Government

The Atlantic is Right

This is one of those rare times where I think The Atlantic makes a good point

It was always obvious to me that military tactics, training, and weaponry had little place in civilian policing. The goal of the military is to overwhelm enemies, regardless of whether any particular individual on the other side “deserves” to be overwhelmed. It seems clear that police should not approach fellow citizens, rights-bearers, with the same attitude.

The article goes on:

So much of this turns out to be LARPing: half-trained, half-formed kids playing soldier in America’s streets and schools. Many of the thousands of SWAT-team members in this country don’t have the training and expertise to respond like they’re SEAL Team 6. It’s time to stop pretending that they do.

Read the entire article. It makes some great points. The money quote?

we have accepted a more and more militarized and aggressive police culture, with serious damage to basic constitutional liberties. What we got in return is 19 cops standing outside a classroom while children were slaughtered.

I couldn’t agree more.

By Divemedic, ago

Social Security Means Tested

A new idea is being floated for Social Security. Read on:

Workers today are on the hook for Social Security taxes with the promise that they’ll be entitled to benefits down the line. Now, imagine someone who’s a higher earner pays those taxes for 45 years, only to then be told, come retirement, that they’re not getting benefits, or their benefits are getting reduced, because they also happened to save really well and have a large amount of nest egg-produced income.

So you will pay the tax and save like you are supposed to. Because your retirement savings are paying interest, you get nothing. Meanwhile, some low life 30 year old drug addict claims that he hurt his back and collects disability for the rest of his life after getting his student loan forgiven.

How is that for fairness?

By Divemedic, ago

White=Less Rights

The Washington Supreme Court issued an opinion stating that people who are not white get more rights than people who are white. The reasoning?

the relevance of race and ethnicity in the seizure inquiry cannot turn on whether there has been recent, well-publicized discrimination and violence by law enforcement directed at individuals of the same race or ethnicity as the allegedly seized person. Instead, we must be cognizant that for generations, black and brown parents have given their children “the talk”—instructing them never to run down the street; always keep your hands where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger—all out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them.

So the court is saying that because minority parents tell their children that cops will kill them for no reason, the standard for a cop asking “BIPOC” people for ID is higher than it is for whites.

It is now the law in Washington State- whites have fewer constitutional rights than other races. For that reason, I am adding all of Washington state to Zone 5. If you are white, you no longer have the same rights as others in Washington state. It is therefore no longer a part of the United States and whites are unpersons.

The next step historically is a decree forcing all Jews Whites to transfer retail businesses to Aryan BIPOC hands. The boxcars and camps follow soon thereafter.

This is a textbook violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, but my bet is that it won’t matter.

By Divemedic, ago

Criminals Running the Place

Congresswoman Corrine Brown was convicted of fraud and tax evasion for running a fraudulent children’s charity and then using the money for her own benefit. She was sentenced to five years in Federal prison. She was let out after only two because of COVID.

Her conviction was later overturned because a juror told the judge that God came to her in a dream and said the congresswoman was innocent, so he replaced her.

Before she could be tried again, she reached a plea deal to plead guilty to one charge of tax evasion.

Now a convicted felon, she is running for office again. Many blacks will vote for her, because for all of the talk that we hear about wanting to eliminate racism, she is black.

By Divemedic, ago

Tracking Devices

Cell phone companies are selling your location data to location services companies, who are themselves selling that data to anyone with the cash to spend on obtaining it. At least one of the Feds working in the Uvalde area was using it to stalk his ex-girlfriends. One of those location services had little to no security for the data, meaning it was available to anyone who knew where to look.

Buy some faraday bags. Keep them in your vehicles and home. You are being watched every minute of every day, and you are paying someone to do it.

By Divemedic, ago

Guardian Program

I am typing this as a reply to AMA over there at GunFreeZone. In his post, AWA wonders about the Guardian program. Let’s lay out the truth:

Florida established a Guardian program, which was supposed to allow teachers to undergo training so that they could be armed on school campus, to prevent mass shootings in school. At this time, 45 of Florida’s 67 counties have complied with the program, mostly because there is a lot of grant money tied to participating in the program, but the devil is in the details.

Although they can legally take part in the Guardian Program, no one is permitted to take part without the approval of both the sheriff and the superintendent of schools in their county. Instead of arming teachers, school districts have gone in one of two directions: armed, uniformed security guards, or having administrators as the only ones permitted to take part in the program. Principals, superintendents, and some county level office staff, or armed, uniformed security guards will be the only ones permitted to be armed under this program. Anyone who is taking part will get a free gun, ammo, training, and a stipend for having the extra certification. It is more of a slush fund for handing out money and power than it is a real program. Let’s take a look at some Florida counties and how they are handling the program:

Bay county has armed, uniformed security guards as school guardians. No teachers are permitted to apply.

Broward county hires armed, uniformed guards. To be eligible, the guard must have two years’ law enforcement or military experience. The position pays minimum wage. The county has problems filling the positions, due to tight requirements and low pay. I am sure that we can trust minimum wage employees to risk their lives by running into an armed conflict to save our kids.

Duval county has hired armed, uniformed security guards.

Hernando county has hired 5 armed, uniformed security guards. No teachers. They have a total of 5 guardians, 23 deputy SROs, and 3 supervising deputies covering the 31 schools in Hernando county.

Lake county has decided to arm administrators only, and had received 30 applications from principals, vice principals, and other administrative level staff. Twenty administrative staff members were certified under the program. None of them were classroom teachers.

Lee county has guardians, but none of them are teachers.

Leon County has armed administrators only. They have specifically refused to arm teachers, coaches, or counselors.

Osceola county is saving money by contracting the Guardian program to a private security company for armed, uniformed security guards, and using these security guards to replace armed police officers. Since the guards make significantly less money than cops, the school district is likely profiting from the program.

Santa Rosa county has chosen to hire armed security guards. Teachers need not apply.

St Johns county has hired 18 uniformed, armed security guards. No teachers are a part of the program.

Volusia county has armed, uniformed security guards as their guardians. No teachers are a part of the program.

These are the only counties that I could find articles for online that specified who was a guardian. So why the emphasis on security guards, instead of simply arming teachers? My theory is that there are teachers on the left, and teachers on the right side of the spectrum. The left wing teachers have been all over the news lately, teaching tranny and homosexuality issues to the kids. The teachers on the right are the ones most likely to volunteer to be guardians. The left can’t stand the thought of armed conservatives, so there is no way that teachers will ever be armed.

By Divemedic, ago

Waiting for More Details

There has been reportedly been a deal reached on gun control, with 10 republicans signing on to support it. I will wait for more details since the text hasn’t been written yet, but it doesn’t look too bad. The overwhelming sense I get is that this is mostly a mental health bill. One thing that is concerning, however, is that this law will include a red flag law.

I don’t think for a second that this law will never be abused. After all, I already know from first hand experience that Domestic Violence restraining orders are routinely abused by people that want to get revenge on former paramours. A woman even was awarded one against David Letterman because, as she reported, he was beaming secret messages to her through his TV show.

I would feel better if there were a legal mechanism in place that allows for the punishment of those who abuse these legal processes in the form of what has become known as “lawfare.”

By Divemedic, ago