I don't know anything about Freddie Gray. Except to use the mayor's remarks for my rant on private property last week, I have not paid much attention to the Baltimore situation. This, however, annoys me:
Essentially, in a lot of these metropolitan areas, a person can be arrested and charged over almost anything. It's a pocketknife. There is no reason that I can imagine for outlawing any kind of automatic or assisted-opening knife. It's a buggy-whip law. I will guarantee you that there are cops in Baltimore carrying knives that are illegal for citizens.
Law and order is only as good as the law. If we have stupid laws then our order is often the order of the police state. Thus, I find myself in odd agreement, in a way, with the eternally aggrieved in Baltimore and even some of the comments by Dear Reader Obama. We do treat those of the government-created underclass "unfairly", enforcing laws with the aim of, as the police would argue, simply getting "criminals" off the streets.
Laws should be clear and uniform, and uniformly enforced and enforceable. That means, in reality, that we need many fewer laws than we currently have.
Government vote-buying has created this urban underclass who then vote for living. They have sufficient funds and support to have a great deal more leisure than I have. They use that leisure mostly in pursuit of pleasure, some of which is immoral and self-destructive. We would do far more good by stopping the subsidies for laziness, bastardy, and dysfunctional families than by making self-destructive behaviors that harm no one else illegal. If those folks were busy working for a living, they would not have time for as much mischief and mayhem.
I would also suggest that we ought to stop disarming citizens to the point that a pocketknife is considered enough of a threat to earn a man, whatever his prior history, a broken back.
While Mosby said Friday that the officers had made an illegal arrest because a knife Gray was carrying was not a "switchblade," a violation of state law, the police task force studied the knife and determined it was "spring-assisted," which does violate a Baltimore code.
Essentially, in a lot of these metropolitan areas, a person can be arrested and charged over almost anything. It's a pocketknife. There is no reason that I can imagine for outlawing any kind of automatic or assisted-opening knife. It's a buggy-whip law. I will guarantee you that there are cops in Baltimore carrying knives that are illegal for citizens.
Law and order is only as good as the law. If we have stupid laws then our order is often the order of the police state. Thus, I find myself in odd agreement, in a way, with the eternally aggrieved in Baltimore and even some of the comments by Dear Reader Obama. We do treat those of the government-created underclass "unfairly", enforcing laws with the aim of, as the police would argue, simply getting "criminals" off the streets.
Laws should be clear and uniform, and uniformly enforced and enforceable. That means, in reality, that we need many fewer laws than we currently have.
Government vote-buying has created this urban underclass who then vote for living. They have sufficient funds and support to have a great deal more leisure than I have. They use that leisure mostly in pursuit of pleasure, some of which is immoral and self-destructive. We would do far more good by stopping the subsidies for laziness, bastardy, and dysfunctional families than by making self-destructive behaviors that harm no one else illegal. If those folks were busy working for a living, they would not have time for as much mischief and mayhem.
I would also suggest that we ought to stop disarming citizens to the point that a pocketknife is considered enough of a threat to earn a man, whatever his prior history, a broken back.
"Government vote-buying has created this urban underclass who then vote for living."
ReplyDeleteSadly this is now an almost universal western democratic experience, from Greece to New Zealand and everywhere in between. To debase your currency is one thing, your citizens something else again.
Debasing citizens -- that's a good way to put it.
ReplyDelete