July 2007 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Colt 45: “It Works Every Time” …

… to piss off politicians and community leaders who need to learn to mind their own god damned business.

Given all the problems the city has with, you know, murders happening at least once a day, most of the times more, you’d imagine city council didn’t have time to worry about this:

The ads for Colt 45 malt liquor are wrapped over two SEPTA buses, top to bottom. The buses are being deployed each day on different routes so they get to all parts of the city and suburbs.

Fine with me. I don’t drink the swill, but if it helps offset my tax dollars going to fund SEPTA, I’m all for it.

â€œPeople have been fighting these take-out beer delis for years now. And now, to reinforce it on a SEPTA route that this is an acceptable product and behavior, I donâ€™t think is appropriate for a government agency to be doing.â€

As someone who frequents take out beer delis, Councilman Kenney, you can go to hell. It’s already hard enough to get decent beer in this state. Plus, let me ask the Councilman this: if it was white people who liked to drink Colt 45, would you care? No? I wouldn’t want to accuse you of engaging in masked racism or anything.

Jim Kenney is another boneheaded politician who needs to stop pretending his constituents are children and unable to make their own decisions in life. I think Billy Dee Williams needs to come to Philly and personally kick his ass.

UPDATE: Councilman Kenney~~, or someone claiming to be him, at least,~~ responds Philly style in the comments: “F*** you.”

UPDATE: It’s him.Â The referrer comes from the Vitetta group, who Kenney is associated with, according to this post.Â While I’m honored to have The Councilman come visit my blog, you’d think they’d be more concerned about the fact that their city is currently circling the bowl, than with whatever I’m saying :)

On Doing Nothing

Philadelphia politicians are good at at least one thing: pretending to do something while in reality doing nothing. Philadelphia’s media culture, generally content to play along with these games, may be starting to get real:

Of course, no civic effort can work if law enforcement doesn’t do a better job of protecting witnesses who do try to help.

Political leaders have not been passive. City Hall points out that Mayor Street has hired 200 more police officers, opened five curfew centers, and organized mayors in cities throughout Pennsylvania to campaign for more gun controls.

At first. it seems they will fall back to the idea of blaming the cops for not doing their job, while the politicians fiddle, but then they surprise me:

All of that is good and necessary, but Street has failed to effectively use his office as a bully pulpit to rally residents around a public-safety crusade. He and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson have not been the public leaders this city so badly needs.

Most of the killings fit patterns among victims and perpetrators that show where much more aggressive action can be taken.

Thirty percent of last year’s gun-homicide victims were in the middle of criminal proceedings when they were fatally shot. Many of the victims also have records. They are in identifiable groups of people known to authorities.

More parole and probation officers may be of greater service than more police for monitoring the felons who end up shooting someone or being shot. They can cut parolees’ access to guns.

They are completely correct to question Street and Johnson’s leadership. I’m glad to see them doing this! Where I disagree is that the city needs more probation and parole officers, rather than police officers. No! The city needs more criminals behind bars where they belong. If the justice system does not stop becoming a revolving door, that keeps putting dangerous individuals back on the street, this isn’t going to get better. Police are important, but police can’t do their job in the face of a criminal justice system that treats criminals as victims, to be coddled, rather than as miscreants, to be removed from society.

End of an Era for the Navy

The Navy retires its last M-14s.

Tar, Feathers, and Filtering

You know things in our political climate are getting unhinged when a reasonable person like Glenn Reynolds makes an allusion to tar and feathers.Â It seems the Senate says we all need to be babysat:

â€œWhile filtering and monitoring technologies help parents to screen out offensive content and to monitor their childâ€™s online activities, the use of these technologies is far from universal and may not be fool-proof in keeping kids away from adult material,” Sen. Inouye said. â€œIn that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat child pornography and consider what further measures may be needed to stop the spread of such illegal material over high-speed broadband connections.”

Ted Stevens is trying to build the filter to nowhere, along with his buddy Inouye. Â Can the citizens of Hawaii and Alaska please do us all a favor and get rid of these clowns?Â I don’t even think there’s a base they are appealing to here, this is just an example of being completely out of touch with reality, and out of touch with constituents.

Suzy Soccer Mom

I was going to respond to a comment on Ahab’s site, but haloscan seems want to keep reloading, failing, and then clobbering my post. I’ll just do it here:

I know you already realize all of this. Where the problem comes in, I think, is that you guys are targeting different groups for different reasons. David et al are working against the abuses of the “ruling class” and unifying gun owners for a giant political battle – one that the Bill of Rights, not just the 2A, hinges on.

You, and I think most gun bloggers, are more focused on a more grass-roots “get Suzy Soccermom to see guns aren’t scary” strategy, and as you state, you want to instill a culture of self-defense.

And both methodologies need the other to succeed.

Read the whole thing, it’s a very insightful comment. I agree with Jay’s point here that we’re all in this together, and each have our place.

What I would point out, though, is that Suzy Soccer Mom is an intrinsic part of the political struggle. Pro-gun activists, and people who care about the issue, just don’t have enough votes on our own to be able to dictate terms to the politicians. We outnumber the anti-gun activists, but we don’t outnumber other voters. Politicians are not courageous people; they worry about appearing extreme. Scare Suzy Soccer Mom and her demographic too much, and we lose.

Base rallying is an important part of any political movement, and moderate rhetoric won’t typically accomplish that as effectively as more radical rhetoric. But in politics, it’s always a fine line. Every political movement has this problem; you have to keep your activists, volunteers, and donors excited about what you are doing, and involved in the issue. But you also need to avoid firing them up so much that you scare other people out of the movement, or scare voters who are non-ideological.

I don’t disagree that we need each other, and there are certainly people out there who feel very disillusioned about the state of our rights, and would drop out of the issue entirely if they didn’t feel they had a voice out there. I am not the voice for folks of that persuasion. I think we’re winning, both the political battle, and hearts and minds. There’s still a lot of road ahead, but I think we can make it.Â There are still dangers: a uniformly hostile media, among other things, and we’re succeeding despite that.

I would just encourage everyone to remember there’s a fine tightrope that must be walked between base rallying, and going so far that we scare ordinary voters away from supporting, or at least not opposing us.

Keeping Knowledge and Expertise Alive

SayUncle posted yesterday that ammo makers are preparing for the inevitable downturn.Â It’s a good read, but the main thing that caught my eye is this:

In 1978, there were 318 plants in the United States involved in ammunition production. By 1995, six years after the Berlin Wall fell, there were fewer than 100, according to Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.

U.S. spending for ammunition dropped 78 percent.

“Anytime the industry shrinks, you lose expertise and skill,” said Thompson, who more than a dozen years ago co-authored a study of the ammunition industry.

That’s absolutely true.Â The United States currently doesn’t actually need more nuclear submarines, but we’re still building them in large part because once you stop, we lose the expertise that goes into that.Â Those people find employment in other sectors, and suddenly, as a nation you no longer know how to make submarines.Â Anti-gun folks, who claim to support the military and police being well armed, don’t appreciate the roll that civilian shooters have in keeping these industries alive in times when the military isn’t spending so much.

Alliant also can sell its bullets to the law enforcement and sporting communities, an option not available for companies manufacturing tank rounds and artillery shells.

I can guarantee that the civilian shooter market is much bitter than the law enforcement market. Â The value the “unorganized militia” provides in not only keeping people well trained in marksmanship, but in keeping the domestic firearms and ammunition markets afloat and innovating, even during peace, shouldn’t be readily discounted by people who claim to be in favor of military and police having arms, and no one else.

From the Brady Blog

I’m a lurker there. I don’t have time to comment, but I think for the most part folks are doing OK keeping up the pro-gun sides of the argument. This latest caught my eye, from Macaca, one of the few anti-gun commenters on their site:

whatâ€™s happening now is the shame of this cournty. so letâ€™s TRY something new even if it means that every gun purchaser has to go through a background check. the people of Philly and every other city that has gun violence deserve it.

Yeah, OK. Except that every firearms purchaser in Pennsylvania already has to go through a background check, and for handguns, ANY transfer has to go through a dealer or sheriff. There is no so-called “gun show loophole” in Pennsylvania. We closed it. And guess what? 234 and counting. Macaca later shares with us:

Finally done he stood up and said there is only one thing he didnâ€™t like about England and that was their gun laws. I quickly handed him my business card and told him who we were and what we were all about and my friend told him that England was safe BECAUSE of itâ€™s gun laws.He quickly left. His wife on the other hand stayed. She said she had been trying to tell him the same thing about England for years but he wouldnâ€™t listen. She said, now that heâ€™s made such a fool of himself maybe heâ€™ll have to rethink his position. And with that she stood up, gave us a $100 bill as a donation and left.

Gee, I wonder what business card that could have been? Good to see those grass roots at work!

UPDATE: ~~Macaca~~ Macca responds in the comments. Odd choice of nickname. I’m going to guess not a big George Allen fan. I can understand that, because Allen was a dummy. I have to wonder how the Brady folks in Virginia feel about their current gun nut Senator.Â Seems I’m a dummy too.Â DMeadows reminds me that I need to read more carefully.

Nickel and Dimed

Delaware is looking for a novel legal theory to fleece beverage retailers of unclaimed 5 cent deposits for bottles.Â Â I guess this isn’t surprising from a state that keeps sending Joe Biden back to The Senate.

Property Taxes: Round 3

The Democrats are back on the issue, and they say they are serious this time.

“We are committed to making property tax reform the pre-eminent issue come this fall,” Mr. McCall said in an interview last week. “We want to show the Senate we are serious about this issue.”

Glad to see they are “serious” about the issue.Â But read on, and it seems they are serious about another tax shift scheme:

They said a wide range of possible property tax relief options will be considered. One is Mr. DeWeese’s idea for a 0.5 percent increase in the state sales tax. That would generate about $700 million, with all of it going to lower property taxes. Gov. Ed Rendell has talked about going Mr. DeWeese one better — raising the sales tax a full percentage point, with all $1.4 billion going to lower property taxes.

I have to admit, I like this better than the last scheme.Â But what happened to all that property tax relief I was supposed to get from the casinos? Â Either way, there is a better idea:

Then there is Rep. Samuel Rohrer’s idea. Mr. Rohrer, R-Berks, and some other conservative Republicans have pushed for four years to reduce the sales tax to 5 percent statewide but greatly broaden the base by taxing food and clothing, which are now exempt.

Now there’s an idea I can get behind.Â Tax restructuring rather than tax raising. Â Ed Rendell has never met a tax he wouldn’t like to raise.Â It’s good to see there are politicians out there trying to think outside the box.

Using State Workers As Pawns

The Pittsburgh Tribune has a good editorial on Rendell’s budget tactics:

Yes. I remember a news conference where he told us the work force wouldn’t really be disrupted until July 17. Later, he said that was a mistake and things would be affected sooner — by July 9 — if no budget were in place. Curiously, July 17 later became a very critical date.

A state Treasury Department official would later say that if no budget were in place by last Monday, July 16, about 40,000 workers would see their state paychecks delayed.

Treasury officials later backed off that and said they could no longer have confidence of meeting the July 20 payroll by noon, Monday, July 16. Later, they said they could meet the payroll if the budget was approved by the end of that day.

July 17 likely was the real drop-dead date.

So the real budget crisis wouldn’t have come until July 17th?Â But Rendell cut them loose early in order to use them as pawns in his political battle against Republicans over his new energy tax.Â Why did we re-elect him again?

Apparently, the state workers are going to be reimbursed for the day off.Â I actually have no problem with this.Â State workers shouldn’t have to pay because their boss is a bozo.Â All in all the reimbursement will cost taxpayers 3.5 million dollars. Â Thanks a lot Ed!