that sentence it couldn’t have been a very clean murder. Also, I started doing the math. Had she perhaps…escaped?
She must have seen my perplexed look. “The governor pardoned me,” she said.
“Oh, well, that was nice of him.”
“He let a lot of women out,” she said, like he hadn’t given her case a lot of thought. “Well, it was good seeing you,” she said.
“Same here,” I said. And we continued walking on our merry separate ways.
Still, it was odd. Talking about murder and hard time the way you might discuss the weather. Plus, she came in pretty close to zero on the remorse scale. Who knows, maybe the guy deserved it. Or maybe it was the guy before that guy who deserved it. Or the guy before him. One thing I was sure of: it didn’t go all the way back to me. I was sure of that. But was she?
Even now I can see her when we first met over forty years ago. How she looked at me with that sort of half smile — enigmatic with possibilities of maniac.
Everybody talks about taking away all guns and bullets. DON’T DO IT! PLEASE!! Here’s why:
When they can no longer use guns and bullets, the crazies will switch to bombs/grenades. Count on it. Can you imagine the carnage that three or four grenades (or pipe bombs, loaded with tacks or even sewing pins), tossed into a crowded theater would do? We’d be talking about HUNDREDS of dead, not a dozen or so. Almost anyone can make high explosives in their own home if they really want to do so. TATP is almost ridiculously easy to make out of commonly available household chemicals. You can make gunpowder from things you find in nature, you know. That’s how it was was originally done with common charcoal, raw sulfur and saltpeter collected from caves. This bozo had lots of homemade explosives, enough to have leveled the entire theater building and killed over half of all people inside. Crazies use guns as it makes them feel more powerful; “Take THAT and THAT and THAT….Ahhhhahahahahaha!” Make guns unavailable and they will most assuredly use explosives. Or perhaps worse yet, poison gasses. The same intellect which made those explosives he had in his apartment could most assuredly have made poison gas, too. Not military grade gas but enough to kill or cripple 75% of the moviegoers. With him firing a gun or throwing bombs or grenades at the entrance, the people of how ever many screens were in that theater would have been at his mercy. Not one theater room, but all 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever in a megaplex.
We got lucky this time, believe it or not. It could have been so much worse. Wait until al-Qaeda or another group decides to toss grenades or wear explosive vests into US theaters while shouting “Allah Akbar!” Soon there will be fences and metal detectors and security, and movie tickets will cost $50 apiece. Just what the bad guys want.
“Even now I can see her when we first met over forty years ago. How she looked at me with that sort of half smile — enigmatic with possibilities of maniac.”
word to the wise, or maybe just the voice of experience: ALL women have got Da Krazie in them somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to come out. It’s just closer to the surface with some than with others.
sometimes you can go along for years, not seeing any sign of it – but it ain’t gone, it’s just bidin’ its time. Say the wrong things, make the wrong move – BAM! here it comes!
24. stoicheion “I have built movie theatres. They are concrete boxes. The floors, the walls (exterior) and behind the screen. So bullets will bounce (ricochet). Until they hit something soft.
The idea of a gunfight in a crowded concrete box fills me with disgust. Any civilian shooting back should be arrested and charged. “
Based on that statement, which I hope is not truly representative, I would have to say that you know nothing about firearms, concrete, ricochets, self-defense, etc. In fact, based on those sentences I’d have to say that you are likely a hand-wringing Briton or Canadian – maybe even confused about your own sexuality. I hope I am wrong.
Suffice it to say, I believe whole-heartedly that the Colorado theater shooter could have been stopped easily by one old codger lobbing some lead at him. It doesn’t take much return fire to break someone’s concentration.
We have about 30 years of legally armed citizens intervening here in the US. The results are pretty good.
A world where you are forced to be “good” is found in Jack Chalker’s “And the Devil Will Drag You under” written in 1979.
A line describes the situation: “…here you will act in the manner that the Holy Covenant says – whether you want to or not.” (page 34)
I have realized the possibility of good God offers, flows from love and freedom. You cannot have love without freedom. To have freedom you must allow danger. So to create a place where love is possible, God designed a universe with free will, and danger.
One of the great paradoxes is that God is totally, completely in charge of everything, yet free will is not only possible, but required.
Well it is looking like his body armor wasn’t. It was just what they call a tactical vest used for carrying spare mags and stuff. Made from a heavy nylon not any of the current long strand ballistic cloth. No plates in it either.
From what the trainers told me, even with good training you can figure in a 2x loss of accuracy due to the buck fever involved in a live shoot. In other words if you can keep five rounds in a 6 inch circle of dispersion during a hot range exercise you’ll be doing good if you can keep 3 in a twelve inch circle in reality.
BLACKOUT: OBAMA AND CARNEY AGREE NOT TO USE SUSPECT’S NAME…
Finally, something I can agree with them on:
Speaking of “No Hell Below us…” I do not know the name of Lennon’s killer Or This Guy.
—
44. dla:
If you knew your stuff, you’d know that any bullet that does not strike flesh in a crowded theater will bounce around in there much like a pinball machine.
When it happens to careen off a firebell it gets really confusing, downright surreal:
The only thing missing is the glass ceiling. …so to speak – really the game’s lid.
43. wws…
“Even now I can see her when we first met over forty years ago. How she looked at me with that sort of half smile — enigmatic with possibilities of maniac.”
word to the wise, or maybe just the voice of experience: ALL women have got Da Krazie in them somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to come out. It’s just closer to the surface with some than with others.
sometimes you can go along for years, not seeing any sign of it – but it ain’t gone, it’s just bidin’ its time. Say the wrong things, make the wrong move – BAM! here it comes!”
—
Yeah, but I thought the worst might be something like her 19th Nervous Breakdown.
In hdgreene’s case BAM! meant some serious trouble was on the way.
—
btw:
Mark Steyn mentioned some issue of the comic back in the 90′s that had a plot similar to whatever this was:
I know nothing about Batman other than on TV in the Sixties.
At college, we’d go up the road to an Inn with a Color TV showing Batman and Robin every thursday, or whatever, drink beer, and laugh a lot.
“Even now I can see her when we first met over forty years ago. How she looked at me with that sort of half smile — enigmatic with possibilities of maniac.”
But if you hate that romantic stuff, there’s always Brenton Wood who is a little more direct.
As we sift through the wreckage to assign blame and try to come up with a better response, let’s remember all the limp-wristed Progressives in the Public Schools who have devoted their careers to punishing any kid who fights back when punched by a bully; teachers who browbeat children with their propaganda that it’s evil to defend yourself; city councils that refuse to have scoring for kid’s sports activities; School systems that suspend kids for sharing a cough drop or bringing a one-inch plastic model of a gun; delusional University administrators who declare their campus to be gun-free zones, so any maniac knows they will be able to murder scores of victims before any possible response can be mounted.
When I was in grade school, most of the kids I knew either owned, or had easy access to a rifle. Many public high schools even had RIFLE TEAMS – SHOOTING TEAMS; the students carried their rifles to school on the BUS! The worst thing you ever heard of was some neighborhood jerk shooting someone with a BB gun from across the street, and getting a good spanking. When an adult witnessed a kid doing something dangerous, hurting another kid or animal, stealing, vandalizing, most adults would stop the kid and demand to know who the parents were, then take the kid to the parents to be disciplined, or call the police.
By the time I was in my twenties, parents of delinquent kids were already winning lawsuits against adults who dared to intervene with their darling precious kids, and suing school administrators for suspending their kids for assaulting teachers and other students.
It didn’t take any brains to see where the culture was headed.
We have arrived at the place prepared for us by those Gutless, perverted Progressive pukes.
In Fairness to Brenton, it was the rather unique delivery that was the real hook.
Not to mention being released on The Oogum Boogum Song Album.
…also,
If it’s embarassing videos you like…
(the token one or two black women add to the effect)
It’s possible Wretch may be inflating his grasp of American Soul a bit:
Perhaps tellingly, he fails to mention “Gimme Little Sign” was covered by Australian artist Peter Andre and released as the second single from his self-titled debut album. The single was released on October 26, 1992, through Melodian Records.
The single peaked at #3 on the Australian Singles Chart, achieving platinum status. The single also gained an ARIA award for 12th highest-selling single of 1992 in Australia.
Ahem, guys, how exactly did this wander from Colorado to Keats?
–
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful – a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
–
Not a mention of the AK-47 in the whole poem.
Josh,
…or dyed red hair.
There’s an article about 3 young men that died protecting their ladies.
The first showed a handsome young man and his lady.
I cried a bit.
The next two, a little less appealing, one couple featuring lips with rings through them.
I failed to cry.
Strange thing, the human mind.
…not to mention the strange things people do to their Bodily Temples these days.
SWR @19: “A coke is not a coke unless it is in a bottle.’
And comes out of a red machine with a lever to release it.
+1
#Wretchard
I know this from my Gracie Jiu-jitsu training. Against a level one opponent, someone who is bigger and stronger than me but does not train I want to be very close to them, on top in the full mount. Against a level two opponent, someone who is bigger and stronger but has some training, I still want to be on top in the full mount. In both cases I’m working towards submission. This is what we do or try to learn when we are rolling after each class. Against a level three opponent, someone who is bigger, stronger and has a lot of training, I want to run. If I can’t run, see #2. I still want to be close and hope that my training will allow me to see his mistakes and submit him or her. The secret is training, training, training…keep it real.
It was remarked quite early on in the history of the Russian Revolution (by Oswald Spengler, naturally) that Russia’s soul was now the theater of battle between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The substance of that analysis was basically this: Tolstoy was never really a Russian in any important sense. He was in fact the consummate late Westerner, the man of “modern” ideas, at home only in the world-cities of Paris and London, but as out of place in the Russian soil as any coconut palm. When Tolstoy looked at the suffering around him he beheld only social problems to which there existed a material solution. This inward compatibility with Marxism was the result of his embracing Western civilization in its last, etiolated form—irriligious, urbanized, mannerized, and false.
By contrast, Dostoevsky was the authentic Russian, the man of soul and soil who beheld the operations of good and evil in the world with the inner light of faith. What did Socialism have to do with the heart’s anguish and enigmas? What did it have to do with immortality and truth? It was nothing, an unreal fog from the West that was blowing uneasily through his native land, to be resisted both inwardly (with the Orthodox faith) and outwardly (by the avenging sword of autocracy). Spengler predicted that Russia would eventually throw off the Revolution as something entirely foreign to its nature—an interregnum, as it were—and would likewise purge from its system all traces of Western modernity. He ended his always-astute comments with the premonition, “To Dostoevsky will the next thousand years belong.”
It is worth mentioning in passage that Dostoevsky was warmly allied to and frequently corresponded with Constantine Pobedonostsev, the great Russian jurist, minister to three tsars, Over-Procurator of the Holy Synod, and staunch defender of the autocratic system. Old Fyodor was bitterly opposed to Marxism, but he would have regarded Americanism and all suchlike experimentation with constitutional forms, with equal distaste, as opposite sides of the same coin. His assessment is correct and worth keeping in mind.
This comment may be too late in the thread for anything, but what the heck. The first and foremost requirement when ambushed is to “shoot back”, one way or another. This is standard USMC and USA training.
The reasons are obvious, and alluded to above. When the ambusher has to begin ducking the ambushee will get his only chance to survive.
After shoot back, attack.
Viet Nam vets, real rifle totter types, have learned these rules by instinct. To bad none of them are stupid enough to run for congress.
ta
Doug 53
They proved that all is not lost-we still have men among us. Too bad those three were not armed, they obviously showed us they had the will necessary.
@50:
It didn’t take any brains to see where the culture was headed.
We have arrived at the place prepared for us by those Gutless, perverted Progressive pukes.
I’m not going to pick a fight (that’s a joke but I mean it.)
But some moderation can not be out of order: Jerry Sandusky and the culture of professional sports. Paterno’s statue was just taken down. The economic impact of the pending sanctions will reverberate throughout Pittsburgh:
A harsh penalty would have repercussions well beyond football, whose large profits — more than $50 million, according to the U.S. Department of Education — subsidize dozens of other sports programs at the school. The potential for a historic NCAA penalty also worries a region whose economy is built at least partially on the strength and popularity of the football program.
“It’s going to kill our town,” said Derek Leonard, 31, a university construction project coordinator who grew up in the area.
********
(I understand nobody is defending Sandusky or “his ilk.” But “culture” is a multi-faceted phenomenon. Based on anecdotal evidence, it also seems that (a) culture is “decentralizing” faster than other societal institutions/phenomena and (b) cultural influences, at least in USA, but globally as well thanks to modern communications, are more diverse at this period of history than at any time in the past. Just saying.
About the little boys and their medications, sure, it’s a subject that requires mature and serious judgment, but how many of you have braved the modern WalMart during day-care hours? We’re talking zoo, as in parental discipline that is MIA. Not sure it’s a matter of progressive pukes so much as parental pukes.)
The death of one man is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.–Joseph Stalin
If we accept Plato’s argument that goodness and morality are less substantive forms of an ideal form–The Good–we must infer that evil (the absence of good) is nothing other than metapysical thinness of being. Viewed this way, man’s moral problems become metaphysical, not ethical.
Stalin (who was a theology student before becoming a communist) correctly concluded that as evil increases exponentially it becomes more and more thin and is finally swallowed up and vanishes–POOF–in a realm of pure abstraction.
This pure, abstract world is The Ideal, or Highest Good, the proper object of an enlightened ruler’s knowledge. The road to purity must necessarily begin with chaos and bloodshed.
Given this metaphysical framework, the actions of James Holmes are not only exhaustively logical, they are ultimately moral. To make omelettes, it is required that you first crack skulls.
If Man is to regain his rationality he must start by rejecting Greek rationalism. Away with Plato; back to the the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob!
@41: Even now I can see her when we first met over forty years ago. How she looked at me with that sort of half smile — enigmatic with possibilities of maniac.
Time for a full distaff lock-down.
“I would have to say that you know nothing about firearms, concrete, ricochets, self-defense, etc”
No knowledge, just experience. I have a suggestion. Find yourself a runoff (flood Control)
culvert. They are long square boxes several meters across designed to prevent flooding by carrying away excess water. Walk back into one so it’s dark and all you can see is the light from the entrance. Now pull out your trusty .45 and fire a round into the wall.
“In fact, based on those sentences I’d have to say that you are likely a hand-wringing Briton or Canadian – maybe even confused about your own sexuality. I hope I am wrong.”
Very. If you had spent any time at this club you would know that. Why the ad hominem?
Picking on our cousins isn’t wise. Ever hear of the SAS? Did you know the world record for a sniper shot is held by a Canadian? AFAIK, that shot was made early in Afghanistan (2006) and still stands.
“We have about 30 years of legally armed citizens intervening here in the US. The results are pretty good.”
Actually, it’s more like 230 years. Counting from the incorporation of the Constitution.
I think you are a young man and full of it. That’s OK, it is the province of youth. If the SHtF while you are in the path, you will do what your instincts tell you to do.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
A question I am not comfortable with answering is: How much pre-emption is allowable? Or moral?
If you had seen the shooter walking toward the back of the theater with his collection of guns, and you had a gun yourself – or just your car, would taking him out right then and there have been justifiable? And by justifiable I don’t mean just to you personally but to the authorities, the public, etc.
Ideally, if you knew what was going to happen, Dr. Sam Becket style, you take him out by running him over, shooting him dead, or whatever, and escape, leaving no clues as to the person who killed the poor misunderstood mentally challenged person and/or vicious heavily armed nutjob. Better yet, make it look like suicide.
But if you could not get away with that, would you take him out anyway? I would. Almost anyone would say they would have – now. However, I doubt the authorities would just pat you on the back if they knew you had done it.
Several years ago a convicted child molester who had been released on parole was found to have written pieces describing imaginary sexual attacks on children and put them on his computer. When this was discovered they threw him back in jail. Even Ann Coulter said she supported this. But at what point are thoughts without actions worthy of response? In this case the materials they found apparently violated his parole conditions, but realistically, he could have had the same fantasies but never written them down.
A shooting range owner says he decided to deny the theater killer access to the range based on a bizarre answering machine message he discovered when he tried to get in contact with the guy. What iof he had decided that such a person has no business with guns?
Ironically, the shooting proves the need for “Batman” – an enforcer outside the law and outside the long arm of lawfare.
62. stoicheion
“No knowledge, just experience.
Ok, I won’t challenge your “experience”, (although I’ve put plenty of 45acp into concrete without mishap), but I have to take you to task for your admonition. And I am older than dirt.
Your original post was the classic hand-wringers “don’t fight back because it will only make things worse” and you supported it with this total BS dangerous ricochet non-sense. And that smells of the Brit/Canadian anti-gun theology. “theology” because it requires a lot of faith.
Your logic stinks. If the primary motivation is to not get shot by the bad guy, then the unintended consequences of a ricochet from a good guy is of tertiary concern at best. Maybe if we suspend physics for a moment, like they do in Hollywood, and have everyone in the theater return fire, as Hollywood imagines would happen in Texas, then perhaps somebody might get hurt by a ricochet or friendly fire.
But concrete crumbles and absorbs a high percentage of a bullet’s energy. And extremely few shooters can maintain the precision for head shots while they are being shot or shot at. And when they can’t concentrate on killing and must focus on surviving, the movie patrons have more chance of escape. And delaying the bad guy’s rampage gives time for the police to arrive.
So as I said originally, one old guy lobbing lead at the shooter would have stopped the carnage. Or even a young guy. Or a woman. Anybody. But the good guys/gals obey laws, and they don’t carry into theaters prohibiting guns.
63. RWE
“A question I am not comfortable with answering is: How much pre-emption is allowable? Or moral?”
We can’t see into the future.
The military creates zones where troops can freely attack. Police create zones where prohibited items and/or behavior are grounds for detention.
But the absurdity of the action and cultural restraints would prevent even a hardened cop/soldier from taking out the theater shooter before he fired a shot. This hesitation is a desired behavior, since theater shooters are extremely rare.
The US legal system is setup to protect the majority from the historical abuses of the State. So somebody is “innocent” until proven guilty. And someone has to “commit” an actual crime before they can be prosecuted. But you don’t have to commit a crime to be detained. Had the shooter been pulled over for a traffic violation, the rampage wouldn’t have happened that night.
The State has a lousy track record, and so I am glad that in the US we err on the side of liberty, even though it means we are on our own to stop the rare monster. I personally would not work in the pre-crime division (think Minority Report).
rwe @ 63: If you had seen the shooter walking toward the back of the theater with his collection of guns, and you had a gun yourself – or just your car, would taking him out right then and there have been justifiable? And by justifiable I don’t mean just to you personally but to the authorities, the public, etc.
I dunno, rwe, is it necesarily a matter of (immediate) preemption?
There seem to be at least two lesser yet proactive roles. First, “if you see something say something”, call the cops, maybe they could even get there in time. Second, do a “Zimmerman”, free your holster, follow and observe. Or even challenge and do an OK Corral bit.
As long as you’re asking.
It’s a separate question, “If you could prevent by preemption and taking the fall”, and of course a nasty question it is.
Geoffrey Britain (#36) Your theory, philosophy, view is definitely not from a Believers understanding or from one that has “really” read the Bible and thought on it… God create a “dualistic universe”? Evil is not equal to God in any manner! (in the Bible) Evil cannot “Create” Life, Evil cannot “resurrect” the dead, You sir are way off in your “Ying-Yang” Buddha/Confucius view of Judeo Christianity. “God can’t eliminate the serpent (which any loving father would do) because evil (the serpent) the opposite of good”??? God couldn’t be God if he couldn’t “eliminate” the serpent!!! What kind of God can create the serpent but then not be able to eliminate it??? The “Serpent” was an animal “used” by Lucifer to speak to Eve, the snake was not “Evil” itself… Please Read the Bible if you’re going to speak on its content!
Kinuachdrach (16),
Some are wrong. This is not to say the condition is not over-diagnosed; it is. But if you’ve ever seen anyone who actually has it respond to appropriate medication, you’d know it wasn’t entirely fictional.
stoicheion (24),
Careful, your inner statist is showing. Your use of the word “civilian” is telling, chilling, and a sign that you’re more likely to be part of the problem than part of the solution. Sorry, lecturing “civilians” to know their place and leave “heroics” to official people is just reprehensible. (And I know you’ve been here a long time, but putting this thread together with your comments on Luby’s in the other thread, I have to ask–what’s gone wrong? )
65 # dla and Josh #66:
I am not talking about the police or military. I am talking about John Q Public, Joe Sixpack, Fred Bagodonuts, the Flight 93 passengers. They are always the real first responder. And no we cannot see into the future, but if you could, or even had a strong suspicion, what would you do?
And should we be trying to see into the future, so to speak? The underwear bomber’s own father was trying to get someone to pre-empt his son, but “the authorities” have proven their ability to not react.
I guess one answer is to take you gun into the theater, posted policy or not, and wait until the guy started shooting before taking him out. So is it Okay to allow 1 or 2 to die so you can save 10 more and avoid terrible pain for another 58? I guess that would be better than spending your life in jail for killing someone who deserved it. I guess.
When you meet your maker I think you can very easily justify taking the guy out as he crossed the parking lot, assuming you had pre-knowledge, but I am not sure you can justify to Him letting two innocents die so you could avoid jail time.
“But concrete crumbles and absorbs a high percentage of a bullet’s energy.”
Not the high grade, reinforced concrete used in construction of buildings holding lots of people that has to be shatter proof as well as fire proof.
http://www.ehow.com/info_12101916_types-concrete-grades.html
“don’t fight back because it will only make things worse”
Might be what you read but it isn’t what I wrote;
“The idea of a gunfight in a crowded concrete box fills me with disgust. Any civilian shooting back should be arrested and charged.”
That is the closest I can come to what you read that I wrote.
I think this is my fourth so you will just have to keep preaching to the choir.
Meanwhile, I googled ol’ Gabe;
http://www.defensereview.com/gunfighting-the-value-of-experience-by-gabe-suarez/
After extolling the virtues of experience, Gabe dances around the fact that he has very little to none. You do what you wanna do. Just be prepared to pay the price. It’s the 21st century, not the 19th. With the right to bare arms comes the responsibility to use them wisely. I do have a hint for you. If faced with body armor, aim for the groin, hip area. Almost as big a target as the torso and if you get an artery, they bleed out pretty fast. Even if you don’t, they will fall down and not pursue as you retrograde the area.
Haji can’t shoot
stoi @ 62
Actually a Brit holds the record. 2700+ yards. 2009 Afghanistan.
dla@44
“In fact, based on those sentences I’d have to say that you are likely a hand-wringing Briton or Canadian.”
Pfffft! Shows how much you know about Canada. Why, we watch our movies projected onto the side of a barn in Summer and onto an ice-fall in Winter. What the hey is concrete? Up here Ric O’Chet is a pop singer from New Brunswick. When we do wring our hands, chances are there is a neck in there somewhere – see Shawinigan Handshake
When those newfangled newspaper thingys come to Canada, you can maybe read them and find out more stuff about us; eh?
When I heard about the shootings in the theater, the first thing I thought of was to try to activate the fire suppression (sprinkler system) in the theater–if they had one. If I had been in the theater, that’s what I would have tried to do.
Sprays of water descending on the shooter’s head would have wetted the lenses of his gas mask and made it impossible for him to see and aim properly. It would also have cleared away the smoke from the grenade he threw. That would have neutralized his advantages.
“For the Marxists evil does not really exist, since it is solely a matter of social evil which can be eliminated by the revolution. But for Dostoevsky evil exists as an individual fact, in each man’s heart and expresses itself precisely in the violent means used by the revolution. With their historic and social justifications the Marxists can wash clean even the blackest of consciences.”
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
“Communism has never concealed the fact that it rejects all absolute concepts of morality. It scoffs at any consideration of “good” and “evil” as indisputable categories. Communism considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending upon circumstances and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the killing of thousands, could be good or could be bad.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
http://www.alor.org/Library/LegacyofTerror.htm
56. Matt
Old Fyodor was bitterly opposed to Marxism, but he would have regarded Americanism and all suchlike experimentation with constitutional forms, with equal distaste, as opposite sides of the same coin. His assessment is correct and worth keeping in mind.
…………….
Disagree. While this might be said of Marxism and the French Revolution–since both are profoundly atheist…the American constitutional form is a very different animal.
Here is how John Adams put it. In fact, he anticipated your point about Tolstoy.
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Adams
75. Charles
Wow, I have never heard that quote in it’s entirety (I often hear the last two sentences, but not the preceding lines).
It seems quite prescient.
Wretchard said:
“The interesting thing is that the hardened criminals in the Arapahoe Detention Center want to kill Holmes. … The difference is that in most criminal jails the inmates know they are bad. In some political prisons the very concept of evil often does not exist. Criminal prisons are full of bad humanity. …”
While managing the Holocaust, the SS used this natural antipathy of criminals against political prisoners to effective use (the Soviets did the same thing with the Gulag). The SS required all prisoners to wear triangles that identified why they were in the concentration camp, refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges
Non-Jewish criminals (green triangle only) were at the top of the pecking order while non-political Jewish victims (yellow triangle only) were at the very bottom. The “Kapos” who assisted the SS in managing the camps tended to be green triangle prisoners. The Soviet Gulag was strongly influenced by the Nazi concentration camp system and the Soviet’s used similar techniques. In the Gulag, a political prisoner might enhance his chances for survival by tricking the criminal prisoners into thinking the political prisoner was also a criminal. The criminals in the Gulag had their own network and tended to help each other at the expense of the political prisoners.
Wretchard also said:
“Remember how everyone talks about the “Garand ping” as a weakness, as if the German infantry could listen for it in the din of battle?”
There have been articles in NRA publications debunking the “Garand Ping” as an urban legend. Supposedly during battle the noise from gun fire was so all encompassing that no one could hear the Garand when it pinged out a clip. It would be interesting the hear a WW-II veteran’s opinion about this.
Speaking of good and evil and the issue of intent, here’s the great question of the moment: Does Obama even realize he’s wrecking the country?
I’m not sure I got the point about political prisons. Political criminals – violent revolutionaries, terrorists, and suchlike – often place themselves above humanity. But not all political prisoners are political criminals. A lot of prisoners in China, Russia, and Cuba wouldn’t fit that description.
Eggplant…
I’m going to have to correct you…
Jews were NOT at the ABSOLUTE bottom of the Kamp chain.
Yeah, I know it’s a shocking thought, but you can do much worse than be a Jew in a Death Camp!
The absolute nadir: being a political prisoner — PINK triangle.
My Uncle was just such a prisoner at Dora ( it’s the V-2 works ) and Kamp Policy was that for EVERY blow struck upon a Jew — another one HAD to be inflicted upon each and every politico in the work detail.
Since he was out numbered more than ten to one — it meant that every Tuesday he was a punching bag — as the SS ‘burned in’ the ‘fresh ones’/ replacements — typically murdering half that very day.
The beatings continued until SS morale improved — namely that the labor detail had been trimmed down the hard way to a tractable ten to twelve souls.
======
Other victims with WORSE prospects than Jews: Jehovah’s Witnesses — 100% prompt fatality rate. NEVER vectored away from the gas chambers — hence there are absolutely no JW survivors accounts. The only reason we know anything of this is from surviving Jewish victims.
And, rather famously, it was much, much worse to be a protesting Christian. Bishops and nuns were routinely tortured to death via carbolic acid injection into the blood, etc. Again, almost all of this history only exists because of Jewish survivors. The last statistic I saw estimated that such Christian/ political protesters died by the tens of thousands.
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Another rant to grind:
The Nazis routinely embraced and promoted mass-murderers out of their ordinary prision cell blocks to become SS officers.
They literally put the criminally insane in charge of the Death Camps.
This should answer the unspoken question: wherever did the Nazis find such vicious murderers?
“Prior to the 1960′s crimes like this were unknown. So far, there’s been little, if any, discussion of the great increase in crimes such as Aurora. What changed?”
Deinstitutionalization of the insane. Criminalization of carrying firearms for the sane. Press that cannot get enough blood.
JFC-Here’s a tough prosecutor-
“Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers said today her office is considering pursuing the death penalty against Holmes.”
Give it plenty of thought, honey.
A friend of mine actually instructed Navy Seals in hand to hand combat. They used very direct mixed martial arts techniques involving knives and firearms and very brutal take down methods. He was a bartender (yes that is how I met him) and one evening after closing his restaurant was hit by a very fast moving and professional take-down crew armed with shotguns. I asked my friend if he was tempted to make a move on the guy and he said; ”When an assailant is several feet from you pointing a shotgun at you yelling orders it focuses your mind. I just smiled and did what he said.” There is little question that he would have died if he tried to be a hero in this case. Not worth it over a stash of money. In the case of preserving human life though, quite a different story.
blert @ 80 said:
“Yeah, I know it’s a shocking thought, but you can do much worse than be a Jew in a Death Camp! The absolute nadir: being a political prisoner — PINK triangle.”
I stand corrected. I guess, rock bottom would have been pink/yellow double triangle. However I suspect very few pink/yellow prisoners survived more than 24 hours. It’s amazing that your uncle survived Dora. Did he tell any stories?
Dora is where they made most of the V-2 rockets. One wonders how much von Braun knew about Dora.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses (purple triangles) under the SS concentration camp system were “different”. Rudolf Hoess (the first commandant of KZ-Auschwitz) found them disturbing. The Jehovah’s Witnesses wanted to be executed for their religion because they believed it would send them to paradise (a Christian variation on the Jihadi suicide bomber). They were actually in a state of ecstasy as they waited in front of the firing squad. According to Hoess (who was a liar), the SS shot purple triangles rather than gassed them.
rwe @ 69: but I am not sure you can justify to Him letting two innocents die so you could avoid jail time
Yeah but you have to balance that against your being mistaken and taking out one innocent by yourself, or maybe a few more as your shots go wild and the (would-be actual) perp fires back wildly.
It’s a complicated world.
Excellent piece.
“Political prisons are packed with people who have put themselves above mere humanity.”
Most of our universities “are packed with people [mostly professors] who have put themselves above mere humanity.”
Excellent piece.
“Political prisons are packed with people who have put themselves above mere humanity.”
Most of our universities “are packed with people [mostly professors] who have put themselves above mere humanity.”
Eggplant…
Werner visited the place — and dreaded if he’d ever have to come twice.
And, of course, he was made an SS Major — in a program fulsomely taken over by the SS.
Somewhere out there, there is an official photo of Von Braun in his SS uniform — required for security / SS purposes.
Since he became an American asset all such documentations have been suppressed if not entirely eliminated.
His ability to travel in the final daze was dependent upon his Nazi / SS paperwork — obviously.
IIRC, he and his crew were discovered at vacation resort/ asset owned by the SS.
Southern Germany was loaded up with relaxing SS men, at the end.
That’s where the USA found the villain of Schindler’s List. It took three drops to snap his neck — it’s out there on YouTube.
Charles,
I’m not sure if you’re disagreeing with the substance of my contention that Marxism and Americanism are cognate, or disagreeing with me that this was the position actually held by Dostoevsky. However, it is matter of historical record that both Dostoevsky and Pobedonostsev were very much against all types of Western parliamentarianism, which they dismissed as idle dreams; and this of course includes the American republican form of government.
The, extremely, short story on my Uncle:
USAAF gunner on an unlucky B-17.
Bailed out over France, at low altitude, just south of the Normandy bridgehead, July 1944.
Was hidden in plain sight by a brave Frenchwoman. Her husband was a Displaced Person/ Nazi labor slave in the German war economy, IIRC. This left her alone to watch the family farm — as the able bodied had all been rounded up to repair Allied bombing effects.
She gave him clothing/ adjusted her husband’s to fit…
And had him performing routine farm chores — like chopping wood.
Off in the distance, the endless volleys of American artillery fire could be heard. It was getting closer day by day. My Uncle had told her that liberation was near to hand.
The farm lady spun a story about my Uncle being ‘from the East’ / ( unable to speak French ) — and provided to her as a stop gap by the ‘system.’
Her immediate neighbor wanted in on the arrangement. She and my Uncle figured that was unworkable — since the gal had already evidenced dubious loyalties during the occupation.
This neighbor turned my Uncle’s patron in — and got a fur coat ( of obvious Jewish prior ownership — mothballs and all ) — while the Gestapo hanged the Frenchwoman and then went to ‘work’ on my Uncle.
Since his uniform was discovered promptly, there was no concern that he was an agent/ spy… But the airman was out of uniform — and the Gestapo wanted to give him the ‘Great Escape’ treatment.
Instead, he was merely branded an enemy agent — tagged with pink — and sent into the Kamp System.
He was shuttled from camp to camp, ever eastwards, not a fast thing with all the bridges and railroads busted up.
Eventually he was vectored to Dora. The work details there lived like animals — worse than the hovels you see in a proper Death Camp — normally just out in the open or primitive tents.
Where he was at was deemed a construction site, so nothing permanent, even semi-permanent was erected for the slaves.
Their ‘tools’ were greatly limited — because while shovels and picks were great for digging caves — they could be redirected towards the SS men. Hence, far, far more than you can believe was excavated by BARE HANDS.
It was a rare Jew who survived three weeks in these details; and, for my Uncle, his co-victims were Jewish to a man. The SS intention was to use Dora as a labor and extinction camp. It had no gassing facilities. Everyone was merely worked and beaten to death.
If his co-victims were in better shape, my Uncle would’ve never survived. They were typically rejects from yet other camps — not fresh, not fresh at all. My Uncle told me that half never survived their first day — always a Tuesday.
Because he’d only recently bailed out of a B-17, my Uncle was in simply outstanding condition compared to the typical condemned. But, camp rules being what they were, that didn’t last too long.
He was at death’s door — a thousand yard stare and the rest — when grape vine sent word of Remagen. ( 3-7-45 )
Suddenly, the biggest bastard in the world wanted to be his best buddy. He no longer had to work at all!
In less than a week, the top Nazi brass had decided that Allied prisoners like my Uncle needed extra special handling.
When Patton showed up, he was in an Kamp ‘hospital’ — translation: he was permitted to lay down in sheets and get fed some gruel.
Then it was off to a USA hospital — a chain of them, really — with a major stay in Britain to get him up from eighty pounds, or so.
When he met my Grandmother, a world class cook, she had him on six meals a day. That treatment lasted months and months. Even when I met him he’d never gotten past his 160 pound service weight.
Naturally, he went into selling food!
As a sales executive with General Mills he was in one of three markets to test Cocoa Puffs — packaged as small one-meal specific, all-white boxes. ( No labeling of any kind for security reasons. )
I, personally, convinced him that it’d be a ‘hit’ by devouring up way too many mini-boxes over a Memorial Day weekend. This was the same trip wherein he detailed his survival at the hands of the Nazis.
That puffed sugar started a trend that is still with us. Every time I see a box I chuckle.
Anyhow, my Uncle had his revenge best: he lived nice, was nice and had a lot of nice babies — nee cousins for me.
The greatest trick the Devil pulled off was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
Blert,
Thanks for the story! Very interesting.
I have to tread carefully here (I mean no disrespect) but a political prisoner under the Nazi system wore a red triangle. A homosexual wore a pink triangle (The Nazis sent people to the camps merely because they were homosexuals). As a POW, your uncle would have worn a red triangle and not a pink triangle unless he really pissed off an SS official. The SS used homosexuals as a means for humiliating prisoners and sowing division amongst the prison population. Even if your uncle was homosexual, I find it difficult to believe that the SS would have labeled a US military POW that way. The typical pink triangle was an utterly cowed German citizen who had not offended the political system in anyway except by being homosexual. I suspect a German communist homosexual would have been labeled with a red triangle only. Your uncle was a trained soldier. To have marked him with a pink triangle would have put the SS prison guards at unnecessary risk. Your uncle’s experience at Dora may have disturbed his memory of events there. Again, I mean no disrespect.
It’d be MY memory that’d be off.
=======
And in a quasi-related note:
Adolf INSISTED that his personal body guard detail NOT be straight. (!)
His weird sex life is of record.
His medical records indicate that he had an undescended testicle — hence all of the rejection beatings from his old man.
The gay guard story comes by way of the British. They captured one of his SS men in 1944 — who spilled plenty. His account was held back as a national security detail until very recently. (!)
He went on to say that not withstanding their mission — Hitler did not want them to be seen — or even to see him!
This explains why in all of the period films Hitler seems to be without a guard detail.
This captured guard went into some detail as to their training — which entirely revolved around being able to stay behind trees/ walls / hedges — and in silence — and always too far away to overhear the dictator.
This is in utter contrast to Saddam and Stalin who had bodyguards right and left around themselves — apparently at all times.
His sexual tick also explains the SA which was loaded to the rafters with Leftist gays. Apparently, only FLAMING homosexuals got the worst of it.
One is reminded of the Taliban: nominally anti-gay in the extreme — and then you find they’re pederasts in the extreme! They’re able to compartmentalize themselves fulsomely.
blert @ 93 said:
“[Hitler's] sexual tick also explains the SA which was loaded to the rafters with Leftist gays. Apparently, only FLAMING homosexuals got the worst of it.”
The SA or Sturm Abteilung actually predated Hitler in the Nazi party and were the body guard / political muscle behind Ernst Roehm. Ernst Roehm also predated Hitler and was as queer as a three bob watch. It’s no wonder the SA was full of homosexuals because many of them were Roehm’s personal playmates. At one time, Roehm and Hitler considered each other friends and referred to each other by “du” rather than “sie”. This “friendship” did not prevent Hitler from eventually having Roehm arrested and later executed at KZ-Buchenwald after Roehm became a political liability. Hitler recast the SS (Schutz Staffel) as his own body guard and counterpart to the SA. Perhaps not surprising, there was an apparent effort to keep the SS free of homosexuals (no doubt there were plenty of closeted homosexuals in the SS).
Hitler’s own sexuality was “different”. His relationship with Eva Braun is well known. Less well known was Hitler’s relationship with Geli Raubal (his half niece). Google: Geli Raubal. An unlucky and apparently innocent girl who got in over her head. Her story makes interesting reading.
Josh, the Keats ballad, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, has always had a single connotation for me. I first read the poem when I was a child of about 10. At around the same time, the Manson trial had just finished, and I had recently seen a picture of Susan Atkins, with her glazed eyes. So in my mind, the Manson Girls will always be the “the beautiful girls without mercy.” Association of ideas, and eerily fitting, if you think about it.
89. Matt
Charles,
I’m not sure if you’re disagreeing with the substance of my contention that Marxism and Americanism are cognate,
…………
I’m disagreeing with the substance of your contention that Marxism and Americanism are cognate. btw are you or have you now ever been a communist?
(that question was made famous by McCarthy. Now its a standard question for anyone looking for a security clearance with the US government.)
If you wanted to argue that Obama is a communist–I’m not sure that I would disagree very much. However, that’s part of what makes him so alien to americans.
I made an error-of-fact with post #94. Ernst Thälmann was killed at KZ-Buchenwald on Hitler’s orders. Ernst Roehm was killed at Stadelheim Prison, also on Hitler’s order. Both men were political adversaries to Hitler.
Charles,
I’d like to be clear here. The point, very simply, is this: Autocracy (which was Dostoevsky’s position, and mine) is militantly opposed to Communism. It is also dismissive and contemptuous of constitutions, the US Constitution included. It sees these things as related because they are. They are both atheistic in combating the Established Church; they both disrupt the organic unity of society by setting class against class and individual against individual; they both reduce the spiritual essence of man to a cypher in an all-encompassing economic system; they both impugn the known truth of Christ’s revelation; they are both violent, bloody, immoderate and usurpacious in their path to power; and they both wield power for mean and Godless ends when once they have attained it.
It is the great error of Whigs and post-modern Protestants (whom today are collectively known as “Conservatives”) to conflate Autocracy with Communism, even though the two are nothing alike. And if you don’t believe me on that score, just ask the Communists. It was they who destoyed the Autocratic system with bombs and terrors and strikes; it was they who finished the job that was started in Boston and Bastille, strangling kings with the entrails of priests.
Obama is a Communist, but he is not really so very alien to Americans. Americans elected him after all. Americans for 50 years nurtured within their midst the Leftist institutions which created Barack Hussein Obama. He is our baby, the offspring of all our fornication with false gods. Between a soi-dissant Conservative in the modern guise (like Sean Hannity) and a thuggish Leftist operator like President Obama, there is today only a thin distinction of hubris—the hubris of liberty and self-sufficiency on the former side, the hubris of worldly wisdom and control on the latter. They are each of them looking into a mirror when they behold the other, and that mirror is located a million miles away from the beauty, sanctity, nobility, and sublimity of the well-ordered Autocrat, be he lord, priest, or peasant.
This is what Doestoevsky saw and was much at labor to bring forth in his books and letters. If we’re going to go around courting Dostoevsky then we need to know who the man really was, and he was nothing like the Movement Conservative of today, who has his liberty forever on his lips and his piety only in his imagination.
98. Matt
They are both atheistic in combating the Established Church;
………..
The problem is is that in the USA at the time the Calvinists were the established church. They were wholly in favor of the revolution. This is part of the reason that the American revolution is considered to be a conservative revolution.
they both disrupt the organic unity of society by setting class against class and individual against individual;
…………
In the American revolution all classes were represented. The American revolution in this way too was very different from the French or Russian revolution.
they both reduce the spiritual essence of man to a cypher in an all-encompassing economic system;
………..
This was not Alexis de Tocqueville impression of America during the 1800′s
they both impugn the known truth of Christ’s revelation;
……
This is true of the french and russian revolution. A case can be made for Jefferson, Adams and franklin being deists and unitarians. But they were not the primary designers of the American constitution. That honor went to Madison–who was a strict Calvinist.
they are both violent, bloody, immoderate and usurpacious in their path to power;
…………..
Very true of the French and Russian revolutions. Only true of the American revolution if you are an english royalist. These folk were not particularly religious.
and they both wield power for mean and Godless ends when once they have attained it.
………….
True of Russian revolution. Let the French argue about the french revolution. About the USA–not so much.
strangling kings with the entrails of priests.
……….
Sounds like something french. didn’t happen in America
It is the great error of Whigs and post-modern Protestants (whom today are collectively known as “Conservatives”) to conflate Autocracy with Communism,
……..
I’m not so sure that I’d disagree with you on this one. I’d have to think on it.
And if you don’t believe me on that score, just ask the Communists. It was they who destoyed the Autocratic system with bombs and terrors and strikes; it was they who finished the job that was started in Boston and Bastille,
………..
The American revolution occurred in 1776. Marx wasn’t even born until 1818. Even the French revolution started in 1789. And Napoleon’s final defeat was 1815.
I would say that the glory days of atheism date from the fall of the bastille to the fall of the Berlin wall. The glory days of atheism have now passed.
Between a soi-dissant Conservative
…….
what in God’s name is a soi-dissant Conservative?
This is what Doestoevsky saw and was much at labor to bring forth in his books and letters. If we’re going to go around courting Dostoevsky then we need to know who the man really was, and he was nothing like the Movement Conservative of today, who has his liberty forever on his lips and his piety only in his imagination.
………..
Doesn’t sound like either of us are going to be as successful as Doestoevsky Sean Hannity or Barak Obama –but people can dream can’t they?
I would agree that there has been a general effort in the last 50 years or more to remake the American revolution in the image of french revolution. We’ll see how that goes. The conservative critique is the liberals have centralized power too much in the hands of the federal government–not too little as you seem to suggest.
So, are the autocrats soi-disant?
Do we breed them in a barn somewhere?
Matt; To my mind, the only legitimate Autocrat is our Creator, and even he -king of kings- requires/decrees that each and every individual one of us live our lives through the application of our own free will. My free will informs me that no [autocrat] man or [autocratic] government will deign to tell me how I must worship my creator…And personally I’d rather die than bow and grovel before any of the [imperfectible] men “be he lord, priest, or peasant”, who’s earthly rule would inevitably be not so ‘beautiful, sanctified, noble, and sublime’ nor as “well-ordered” as what constituted our late lamented Constitutional Republic; which to date, as flawed as it is, has proven to be the best mortal choice for governance ever conceived by man.
So, as is my God-given right, I think you are wrong when you impugn the Republic, given to us -if we could keep it- by our founding generations, with the charge of being functionally equivalent to the Communist system. Yes, a bunch of godless TWANLOC retards voted for the likes of 0bama. What of it if we (whom they must serve) still retain the ability to overthrow tyranny peacefully or otherwise?
You say ask the communists whether they are autocrats as they “destoyed (sic) the Autocratic system with bombs and terrors and strikes; it was they who finished the job that was started in Boston and Bastille, strangling kings with the entrails of priests”…Well, FWIW, I’ve learned a thing or two about not putting much stock in mere claims -especially communist ones- and I’m [thankfully] not ‘intellectual’ enough to believe that the American Revolution was in any way equivalent to the French revolution; not even autocrat beholden Burke believed that, though T Paine and Vlad Lenin apparently did…In a Constitutional Republic, one man does not a nation make.
Anyway, it is my habit is to judge actions and outcomes rather than claims and theories, and to my reckoning you are wrong to claim that communists aren’t autocrats. Their system may theoretically claim to not elevate men called kings, but sure as hell, the strongmen who [inevitably] come to wield the apparatus of the communist state and ersatz socialist religion are functionally equivalent to kings and sundry autocrats. Notwithstanding the celebrated literary genius of Dostoevsky, that much should be fairly obvious to any free man who would take the Liberty to yank the post-modern mote from out of their mind’s eye.
Live long and prosper.
This story is more concerning, and possibly more difficult, than the Lone Shooters.
Residents at the Florida Institute have often been abused, neglected and confined, according to 20 current and former patients and their family members, criminal charges, civil complaints and advocates for the disabled.
These sources and over 2,000 pages of court and medical records, police reports, state investigations and autopsies contain an untold history of violence and death at the secluded institute known as FINR, which is located amid cattle ranches and citrus groves in Hardee County, 50 miles southeast of Tampa.
Patients’ families or state agencies have alleged abuse or care lapses in at least five residents’ deaths since 1998, two of them in the last 18 months. Three former employees face criminal charges of abusing FINR patients — one of whom was allegedly hit repeatedly for two hours in a TV room last September.
One of the reasons driving closure of state institutions for the mentally and physically impaired in the 1970′s was substandard quality of care which was judged to have reached abusive levels that could no longer be tolerated. The conservative position is that some combination of market solutions and local charity/church/family outreach is adequate and preferable to a State solution. The progressive solution appears to be a return to some form of state-sponsored health care.
A society that can not provide dignified and compassionate care for the elderly and the impaired has more serious problems than lone whack jobs going ballistic, or the 88-92% of all abortions that occur during the first trimester (50% during the first 7 weeks.)
BTW, the Florida story is not an isolated example. The level of affordable and quality care available to the elderly across the country is criminal.
If you can’t suppress them, squeeze them[:] The Kremlin is building the legal framework for authoritarian rule
The legislative offensive began last month, with a law raising fines on those who attend unsanctioned demonstrations to as much as 300,000 roubles, or $9,300. Then came last week’s three new bills. The first would force NGOs that receive funding from abroad to submit to more rigorous financial checks and publicly declare themselves to be “foreign agents”, a term designed to discredit their work; the second would recriminalise libel, an offence taken out of the criminal code just last year, now with fines as high as 5m roubles; the third would create a “blacklist” of websites to be blocked, ostensibly so as to protect children from illegal or harmful content, but relying on technology that could be used against any online material the state decides to ban.
Legislators wrote the bills in a rush. The wording of the law on NGOs had to be quickly edited between the first and second reading when it became clear that two allies of the Kremlin, the Russian Orthodox Church, which receives donations from abroad, and the state-managed RT television channel, which gets money from foreign advertisers, would fall into the category of “foreign agents”.
‘It would also be a world without freedom, since for freedom to be real, choices have to be real.’
What if, by a huge statistical anomaly everyone just happens to choose good?
Well, here’s where he got all that equipment.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/07/24/james-holmes-received-26k-grant-from-bethesda-based-national-institutes-of-health/
James Holmes Received $26K Grant From Bethesda-Based National Institutes of Health
43. wws…
“word to the wise, or maybe just the voice of experience: ALL women have got Da Krazie in them somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to come out. It’s just closer to the surface with some than with others”.
True dat. For 25 years I knew a kind loving gentle woman. Then last year she decided it was my fault our elder daughter had had a nervous breakdown. I have been on the Crazy Train ever since. Very strange.