A Compounding Series Of Problems With No Solutions
It’s in an environment of instability that violent people tend to thrive.
A while back, I considered doing a weekly regular post titled the “Weekly Personal Safety Round-Up.” There’s a lot that goes on in the world of personal safety and, since it’s a big part of what I write about here, I figured I might turn it into more of a routine, as it’d at least save me the trouble of writing separate posts for every incident.
I ended up deciding against it because I’m not a full-time writer and I can’t promise that I can deliver something like that on a schedule. Also, writing on these incidents takes a fair amount of research and, again, it takes me a bit longer to get all the facts together before making an essay out of it. Either way, it’s just not something I can commit to and I hate making false promises.
My goal, to the extent I have one, is to offer one or two pieces per week. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, but I hope you all understand my circumstances and feel your subscription is still worth the while. I’ve missed the mark a few times, but I hope, with years of experience, this will eventually get easier.
With that out of the way, let’s get to it, shall we?
Pranking Strangers Is Deadly Business
I’ve written extensively about the phenomenon of social terrorism here and how it’s increasingly becoming a crisis we have no answer for. The dilemma is that social terrorism constitutes “mid-level violence,” well-above a squabble between two otherwise reasonable persons, yet well below an overt act of hostility that’d justify violence as a response.
That’s what one victim of social terror did back in April - exercise violence. Here’s video of the incident (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT):
https://twitter.com/Ragland1836/status/1707937033467904400
This past Thursday, a jury acquitted the shooter on the charge of aggravated malicious wounding, while still convicting him on a firearms charge, which he faces jail time for. His defense attorney intends to appeal the conviction.
So, what happened here?
[Defense attorney Adam] Pouilliard said during Thursday’s closing arguments that his client felt menaced by the 6-foot-5 (1.95-meter-tall) Cook during the confrontation, which was designed to provoke a reaction and to draw viewers to Cook’s YouTube channel.
[Tanner] Cook, Pouilliard said, “is trying to confuse people to post videos. He’s not worried that he’s scaring people. He keeps doing this.”
Jurors saw video of the shooting, which captures the confrontation between Cook and [Alan] Colie lasting less than 30 seconds. The footage shows Cook approaching Colie as he picks up a food order. Cook looms over Colie while holding a cellphone about 6 inches (15 centimeters) from Colie’s face. The phone broadcasts the phrase “Hey dips—, quit thinking about my twinkle” multiple times through a Google Translate app.
In the video, Colie says “stop” three different times and tries to back away from Cook, who continues to advance. Colie tries to knock the phone away from his face before pulling out a gun and shooting Cook in the lower left chest. There is no pause between the moment he draws the weapon and fires the shot.
Tanner Cook is (still) a 21-year-old YouTuber who makes prank videos which, according to the Associated Press, nets him $2,000 to $3,000 per month. I’m not sure a $36,000 per year payday is worth getting shot over, but since we’re not allowed to judge the way others make a living, we’ll let that go.
More from AP:
Colie, who has been jailed since his April arrest, testified in his own defense about the fear that Cook’s prank elicited. Pouilliard said during closing arguments that Colie is aware of the dangers that delivery drivers can face as they interact with the public and that he has a license to carry a concealed weapon.
Cook’s “Classified Goons” channel, which has more than 50,000 subscribers, is replete with off-putting stunts, like pretending to vomit on Uber drivers and following unsuspecting customers through department stores. At a preliminary hearing, sheriff’s deputies testified that they were well aware of Cook and have received calls about previous stunts.
Cook, like many of these social media pranksters, plays a dangerous game of skirting the thin line between being funny and being malicious. Most of the time, he’s being malicious and many of his “pranks” are actually quite criminal in nature:
I’m not sure how YouTube still allows him to make money off these videos. Meanwhile, we have people being demonetized for expressing the “wrong” political and social views. It’s good to know what YouTube regards as the real problems afflicting our society.
What do I think of this case and it’s outcome? As I’ve pointed out time and again, the law is the law. However, the law cannot serve it’s purpose of maintaining order without an underpinning moral code. Otherwise, it becomes a system of oppression. I can’t know for sure, but I feel like the jury that declared Alan Colie not guilty felt that even if shooting a gun was too much, what Tanner Cook was doing - harassing a working man - was worse and Colie had reason to be concerned for his well-being. At least, I hope that was the case.
I can’t endorse Colie’s actions and I’d never recommend anyone use deadly force in response to a prank, no matter how cruel or over-the-line it is. But I can’t blame Colie, either. The only thing he didn’t do was run away. Yet he did attempt walking away and told Cook and his partners-in-crime to quit following him. They didn’t listen. How many more warnings was he supposed to give? It’s a big risk he took, shooting Cook, but had he used non-lethal force, that may have only escalated the situation without getting the pranksters to actually back off, which could inevitably result in the use of more dangerous levels of force, anyway.
There’s no way to deal with “mid-level violence” without potentially running afoul of the law. The law might say it’s illegal to harass someone, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot if it doesn’t provide you with a means of dealing with the matter in the moment. If it’s illegal to do something, then by definition, a victim has the right to stop it from happening to them. There’s no point in waiting for someone in a position of authority to tell you what you were supposed to do after the fact when the whole idea is to prevent something bad from happening to you in the first place. This is the great injustice of our legal system and a cornerstone of what it means to live under anarcho-tyranny.
My advice for you when you become a victim of a prank is the same as it ever was: stay calm, walk away as long as it remains an option. I would’ve liked to have seen Alan Colie try walking away for longer than 20-30 seconds; whatever threat Tanner Cook exhibited was implied rather than demonstrated. If, say, Cook followed Colie out to the parking lot despite Cook being told repeatedly not to follow him, Colie’s argument for feeling threatened would be on much firmer ground. Again, unless Cook physically attacks him, the use of deadly force is probably not authorized, but given the jury ruled in his favor on that count, I’d say he’d have a better argument for doing so had he spent more time trying to walk away. If he could’ve at least taken the exchange outside, Colie would’ve at least been spared the charge of firing indoors (a nonsensical conviction, since he was found to have fired the same weapon justifiably).
I know, it’s hard walking away. It’s an indignity to be the victim of a prank and you feel ashamed and cowardly just walking off, pretending like nothing’s happening to you. The problem is, the alternative isn’t much better. As much as many of us felt satisfaction in watching Cook mess around and find out the hard way why you don’t harass strangers (a lesson he still clearly hasn’t learned), there are always consequences when using violence to solve problems. Still, while we all agree we need laws to regulate behavior and restrain our worst excesses, the law shouldn’t deny us the right to be human, either. It’s unreasonable to expect someone being harassed to stay ice-cold calm and behave perfectly while the harasser gets to do whatever they want.
But as I’ve explained here on a number of occasions, someone who really wants to hurt you will do it regardless. If that moment ever comes where you need to use force to stop or ward off an attack, ideally, you want there to be as little explaining you need to do afterwards, because the evidence will speak for itself. Nobody likes being followed and having their personal space violated, but the bar for using deadly force is set high for a reason.
As long as you’re not being attacked, your first priority ought to be getting to safety and your second priority ought to be gathering evidence. You have a smartphone too, right? Whip it out and start recording, because two can play that game. Either that, or maybe it’s time to spend some money on a bodycam. No, I’m not talking about the ones used by law enforcement; there are more affordable ones available that don’t provide the same level of functionality or quality, but are just as good at collecting an audio/visual account of an incident. It’s a sad commentary on where we are as a society, but we live in a low-trust environment. Today, without documented evidence of your own, you have no story to tell.
This is a tough one. I’m glad Colie was acquitted (hopefully, his conviction for the other charge will be overturned), but I just can’t say he handled it right, either. I have to wonder if his actions would’ve been judged differently had Tanner Cook been killed. I for one wouldn’t have shed any tears for the boy, but the thought of Colie going to prison for the rest of his life for a situation he didn’t instigate is sobering to think about. At least on the most serious charge, justice prevailed, but I’d regard this as a lesson in the importance of remaining calm and focusing on physically removing yourself from the situation.
What do you think? Were Alan Colie’s actions reasonable? How would you have responded to a physically imposing stranger who sticks a phone in your face and follows you around?
Some Of Us Shouldn’t Live Among Us
A few months ago, I commented on an incident at a Florida movie theater where a 63-year-old patron was savagely beaten after asking someone who was sitting in his reserved seat to move.
Nearly a quarter-year later, the perpetrator has been found and arrested:
POMPANO BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A violent incident that unfolded in a Pompano Beach movie theater in July has led to the arrest of 27-year-old Jesse Montez Thorton II, who now sits in jail facing charges of aggravated battery with great bodily harm.
Thorton was apprehended in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday and was transported to the Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail.
Deputies said that after months of investigation, including an anonymous tip through Broward Crime Stoppers, that led detectives to identify Thorton as the aggressor.
On Friday, Thorton appeared in court and was given a $250,000 bond. If he pays his bond, he’s forbidden from returning to any movie theater and cannot have any contact with the victim or witnesses.
The injuries the victim suffered were significant, if not life-threatening. Either way, it was a wholly unjustified assault. That said, this is as good an outcome as it gets in this day and age. As I said initially in reaction to the incident, had the victim been armed with a gun and shot his assailant as many suggested should’ve been the outcome, the public reaction, which was quite muted, would’ve been much louder and more divisive. There would be many who’d condemn such a shooting as unjustified, as if putting up with the uncivilized and suffering a hellacious beating is simply the cost of living in a modern, diverse society.
There’s also the race angle. Jesse Montez Thorton II is Black. The victim, Marc Cohen, is White. Don’t think for a moment this wouldn’t have been the biggest part of the story had Cohen been armed and shot Thorton in self-defense. Because Thorton wasn’t shot, however, and because Cohen was through-and-through the victim, there’s no way for this case to be racialized, even though I think a case could be made that Thorton saw Cohen as an easy victim because he was older and White.
But we don’t live in a world where we’re all seen as equally capable of being racist and acting on our prejudices, nor do we live in a world where we are all equally regarded as likely to be a victim of someone else’s prejudices. Our society would suffer a collapse of sorts otherwise, because so much of how we live, work, and relate with one another is underpinned by this worldview, no matter how detached from reality it might be.
More important, a hypothetical shooting of Thorton, even if entirely justified, would still be regarded as a moral outrage. The assault on Cohen? Not nearly as much. Crime is like the weather; it just is and it can sometimes be bad. Crying over it is like crying over spilled milk.
But shooting Blacks, even in self-defense? Moral outrage. Lethal force in self-defense? Likewise, it’s an indictment against society as a whole, while sitting in a seat someone else paid extra for and then beating them halfway to death because they dared to talk back to you? Just an inconvenient part of life you have to take pains to avoid.
I’m beginning to ramble here, but my point is that as along as our collective perceptions of these incidents are colored in the aforementioned ways, there’s no stopping this. If they were really deterred by the prospect of arrest and incarceration, they wouldn’t do this. The most violence any of us will be at risk of being subjected to is the result of out-of-control emotions, but what happened to Marc Cohen at the hands of Jesse Thorton wasn’t because someone lost their temper - it’s because he refused to control it in the first place. Violence is his first language and he was dealing with Cohen the only way he thinks appropriate. It’s hard enough correcting this kind of behavior in a child. Why would it be any easier with an adult?
The fact is, there are far too many people out there walking around who don’t belong in polite society and we are quickly running out of ways of managing this problem. We’re breeding and encouraging increasing numbers of predatory sociopaths; as the internal situation in this country deteriorates, the sociopaths are going to become an even greater problem. It’s in an environment of instability that violent people tend to thrive. Like the problem of crime overall, there’s no easy answer to fixing this, maybe no answer at all.
Except a war, perhaps. Not a suggestion, just a thought.
Taking The Fight To Anarcho-Tyranny
Last summer, I devoted an entire post to the story of Jose Alba. He is a 61-year-old who immigrated from the Dominican Republic and was working at a bodega (New York City’s term for a small convenience store) when he killed an attacker in self-defense. Shockingly, but maybe not, Alba was charged with second-degree murder by Manhattan’s far-left District Attorney, Alvin Bragg and spent time at the notorious Rikers Island penitentiary before a public outcry forced Bragg to back off the frivolous charges.
Now, Alba is going on the offensive: he’s suing Alvin Bragg and the New York City Police Department for racial discrimination.
A former bodega clerk who was infamously charged with murder after fatally stabbing an attacker in his store last year in what he claimed was self-defense is suing lefty Manhattan District Attorney Alvin and the New York City Police Department for racial discrimination.
Former clerk Jose Alba, who stabbed ex-con Austin Simon to death during a fight at the Blue Moon bodega in Harlem in July 2022, claims he was hit with second-degree murder charges and endured days under lockup on Rikers Island because of Bragg’s pursuit of “racial equity” in the Manhattan criminal justice system, according to the Manhattan Federal Court suit filed Friday.
“While in theory, Bragg’s ‘racial equity’ policies are a well-intentioned attempt by him to implement even-handed justice, the means and methods employed by Bragg have instead had an opposite effect and resulted in discrimination against certain defendants based on race,” states the suit, which also names NYPD Detective William Garcia along with unnamed arresting officers and police detectives.
On July 1, 2022, Alba, a 61-year-old Dominican immigrant, stabbed Simon, a 35-year-old black man, multiple times at the Harlem bodega, after the hardworking clerk got into an argument with his attacker’s girlfriend because she couldn’t pay for a bag of chips, video revealed.
Accusations of racial discrimination are always fraught and I don’t know if Alba has a case here. But I don’t care and neither should you. It’s high time crime victims begin taking the fight to criminals and also to the anarcho-tyrannical regime that enables and abets criminality. If a racial discrimination lawsuit is the way to do it, then that’s what it takes. Alvin Bragg, being Black, might view himself as being above racism, but Alba’s lawsuit is merely playing by the rules people like Bragg not only created, but exploit daily to their benefit.
Even if an accusation of racial discrimination is the only way to hurt Bragg, this isn’t what this is ultimately about. It’s about the very concept of “self-defense.” When I wrote about the incident last summer, I said:
Under anarcho-tyranny, the state sees no meaningful difference between someone like Alba and someone like Simon. Generally, nobody has a right to attack or kill another human being, except in a case of self-defense. For Alba to be arrested and charged with murder despite there being no question he was viciously attacked first demonstrates that, at least in New York, there’s exists no right to self-defense. If someone attacks or tries to kill you, it’s your patriotic duty to be victimized.
Alvin Bragg attempted to prosecute someone for exercising self-defense. That’s an injustice. And that’s why this lawsuit means more than you think - it’s one of those rare instances where crime is regarded as something more than just a glitch in the system. When a police officer uses excessive force against someone of the racial minority, it’s regarded not as a glitch in the system, but as an atrocity, a veritable crime against humanity. Even so-called “hate” speech and “bad” thoughts are treated as injustices. But crime? That’s just part of life, deal with it. As for anarcho-tyranny, that’s just the price of living in America, it seems.
Jose Alba’s lawsuit is what we need to see more of: moral outrage combined with concrete action. Part of the reason why there isn’t any urgency to fix crime is because it’s not regarded as a moral matter. In school, our kids are taught that “socioeconomic factors” are the reason why crime occurs. That’s true in shades, but not the whole story. Wars are often fought over socioeconomic factors, yet we regard war as a moral calamity, don’t we? Even slavery is the product of socioeconomic factors, not “hatred” as so often peddled, and there’s no question as to its immorality. So why not crime?
There was an interesting long tweet written by Joshua Abbotoy (@Byzness). The context is slightly different, but I think many of the same principles can be applied to what we’re talking about [bold mine]:
Society and government - especially in a republic/democracy - is a constant process of negotiation between factions; testing respective power and leverage. Politics always has an threat of violence, implicit or explicit.
In high consensus/high cohesion societies, that can be significantly mitigated and managed through a mutually respected deliberative process.
In low trust/low cohesion societies - like ours - the leverage game comes to the fore.
The left’s negotiating position is that if it doesn’t get what it wants it will burn cities to the ground. The right’s position is that it will hit the left with “wow, imagine if the situation had been reversed!”
The right’s failure is that it has not communicated any real redlines. It will acquiesce to any substantive injustice so long as that unjust outcome resulted from an apparently neutral process.
Ironically, the right’s impotence (its failure to clearly communicate real redlines and the capacity for violence) is the very thing that makes turmoil more likely. Unless it changes its tune, quickly, the right will continue to lose until real turmoil is inevitable.
Nobody wants to say it, but politics is very much the question of who gets to impose whose will on others at the point of a gun. While it’s true the race riots over the years haven’t really delivered the change many of their proponents intended, it’s also true that they have changed the way we live and talk. Preventing the next major race riot has become the point in many ways, so our approach to crime these last several years can be viewed in part as an acquiescence: you can do whatever you want, just please don’t burn down our cities!
But violence can be legitimized only if the cause being fought for is regarded as a moral issue. People react adversely to the idea of using force to defend property because property rights aren’t viewed as a moral matter. Whether it is or isn’t is besides the point, but until people see it as a clear-cut matter of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, it’s difficult to sell violence as a way to combat the problem. Since racism is viewed as an ultimate evil, it’s easy for the Left to call for killing racists, even if it manifests only as a thought. Meanwhile, crime isn’t viewed as an ultimate evil, just an issue of not following the rules, so they argue against violence or at least against using too much violence.
Until a critical mass of people treat crime the same way a critical mass of people today treat racism, the situation will never get better. The difference between dealing with crime versus racism is that crime is an act, while racism manifests primarily in speech and thought. A crime rooted in racism is still a crime and is treated foremost as such. This is why all these campaigns aimed at combating racism never seem to go anywhere, because it’s impossible to control what people say and think without resorting to totalitarianism.
You can, however, control people’s actions. What’s the point of government if it cannot control what we physically do? If the government cannot stop people from committing crime, it does make you wonder why it exists in the first place, doesn’t it? And yet, that fact alone doesn’t seem to move the needle.
But facts have never sufficed. Moralizing does, however. By suing District Attorney Alvin Bragg for racial discrimination, Jose Alba is turning his experience into a moral issue and using the power of the state to exact justice. This is how you fight back. Let’s hope he succeeds.
No White Cops Allowed
Remarkable stuff out of Atlanta:
Things aren’t as straightforward as they appear. These Black residents (if they’re that) don’t want White cops in their ‘hood, but if the police curtailed their responses or hypothetically quit responding at all to avoid sending White cops into these areas, that’d be taken as an affront by these same communities. They don’t want White cops to deal with their problems, but they don’t want the police to not deal with their requests for service, either.
Like so much of what’s nonsensical today, the nonsense is the point. Either that, or the people saying this stuff lack the intellect necessary to understand what they’re saying. I think it’s a combination of the two. A lot of this is intended to set the perceived pariah (in this case, White men and police) up for failure. By demanding police respond to their calls for service but to do so in the specific fashion ordered, they feel like they’re taking control of the situation.
What they’re not doing is solving any problems. Again, solving problems isn’t the point.
A Match Made In Hell
In the last few days, there has been a rash of crimes whose victims were prominent members of the Left’s coalition with America’s criminal class. Their identities should come as no surprise - we have an activist, a journalist, and politicians.
The journalist was Philadelphia-based Josh Kruger:
Since his killing, details have emerged suggesting Kruger’s death may have been the result of interpersonal violence. I don’t think it fundamentally changes the irony of the matter, but since interpersonal violence is distinct from the sort of predatorial crime I talk about in these spaces, we’ll let this one be.
The story I found most compelling was the killing of Ryan Carson, the activist. The self-described “chief operating officer” (COO) of the far-left militant group Antifa, he was known for, among other things, advocating for legalizing drug use in public, the same kind of policies that’ve had such a devastating impact in places like San Francisco. Carson was murdered early Monday morning in New York City.
NEW YORK -- Ryan Carson, a social justice advocate who was on a mission to make New York a better place, was stabbed to death on the streets of Crown Heights on Monday.
People who knew Carson, 32, said he dedicated his life to trying to change things for the better.
Carrying candles, dozens of Carson's family and friends gathered at a park in Bedford-Stuyvesant to remember his life.
Police said the long-time government advocate was stabbed at around 4 a.m. about a mile away at Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard.
Sources said Carson was standing on the street with his girlfriend when the suspect approached and asked, "What are you looking at?" before stabbing Carson in the chest multiple times.
Carson was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.
Many found this part of the story intriguing:
Sources told CBS New York police do not have a physical description of the suspect, but said the person was acting irrationally prior to the attack.
Carson's girlfriend was not hurt.
The suspect has since been identified as a Black male. Does that explain why the girlfriend, who was present, along with other witnesses, didn’t have a physical description of the killer?
The murder, which was caught on video, was described as having unfolded in this manner (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT):
Just feet ahead of them, the stranger begins kicking scooters parked near the curb for no apparent reason, the footage – obtained by The Post on Tuesday – shows.
Suddenly, the unhinged man turns to Carson and seethes: “What the f–k are you looking at?”
The beloved community activist can be seen stepping between his girlfriend and the irate stranger, who begins to advance on the couple.
“I’ll kill you!” the maniac threatens as Carson pleads with him to “Chill! Chill!” and holds up his hand.
But the attacker pursues Carson, pulling a knife, as the victim’s girlfriend is heard frantically yelling “Please, please, please!”
As he runs, Carson tumbles over the bench the couple had earlier been sitting on. The assailant then grabs his jacket and knocks him onto the ground, savagely stabbing him multiple times in the chest.
He then walks away as Carson lies curled up on the ground, before returning and approaching the terrified woman, who raises her hand to stop him.
The sicko spits on her before kicking Carson’s mortally wounded body and storming away.
It’s a brutal killing. I’m sure it shocked many, including Carson’s friends, family, and colleagues, but should it? Are they not aware of just how violent criminals can be? I’m being sarcastic here, because what a friend says about Carson really puts the entire incident into an ironic context:
“I was present once when he literally talked a guy out of mugging him,” [Acadia] Cutschall said. “He gave him some money.”
If Carson gave someone who’s attempting to mug him money, him didn’t talk his would-be mugger out of anything. He effectively surrendered to his mugger’s demands in exchange for not harming or killing him.
More:
If Carson had the opportunity, he may have even lent a hand to the man who took his life, according to Cutschall.
It really drives home the point that some of us are permanently sheep. A person who is either unable or refuses to fight for life and property is at a higher risk of being a victim than someone who is. Sheep need the sheepdogs to protect them, but how can that happen when it’s often the sheep who undermine their protectors while attempting to embrace the wolves?
I’m not saying we should always be ready to throw down and fight our attacker. I believe I’ve always urged prudence and what constitutes the most prudent course of action in a given scenario depends on the circumstances particular to the moment. My point is that when a person thinks like Carson does and regards criminals as merely poor souls who had a bad day or didn’t get a fair shake in life, they’re playing with fire. You can surrender everything before, as Carson discovered early Monday morning, you’re forced to surrender your life. In a situation like that, there’s no alternative to fighting back.
Some out there might say that it’s possible to be compassionate and also be ready to fight tooth and nail. Maybe, but Carson’s case proves it’s a tough balance to strike. You can’t be someone who lets their guard down around dangerous people out of a sense of social justice and also be someone who’s ready to do whatever it takes to survive when attacked. Nobody’s “good” at responding to a knife attack, but it’s pretty obvious from the video that Carson was mentally and physically unprepared to handle any kind of assault, despite being a sizeable figure. He just didn’t think it’d happen to him. Why would it? He’s a good person who fights the good fight! Carson thought he could surrender his way to survival, until he encountered someone who wanted his life.
Finally, we have politicians becoming victims. Look at what happened to Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX):
The incident occurred near the U.S. Capitol in the dangerous Navy Yard district of Washington, D.C. It’s not up to me to feel outraged on his behalf, but the glibness with which Cuellar reflects on the incident is troubling and not what was needed. I understand he wants to put on a brave face, but boiling the incident down to a matter of losing “great sushi” comes off as foolishly detached and oblivious to the danger he was in, to say nothing of what countless other residents of D.C. and other cities have been subjected to. People have died in incidents similar to the one Cuellar was involved in. Does he really want to make it sound like politicians getting robbed at gunpoint is just another day on the job, especially after the mental breakdown he and others like him had over the January 6 Capitol riot?
Washington, D.C., despite being the Regime’s seat of power, is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Sometimes, it seems like a miracle more officials and politicians haven’t become victims. But is that changing? Earlier this year, Representative Angie Craig (D-MN) was attacked at her apartment building. Are we getting to a point where the elites can no longer isolate themselves from what’s become reality for so many of those they purport to represent?
And if that’s where we’re at, will that change the national narrative on crime? Conventional wisdom holds that once the elites become victims themselves, they suddenly care about things they didn’t care about before. We’re still early in the game, but judging from Cuellar’s relatively tepid response, I’m not sure anything’s changing.
Some may find it crass and unbecoming to be vindictive towards these people. However, I just can’t bring myself to feel any sympathy towards them. These people worked towards the destabilization of our society and attempted to risk the lives of millions of Americans for reasons I’m beginning to realize I don’t understand as well as I believed I did. Is this country and its people that bad? Are we really supposed to think they’re just people with different ideas about how to solve society’s problems?
There’s no doubt the Regime’s alliance with the criminal class was dangerous for the country. Turns out, it’s dangerous for the Regime, too.
Trust Is Broken Only Once
Amy Larson, a reporter for KRON4 News, broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area, talked about her close brush with the shoplifting epidemic roiling much of the country, with it especially acute in the Bay Area:
Incidents like what Larson described in the thread are happening despite the measures taken by businesses to secure their products. The only thing they haven’t attempted is to shift to a model where customers aren’t allowed inside stores, period. I’ve mentioned this before, but I see a future where customers either place their shopping order at a booth or do so ahead of time, and employees working out of public sight put the items together and bring them to the customer. I think with the aid of technology, it could even be possible to automate this process to an extent. Either that, or allowing shopping by appointment only. Or maybe we get everything delivered directly to us by Amazon.
It’s ridiculous, but I’m not sure there are many other alternatives. Even a low-trust society like ours demands a meager amount of it in order to function. But with trust comes an implied threat of consequence: those who betray society’s trust will be held accountable and not be allowed to get away with exploiting the kindness of others. America has fallen far off that path and I’m not sure how or when we’re going to get back on. There’s a lesson I learned from reading the Berenstein Bears book series as a child that’s stuck with me after all these years: Trust isn’t something you can put back together once it’s broken.
Meanwhile, this is high-trust South Korea:
Nope, definitely not happening here.
Over To You
What are your thoughts and reactions to these stories? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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"the law cannot serve it’s purpose of maintaining order without an underpinning moral code. Otherwise, it becomes a system of oppression."
It seems like liberation to eradicate the illusion of absolute moral constraints so that humans may fashion law and policy to according to their own desires. After all, why should we be bound by holy books or long-dead ancient philosophers? When you have genetic splicing and modern psychology, who needs the Tao?
The problem is, as C.S. Lewis says in Abolition of Man, that the power to redefine morality is never given to all humans but to some humans (generally the more powerful) over other humans (the weaker). Thus, for almost all humans, the only question is whether the law serves a commonly recognized moral order (the Tao, for lack of a better term), or whether it just serves the interests of the powerful.
That's what made Plato so good. He saw that 2400 years ago.