Will you be protected from a hate crime?

On the subject of hate crimes and police protection, we have this week the example of the Bombay terror attacks. 10 men apparently were able to kill 300 people (so far, anyway) using rifles and grenades. No fancy gas or suicide bombing, just plain ol' blast away. In a modern city (which Bombay most certainly is) how is such a thing possible?

Eye witness tells all.

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

You hear that a lot in eye witness accounts of attacks like this.

There is the example of the Luby's Cafeteria atrocity in Killeen Texas. Suzanna Hupp famously testified to Congress that she would have been able to end that massacre before it started, but for the law that required her to leave her gun in her car. That's where it was when she watched the man kill her parents, nice and safe in the glove compartment... and completely useless.

At the Columbine high school massacre, the two killers started shooting at 11:19 am, police entered the building at 1:09pm. They had free rein for two hours.

There are many more examples. "Call 911 and die" is a famous saying for a reason. Cops are not motivated to take a bullet for you. The pay is good, but not that good.

Let us take Paladiea's posting in hand now. The Toronto Star report on the assault states a man started punching out two gay women in the school parking lot, and that this man had threatened them before. The only reason he didn't put them both in the hospital (or kill them) was other people in the parking lot stopped him. Those two women got lucky, in other words. Good Samaritans were on hand to save their asses.

Point being, the two women were not in a position to save themselves from one unarmed asshole who decided to beat them up on the spur of the moment. They were prevented, by law, from having weapons that would equalize their ability to fight with the much larger and stronger man who attacked them, a person who had threatened them before. Just as the photographer and Suzanna Hupp were prevented.

If I were the type of person who despised gays and wanted to hurt them, I'd find this legal regime entirely to my liking. Same deal if I were a terrorist. Lots of nice fat targets waiting unarmed, like sheep in the fold.

Paladiea's response to the incident is interesting. She seems much less interested in empowering women, visible minorities and other target groups (like Christians) to protect themselves from attack than she does in using government to preemptively punish groups she feels are responsible for the attacks. Primarily men, from her comments.

This leads me to think perhaps she may not be interested in in preventing hate crimes at all, but rather in taking revenge after the fact. This is not a wholesome attitude.

For myself, it is my firm conviction that justice is best served by the intended victim upon the attacker, during the attack. Call me crazy, but two short, weak little chicks sticking guns in the big, strong man's face seems a better impulse control lesson for him than fines and sensitivity training.

Regarding hate crimes, and their prevention

The other day I casually commented on a post by Paladiea over at Stormy Days of March, and got a response I really didn't expect.

Her post was this. which I reproduce here for easy reading.

Take a Stand Against Hate Crimes!

In support of the two women who got assaulted in front of their children for being homosexual;

There is going to be a rally in front of Oshawa City Hall this Friday at 7:30pm to 8:15 pm. The rally will be on the north side of City Hall (King at Centre). Speakers will include: Community Development Council, PFLAG Canada, Egale, AIDS Committee of Durham Region. Other potential speakers include: Dr. Brent Hawkes (MCC Toronto) and the Mayor of Oshawa. The City of Oshawa is working to help set up the rally.

Please attend if you can make it!

Well, a rally isn't going to do much is it?  My comment was that I've been teaching martial arts and shooting to anybody who will sit still for it since the 1980's, and women are going to keep getting attacked until they get back their right to defend themselves with a weapon.

Pal's response kind of made my hair stand on end..

Anyhow, that's a fair trade Phantom, more shooting deaths for the "safety" of minorities. Or is it only women who would get to shoot people on sight? What about a gay woman? Does being a person of colour afford you a free shoot to kill card too?

What idiocy…

Over the next couple of days I'm going to have a go at this comment, because it shows a very common, mainstream Toronto belief.  A belief which is quite frankly getting people killed.  I shall produce the evidence which disproves the idea, then I will have a look at who is pushing the idea and why.

But first I must move about 2 tons of flooring into the basement.  The snow has stopped here at Chez Phantom, so I better get to it.

I'll leave you with this thought.  Heinlein said in one of his books, "If you can't measure it, it ain't science."  If Paladiea is correct and allowing "the masses" to have firearms results in more shooting deaths, you should be able to measure that.  How would one go about making such a measurement?  Has it been done, and how did it turn out?

The Measuring Phantom

See? Told ya!

Evidence du jour supporting my Official Phantom Prophecy of the immanent demise of Greenie Weenie causes in the political realm:  NBC jettisons Weather Network Environazi Unit.

NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the "Forecast Earth" environmental program during the middle of NBC's "Green Week," as well as several on-camera meteorologists.

And the money quote:

Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen's future role at the network is not known.

There was a bunch of bafflegab at the end from NBC "explaining" why they shit canned 80 people and a whole global warming scare show, which boiled down to its essence translates to "This greenie propaganda isn't selling, advertisers are fleeing and we are losing our shirts here, so we are cutting our losses."

Hasta la vista, environazi programming.  Pretty soon you're not going to see the words "green" or "environment" anywhere in the media.  Its over.

The Crystal Ball Gazing Phantom

The nature of freedom's enemy.

I read today a nice little spark of insight from Five Feet of Fury:"Because Harry Potter is not a documentary".


Here in Soviet Canuckistan as y'all know (because I never shut up about it!) we have the Canadian Human Rights Commission and its various provincial versions acting as judge, jury and executioner in various cases where a person has posted something on the Internet that proved to be "unacceptable".  Or refused to print something, in one case. 

Anyway, there is in fact a little industry at the HRC of government employees beavering away all day posting really objectionable things at blogs and message boards, trolling for agreement or just trying to see if their filth gets left on the board for a while.  Then a different person files a complaint, and in 100% of the cases (so far) the target is found guilty and fined.

There are those in Canadian public life who have said out loud and in print that this is A Good Thing, and the HRCs should keep doing this and probably do it more.  Regarding these worthies, The Furious One says:

Remember: our fight is only 50% ideology, if that.

<cowardly Phantom snippage of naming names, I don't have a legal defense fund>

 

This fight is really about class, social standing, prestige. Who has it, who doesn't, and how that status quo can be maintained, by using the powers of the State to break the law, if necessary.

I would venture that this is more about -money-.   Prestige don't pay off the car loan, know what I mean?

Maybe not a buttload of money, but they are paying the bills and the work is pretty easy.  If anything the small sums involved make these individuals go all the harder.  They're trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table by hunting "bad guys", so "bad guys" is what they will come up with.   Even if they have to manufacture them.  If in the process they manage to destroy MY freedom to say what I want, well that's just too bad.  Business is business.

As an employment model I'd rather shovel shit from one place to another myself, but then I'm the "bad guy" here.  By insisting that the government has no business censoring speech in a free country, they say I'm "enabling" eeeevile  racist/bigot/homophobes to damage our society.  I should just shut up and let the Big Brains get things done, because I'm stupid and must be controlled for my own good.

Well no, actually I'm screwing with these Nazi hunter's paycheck and benefits package, which makes them frantic.  Double that for the global warming and gun control crowds, they are watching their golden geese shrivel and die already.

Read the whole Furious piece, its a giggle.

The Phantom Nazi-Hunter Hunter

I may have to barf. Or break something. I can't decide.

Noah Richler's piece in the National Post today has flipped my biscuit, I must say.  Entitled "Our Obama Will Be Native" he says:

In all of this lie intimations of our own possible destiny. If Canada is to experience its own extraordinary, galvanizing political progression, it will not be because it has elected a black to high office. That would be pleasing enough, not least because slavery was also practised here, though it would be misrepresenting history to pretend that the issue is as profoundly troubling here as in the United States. But no, our own Obama moment will occur when Canada upholds a candidate from the First Nations as prime minister. Then we shall have confronted our own national shame. Then we shall have surmounted our own historical disgrace.

Will the race huckstering never cease?  Will the bleeding hearts bleating for "social justice" never be silent?  Will the accusations of bigotry continue forever?

You want national shame Noah?  You want historical disgrace? 

How about $14 billion a year, every year, spent to keep Indians rotting in starving, alcohol soaked, drug addled penury on reservations across the country?  How about the two-tier Ontario justice that allows a glorified biker gang to hold both the Six Nations reserve and the entire town of Caledonia hostage for three years now?  How about an infant mortality rate in northern reserves which approaches that of the Congo ?  How about an old boy network in the mythical First Nations governance that ensures nothing changes on these reserves, and the same people keep soaking up all the money?  How about a White socialist generated culture war that has Indians across the country repudiating Canada and pretending to be separate countries, as if that was a good thing?

Canada is absolutely the most tolerant nation in the world, to the point where we tolerate things that harm us all for fear of appearing judgmental.  There are no "victim groups" in this country, no sex or race or religion which is singled out for organized oppression by the general public.  There is only misguided, destructive government policy generated by IDIOTS the like of Mr. Richler, who seek to feather their own nests by keeping the Indians as clients of their oh so generous hand-out machine. The faster we dump this kind of thinking the sooner the suffering on the reserves will cease.

Should an Indian man become Prime Minister, I would hope that unlike Mr. Obama it is because he earned it with his abilities, hard work and honorable behavior.  You know, the way the rest of us do things.

The Phantom

Governator terminates Kalifornia!

The tax hikes continue!

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed $4.4 billion in tax increases and billions more in spending cuts to close California's worsening budget deficit, declaring: "We must stop the bleeding."

Schwarzenegger on Thursday called for a special session of the state Legislature to address a deficit that has grown to $11.2 billion just six weeks after he signed the budget for the current fiscal year.

There you go kids, New York City and California first out the gate with tax hike proposals. More soon to follow, no doubt.

I don't know where the hell they think people are going to get the money, nobody is going to have a frickin' job. The Big Three car company CEOs are in Washington tonight begging Nancy Pelosi for money. If they go under, it will be some pretty serious shit. Not only will Big Three employees be out on the bricks, so will all the guys who work for the hundreds and HUNDREDS of little companies who make stuff for the Big Three. That's a lot of guys.

Washington may actually have to cut its spending. By which I mean not reduce the rate of spending increase, but actually spend -less- money. Watch what the government unions do. ~:D

The Amazing Bloomberg will now make NYC vanish!

Yes friends, the Amazing Bloomberg will astound you with his feats of prestidigitation, as he causes the entire working population of New York City to disappear in a puff of smoke!

The mayor proposed raising the income tax by either 7.5 percent or 15 percent.

Oh, and budget cuts too! Yep, the Amazing Bloomberg will be slicing off 1000 cops from the NYPD. But don't worry friends, he's going to add 200 new Green Hornets to hand out traffic and parking tickets.

What do the DemocRats say? Wait for it, this is just too juicy:

"I think the people of the city are going to be enraged," City Councilman Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn, said."

Funny stuff, Councilman!

The Phantom

How to tell bad policy.

This is rich. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry is a little book by two avowed Marxists. Which is funny as hell, because the "Aboriginal Industry" is pretty much a creation of Marxists from the 1970's. Its created a situation so heinously bad even fellow travelers can't stomach it.

"These revelations came to them when the two worked advising the Northwest Territories government in the 1990s. The territory had incorporated into official policy something called "traditional knowledge," requiring departments to include the spiritual folklore of Inuit and First Nations culture in decision-making about resource management - say, approving mines or setting hunting quotas."

Religion in government?! This cannot BE!

So they wrote a little book. You can tell something is really, really not working when it won't stand up to a functional analysis done by actual Marxists. I mean, 14 billion a year and people are still starving/freezing to death? Even a Commie can tell that ain't right.