You know, policy makers and lobbyists are becoming more and more illogical in
their quest for a great nanny state that is going to protect you or protect
“society.” I’d like to point a couple different things, all in the name of
public safety and security that are completely illogical:
First, check out The London Fog’s post by Basil about so called
Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter. Komrade Kwinter, as The London Fog
lovingly call him, is going to give more rights to building inspectors to enter
your home to look for illegal activity going on as well as allowing Ontario
Hydro and other local Hydro companies to shut off your power based on some
“suspicious usage” at your home. Nothing else will be required – no other
evidence, no warrants, nothing. All in the name of “community safety.” Safety
from what? Oh.. a few people growing marijauna.
Look bonehead, read some history and find out why marijuana was criminalized in
the first place. It was criminalized decades ago, after a Canadian judge, (the
first woman judge in Canada, by the way)Emily Murphy wrote some absolutely
idiotic statements about marijuana. You don’t have to believe me; you can check
out yourself at Canada’s own Library Archives:
“These articles were published in 1922 as The Black
Candle, under her pen name, Janey Canuck. Her writings led to legislation
governing narcotics that was not changed until the 1960s.In The Black Candle and other writings, Emily Murphy expressed stereotypical and
prejudiced views about various racial and ethnic groups. Like many Anglo
-Protestants of her time, Emily Murphy believed that social problems of the era,
such as poverty, prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse, were linked to the influx
of immigrants into western Canada. These views informed some aspects of her
social and legal reform work.”
Furthermore, in her book she wrote:
“Addicts to this drug
(marijuana) while under its influence, become raving maniacs and are liable to
kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage
methods of cruelty without any sense of moral responsibility.”
Uh huh. Komrade Kwinter, can you point to me even ONE person who has, under the
influence of marijuana, become a raving maniac or any of the other things this
woman said?
It appears from further reading of Murphy that she was a racist. She disliked
“Negroes” and those of the “Yellow Race.” She cleverly convinced other Canadian
racists at the time that drug use was linked to race – so it wasn’t hard for
legislation to come into existence at that time, against marijuana use – even
though these laws were all based on utter nonsense.
Look, I’m not a proponent of marijuana use. But look at some more facts. In
spite of Canada’s laws prohibiting possession, growing, selling and using
marijuana, there’s an awful lot of market demand for it. Laws have done nothing
– absolutely NOTHING to decrease this demand. In fact it is the very law
prohibiting marijuana in the first place that is causing “public safety”
problems. Because of the law, aspiring business folk, that want to take
advantage of the market demand, can demand a higher value than what the stuff is
really worth. And because of this, this leads to the stuff being grown in
houses secretly, bought on the street in secret, and in an environment of fear.
Face it – those who wish to continue supporting the criminilization of marijuana
are supporting a law that was borne in racism in the first place, and for which
there are no logical reasons for it’s continued criminilazation if we are to
allow alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, driving cars (which have killed
far more people than marijuana ever will), legal. It’s utterly insane and
illogical.
And in the meantime, we’ve got the mob and shady, dangerous business men
involved in providing the market demand. If you really want a safer
neighbourhood and want to prevent the theft of electricity, then you should be
crying out for total and absolute decriminalization of marijuana.
But you know what? The mob and the shady, dangerous businessmen don’t want
marijuana de-criminalized, for that is what drives their profits up!
But of course, most of our legislators have their heads in their toilets,
looking for their power centre, that they can’t understand logic or something.
And of course, they are afraid to admit that in Canada.. Canada of all places!
laws were based on racism in the past. So let’s hide that fact.
Anti Gun Kooks
Ok.. next public safety rant are all the anti-gun kooks out there. Oh, how
they go on and on about how if tougher gun legislation saved just ONE life, how
it would all be worth it. What a lovely logical fallacy of appeal to emotion,
huh? Of course, most of us sane folk do value human life indeed.
But do you ever notice it doesn’t work the other way around for these logical
fallacy knuckleheads? Over at Rob’s Blog, there’s a super post regarding how you
simply cannot count on the police to come and save your life. And this is something I know a bit about. The police do have a tough job at times, but one of the biggest things that is drummed into them is, “Always watch out for your
own personal safety.”
Here’s the real deal on cops and gunshots. Someone hears gunshots or sees a
guy with a gun. They call 911. The 911 operator is going to interogate you to
get as much detail as possible. Which is to be expected. They need as much
information as possible. But of course seconds, if not minutes, are being lost
here.
Now the 911 operator has to see who is available to take the call. Maybe
there’s no cop available. So the call goes into a priority holding mode.
If there are some cops available, and close by in the division where the
incident is taking place, they are dispatched to the scene. But they’re really
sent to first “observe and report,” not to “serve and protect.” The first cops
on the scene are going to be very careful. Believe me, they are not going to go
rushing onto the scene, guns drawn, as soon as they get there. They are going
to be looking for ways to protect their own lives first.
And that’s pretty understandable, don’t you think? Now when they get there,
they may think the SWAT team needs to be brought onto the scene. So, there’s
more time lost. Have you ever watched a SWAT team set up at the scene of an
incident? Hey.. they take their time too.
In the meantime, you could now be dead. All because you’ve agreed to put your
faith in the nanny state and it’s police services.
Let’s take a look at the Mark Lepine situation a few years ago in Montreal, and
see how things might have turned out differently. On December 6, 1989, Marc
Lepine killed 14 women and injured 13 others. It took 45 minutes for the
police to respond!
Now imagine if some of the students at that school carried hand guns. Or even
some of the teachers. And could so legally. I wonder if Lepine would have
even attempted what he did. But let’s assume he would have, because he did
commit suicide after his rampage. He goes into the school, shoots one or two
women, and someone realizes something bad is going on… pulls his own handgun
and shoots Marc Lepine. Yes, one or two or even three deaths would have been
tragic. But why don’t we allow folks to carry handguns if it could prevent
even ONE.. or in Marc Lepine’s case, many many deaths??
I submit that an armed society makes for a gentler society. And don’t give me
crap about the USA – the jurisdictions that have the greater murder tolls are
those jurisdictions that have the tightest gun legislation. For a very
interesting discussion about the history of gun control in England, listen to
this mp3 of a talk by Sean Gabb.
As long as we have armed police forces and militaries, arms ARE going to be
available to bad guys. Even some of our police officers and military ARE bad
guys.
Gun legislation is NOT going to stop Marc Lepines of this world. Police forces
still might take 45 minutes to respond.
I’m getting pretty tired of this Nanny state that keeps making promises to
protect me, when in fact it ends up doing the most illogical things, and takes
away my rights to protect myself.
How about you?
And of course there’s the issues of red light cameras, radar cameras, and the
Na ny preventing us from purchasing diagnostic services, all in
the name of public safety and security.
When’s it all going to stop?