Does excessive noise help cause big government?

TAMPA, February 24, 2013 ― “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s all the noise, noise, noise, noise!”

There’s not much to like about The Grinch before his sentimental conversion at the top of Mount Crumpet. But it’s hard not to sympathize with him just a little when he utters those words. If quiet was in short supply in 1966 Whoville, it’s completely nonexistent in 2013 America.

I walked into a Jimmy John’s sub shop last week for the first time in two years. They recently began offering all of their subs as lettuce wraps, making them permissible as an occasional treat for primals. I knew I had missed the delicious #9. What I hadn’t missed was the music. At 12:30 in the afternoon, Jimmy John’s plays it at nightclub volume. Ordering and waiting the 1-2 minutes it takes to get your food is bad enough. Eating there is out of the question.

There is scarcely a restaurant anywhere that doesn’t pipe music throughout its dining room and onto its patio. Gas stations now blare music at customers while they pump their gas. Supermarkets, retail stores at the mall, and even public parks have all followed suit.

If it’s not music, then it’s television. Doctor’s office waiting rooms now bombard the ears and the psyche with vapid programming clattering off every uncarpeted surface. So do most auto repair shops.

There is virtually no spot accessible to the public that does not fill the soundscape with music or television. Even libraries are following the trend.

I know I sound like an old guy in baggy gray pants and a Humphrey Bogart hat, but I’m not. I love music. I love loud music. I played in bands for over twenty years and still like to crank up my Marshall amp and let some AC/DC rip on my vintage guitar.

I have nothing against music or television and certainly respect private property owners’ right to play either as loud as they wish to.

I just wonder when and where 21^st century Americans ever experience quiet, outside of their jobs. When do they have the kinds of stimulating conversations with friends that are impossible when shouting over a restaurant sound system? When do they just sit and think, reflect or daydream?

It’s possible that the answer is “never.”

The term “noise pollution” is generally associated with the left and its never ending quest to impede commerce and industry. The war on noise fits nicely into the leftist worldview that when humans are left free to pursue their happiness, they naturally destroy the environment, including the sound environment, causing harm to themselves, each other and (gasp!) their furry co-inhabitants.

But does noise pollution also help cause big government?

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Chris Dorner: A real life Frankenstein monster

TAMPA, February 13, 2013 – “Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains, - revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the willingness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.”

While far more eloquent, one cannot help but see the parallels between the declaration of war upon Victor Frankenstein by the monster he created and Chris Dorner’s erratic “manifesto.” Dorner’s entire story parallels Mary Shelley’s classic, with tragic results and ominous foreboding.

Like the monster, Dorner was “created” by the military-police complex. They may not have endowed him with life, but they made him into the trained killing machine that was both willing and able wage war upon them. Dorner felt wronged by his creator and swore to avenge himself, willing to exact that revenge both upon those he had self-pronounced “guilty” and upon innocents whose suffering or death would cause the guilty pain. Like Shelley’s demon, Dorner’s life ended in fiery death (more like the movie than the novel).

Shelley’s characters are more sympathetic than those of Dorner’s tragic story. The monster suffers years of real torment before resorting to the murder of Frankenstein’s loved ones, including his brother, an innocent child, and his young wife. The reader still doesn’t condone the murders, but at least sympathizes somewhat with the murderer. Not so with Dorner. Although some or all of his accusations against the LAPD may have been true, it is impossible to either understand or condone his disproportionate response.

The government falls short of Shelley’s title character as well. Unlike the targeted members of the LAPD, Victor Frankenstein does not cower in his house under paramilitary protection. He hunts the monster he created alone, unafraid to confront him, without endangering innocent bystanders. He also understands and admits that he was wrong to create the monster in the first place. In contrast, the military-police complex shot three innocent people in its panicky response and will likely push to be even more dangerously armed and empowered as a result of this tragedy.

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READ MORE: The cops are a dangerous replacement for private gun ownership 

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If the parallel to Shelley’s story stopped with the LAPD or even the law enforcement community in general, it would not be so ominous. But this little morality play is not simply a warning to law enforcement to “be careful who you train and what you train them to do.” It is a metaphor for our entire society.

As Anthony Gregory reminds us, “We are all Branch Davidians Now.” We are all subject to being monitored and hunted by drones, searched without warrant, kidnapped and detained without appeal to a judge for a writ of habeas corpus, and even summarily executed without a guilty verdict or even a jury trial. As Emma Hernandez and Margie Carranza can tell you, we may not even be the subject of the monster’s wrath but still be destroyed by its fury.

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Obama has state of the delusion speech shovel ready

TAMPA, February 12, 2013 — Pundits are already atwitter over tonight’s annual exercise in political posturing. The question many are asking is whether Obama will stay on the attack against his Republican opponents or attempt to use the speech to identify areas where he can work with them.

The real question is whether the president will make a single remark that bears any resemblance to reality.

The State of the Union address (SOU) has always been little more than a nationally televised stump speech. As all presidents believe that anything happening anywhere in the country is a direct result of their policies, none have ever wanted to paint a less than rosy picture about the supposed “state of the union.” After all, if it’s in a bad state, it must be their fault.

However, with the U.S. now in full-fledged collapse, the speeches have become so detached from reality that they should be called “state of the delusion” addresses.

The speech is interminably long, but let’s look ahead to the main areas it will cover and try to separate fantasy from reality.

The president will remind us that he inherited an economy in shambles, which is true. He will hope that listeners draw the inference that his predecessor was wholly at fault for this, but that isn’t close to true. Every president since at least Teddy Roosevelt contributed to the problem, with the largest contributions coming from Democrats.

It will really turn bizarre when Obama starts talking about “the recovery” that’s underway. We’ll be told that while we’re not out of the woods and there is still “a lot of work to do (i.e., more government meddling to accomplish)," new jobs are being created, new industries are flourishing and things are generally looking up.

In reality, the United States is in a depression, just like the one in the 1930’s, and it’s being prolonged for all of the same reasons. The official numbers say that unemployment has been hovering around 8 percent, but that’s only because they’ve changed the way unemployment is measured. If they measured it the same way that they did in the 1930’s, unemployment would be the same as it was in the 1930’s.

As an aside, there isn’t any substantive economic distinction between “recession” and “depression.” Politicians just decided to stop calling them depressions to con the public. After a while, they started believing their own bovine waste products.

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The cops are a dangerous replacement for private gun ownership

TAMPA, February 11, 2013 – It would be the hilarious stuff of satire or black comedy if it were fiction, but it involves real people and it’s tragic.

Police officers in pursuit of one of their own gone bad shot 71-year-old Emma Hernandez in the back after opening fire on her newspaper delivery truck. Hernandez’s daughter, 47-year-old Margie Carranza, sustained a hand injury. Police apparently mistook Hernandez’s blue Toyota Tacoma for murder suspect Christopher Dorner’s dark-gray Nissan Titan. The two women were not warned or ordered to stop before the shooting.

"No command, no instruction, no warning. They just opened fire on them," said Glen Jonas, who is representing Emma Hernandez, 71, and Margie Carranza, 47, in possible legal action against the Los Angeles Police Department.

These are the “public servants” that we are supposed to rely on to defend us against violent crime after we surrender our natural right to keep and bear arms. That obviously begs the question, “Who is going to protect us from the public servants?”

These are by no means the only circumstances in which you have good reason to fear the police.

In the fantasyland inhabited by gun control advocates, the use of firearms is delegated to police, who somehow defend innocent victims against violent criminals even in absentia. The victim need only dial 911 and the police will “respond within minutes.”

This is so preposterous that the effort shouldn’t be necessary, but let’s walk through the thought experiment nonetheless. Three criminals break into your home. They may be armed with guns, knives, or just superior strength and numbers. You have no firearms, so you dial 911.

Assuming that your attackers stand motionless for the “minutes” it takes the police to get there, they are thwarted just before killing or maiming you by police who burst through the door and dispatch them with pinpoint accuracy, perhaps even shooting a perpetrator who is holding a gun to your head. Those not killed by the police drop their weapons and surrender. You live happily ever after.

That might play well on a movie screen, but out here in the real world, exactly the opposite will likely occur.

First, even if the cops “respond within minutes,” it’s too late. They responded within minutes at Sandy Hook. They responded within minutes in Aurora, Colorado. Ten minutes is too long. Two minutes is too long. If you are unarmed, two minutes after you are attacked by a violent criminal, you’re dead.

Do the math.

If the cops do arrive at your home or place where you are attacked before you’ve been killed, your problems might just be beginning. As Will Grigg reminds us, the first priority for police responding to a 911 call is “officer safety.” More often than not, the officer attempts to secure his or her own safety at the expense of yours.

Charlie Mitchener learned this the hard way when he called 911 to report a break-in at his office. When the police officer arrived on the scene, Mr. Mitchener dutifully informed her that he had a firearms permit and was carrying a firearm. The officer responded by handcuffing and disarming him, to make certain “we were all safe.”

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Disarm the police, not the citizens

TAMPA, February 7, 2013 ― First, the good news. The five-year-old boy kidnapped by a deranged man in Alabama has been rescued unharmed. He is with his family and reportedly “seems to be acting normally.”

The bad news is that some media seem to be using this incident to justify the ongoing militarization of domestic police forces.

“Military tactics, equipment helped authorities end Alabama hostage standoff,” reads today’s Fox News headline. The article describes how law enforcement responded to the hostage situation with what has become the new normal in the former land of the free. They mobilized paramilitary forces to deal with the situation just as an occupying army would deal with “counterinsurgency.”

According to the article, “In many ways, the scene resembled more of a wartime situation than a domestic crime scene as civilian law enforcement relied heavily on military tactics and equipment to end the six-day ordeal.”

Yes, every response by law enforcement seems to resemble a wartime situation these days, something one would think that Americans would be concerned about. Yet, for a nation that was born with a suspicion of standing armies and that wouldn’t tolerate the existence of one during peacetime, virtually no one objects to the increasingly aggressive tactics of local, state and federal police, often acting jointly to address routine local crimes.

One can already imagine the response by apologists for the all-powerful state. “If that’s what it takes to keep our children safe, then it’s worth it.”

It’s hard not to assume that the author of the article intends for the reader to draw that preposterous inference. It supposes a cause and effect relationship between the militarization of domestic police and the rescue of the child that does not exist.

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