Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Since the end of the year is fast approaching, I've decided to include ONE more thematic 'blogmeat' post.
The theme is RKBA (mostly in America); the sub-theme is Victim-ocracy. It should be interesting to see how people are handling interpersonal relationships at the end of 2005. Maybe next year we'll run another similar post, and see if anything has changed.
Our first offering:
A CLEAR CASE FOR 2X4 CONTROL
A 25-year-old man claiming to sell magazines in Mount Dora, Fla., was arrested for allegedly forcing his way into a woman's apartment and attacking her in front of her two children, according to a Local 6 News report.
Mount Dora police said Charles Hartman told the woman that he was selling magazines for his college so he could travel to Paris.Investigators said when Hartman realized the woman's husband was not home, he forced his way inside the apartment and attacked her while her children watched.Charles Hartman.
The woman apparently overpowered Hartman and managed to chase him outside with a board and screamed for help, according to the report. Hartman was arrested late Wednesday.
If this big goof had appeared at my house, I would have already had the board in hand before I opened the door. But that's just me. In other news, the Violence Policy Center has announced that you are 43 times more likely to be slap-sticked if you have a board in your home.
A CLEAR CASE FOR GRANDMA CONTROL
Had these idiots read my November, 2005, post titled "Granny Has A Gun", the would have known better than to have attacked a grandmother. There's something particularly appealing about citizens who refuse to become victims. I'm hoping that Granny Szymanski starts carrying full-time. Our world would be a better one, if we had more grandmothers and fewer goblins.Robbers mess with the wrong grandma
INITIATIVE: Seward woman tracks thieves who boldly snatched her purse.
Published: December 21, 2005
Last Modified: December 21, 2005 at 06:35 PMA 55-year-old grandmother from Seward who had her purse snatched in the parking lot of the Dimond Boulevard Costco on Monday afternoon has taken it upon herself to "catch the twirps," she said.
Rosie Szymanski, who came to Anchorage to celebrate Christmas with her 10-year-old grandson and other family members, said Tuesday that she has tracked the thieves to several places where they used her credit cards before she was able to cancel them. And she has obtained a videotape of what she believes are the young men using one of her cards at a McDonald's.
Anchorage police are cautioning her to use care in her investigation.
Szymanski said she was unloading Christmas presents into her Chevy Astro van when a young man shoved her and pinched her kidney-bean-shaped handbag from the shopping cart, she said.
"They are lucky I didn't have my .45 automatic. I would have blasted them," said Szymanski.
Now, Szymanski is piping mad and "in hot pursuit," she said. She has extended her trip and turned it into a hunt for the thieves, work that she says the police aren't doing fast enough.
After she was robbed, Szymanski ran after the thief until she saw him jump into a maroon Jeep that had been waiting with the engine revving. The vehicle sped off, she said.
"Maybe I'm a little older, a little fluffier, and he thought I wasn't going to chase him," she said. "But I did."
The thieves got away with Szymanski's wallet, several hundred dollars in cash, and a lucky coin she had from her grandmother that she always carries with her, she said.
On Tuesday, Syzmanski spent the day driving around Anchorage to the sites where her credit cards had been used, scribbling notes on a mini yellow legal pad, and taking down phone numbers.
"I've been around the block a few times," she said. "These boys need to know there are consequences."
And if this keeps up, my wish will be fulfilled.
In other news, VPC has just announced that you are 43 times more likely to be tracked to the ends of the earth if you have a grandmother in your home.
An Obscure Case for Pick-up Truck Control
I'm not sure what this means. You read it, you tell me:
I'm confused here. In 1999, a black man (James Byrd, Jr) was dragged behind a pick-up truck by two white men, and their sentence was increased because it was deemed to be a 'hate crime' . . . they were white, their victim was black. They had cut their victim's throat (isn't that a more 'hateful' act than robbery?) before dragging him.2 going to prison on charge of carjacking
The Associated Press
FLORENCE - Two Hartsville men who pleaded guilty to federal carjacking charges in an incident in which a man was chained to a pickup truck and dragged through a field have been sentenced to prison.
Kenneth Smith, 41, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday by U.S. District Judge R. Bryan Harwell. Lamont McKay, 27, was sentenced to seven years.
Prosecutors sought the reduced sentence for McKay because they said he cooperated in the case.
Each man had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The two men began arguing with the victim over a drug deal at a Darlington County store in January, then struck him in the head and robbed him, prosecutors said.
The men forced the victim into his own pickup truck, ordered him to drive to a nearby field and made him take his clothes off, authorities said.
The victim was then beaten with a tire iron and burned with a cigarette lighter, chained to the truck and dragged up the road, prosecutors said.
The victim said he was able to escape when the men turned a corner.
The victim recovered from his injuries, which included cuts and bruises.
The Darlington County Sheriff's Office had charged the men with assault and battery with intent to kill, kidnapping and armed robbery.
The victim, who is white, said Smith and McKay, who are black, made racial slurs while chaining him to the truck.
Authorities said they do not doubt the comments were made but said the crime did not appear to be racially motivated, because the robbery occurred first.
In this instance, the assailants had only robbed their victim before dragging him, knowing that he was not dead and it seems reasonable to believe that they might expect the dragging to lead to his death. Yet the courts deemed the action less 'hateful'.
There is suddenly no humor in this thread. We're not talking about robberies thwarted because the supposed victim used an unexpected weapon to defend herself. We're talking about murder, racism, torture and violence on a level not frequently encountered in a civilized society.
Or is it?
There is, in fact, now a website devoted to hate crimes, and some of the examples they feature make it difficult to define that thin line between a hate crime and 'ordinary' violence.
For example, in late September of 2005, a Navajo woman was dragged by the hair behind a pick-up truck by one of four Sioux tribal members in the truck. The ordeal 'only' lasted for one city block, and she was released before she died.
Does the consideration of different tribal allegiance make this a hate crime?
I don't know. And I'm not sure it's necessary to make the distinction.
When you perform violence against another human being, and there is no "self-defense" rationalization for the action, it is at least hateful and more importantly it is prejudicial to your defense of your actions. The assailants must bear full responsibility for their assault, and it doesn't matter whether you are of the same genetic or cultural classification of your victim, there must be an element of hate or disdain involved.
I don't belive in 'hate crimes', because I think it trivializes the violence involved.
Every crime is a 'hate crime'. When you introduce the element of race, it makes it seem as if some races are more important than others, no matter which race (or cultural group) you choose to especially 'protect'. This emphasizes racial differences, and establishes an artificial and societally arbitrary evaluation between races.
Isn't this exactly what we are trying to eliminate? Isn't violence between persons universally and equally deplored? Why is race, gender, sexual preference or culture considered when evaluating the degree of egrigiousness between one violent crime and another?
The socialists among us would seemingly have us decide that it's less acceptable for a white person to murder a black man than it is for a black man to murder a white man (if we use James Byrd's murder as a standard), or for a heterosexual man to murder a homosexual man (if we use Mathew Shephard as a standard).
But any death is an abomination. Those who would argue that one abomination is more egrigious than another are treading upon the slippery slope of positing that one person's life is more valuable or important than another, based solely upon racial (or cultural) characteristics of both the assaulted and the assailants.
The implication is that this demeans, for example, the black man or the homosexual man or the Navajo woman, because they are 'untermenchen' and require special consideration . . . they do not (again, by implication rather than by my personal belief) deserve the same protection as does any other man or woman.
I completely reject this mindset.
Every man, every woman, who is assaulted or murdered deserves full protection because he or she is a human being. We all deserve the same protection. Our death should always be deserving of the same condemnation. Our assailants and our murderers should receive the same punishment.
To do otherwise undermines our position in society. To do less implies that we are not equal in the eyes in the law.
To apply the law inequitably undermines the Rule of Law, and this is the only feature of Western Civilization which separates from the Barbarians who hijack airliners and fly them into skyscrapers.
I've enjoyed presenting the first couple of stories, because they were uncomplicated examples of people who defended themselves against common assailants. I don't enjoy reporting this last story, because it calls into question the issue of whether or not we truly accept all citizens as worthy of equal treatment under the law.
There is no joy to be found here. Our nation has taken a cruel turn here, and I am sickened by it.
I will speak no more of it, because it presents evidence that sexual and racial bigotry is still strong in America, and it is being promulgated by our most liberal (and supposedly Socialist) elements.
