The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Spring Break Book Post

Posted on | April 25, 2021 | Comments Off on The Spring Break Book Post

— by Wombat-socho

Tax season ended for me on April 14; this was the first time since I started working for H&R Block that I haven’t worked April 15, but to be honest, this season has been enough of a pain in the ass for me that I didn’t mind knocking off a day early…well, a month and a day early, since the season was extended to May 17, but my contract ended on April 16 and I was in no mood to volunteer to work the extended season. Already done my part to keep the Las Vegas hotels afloat this year, thank you very much. Anyhow, before I pitch into the book reviews, a couple of links of interest to folks interested in SF and/or popular culture.
First, Nick Monroe does a thorough demolition of an idiot who blames the poor reception of the disastrous Star Wars sequels on Gamergate, Donald Trump, Q, white supremacy and God knows what all. Long but well worth reading, because this Rewriting Ripley is hardly unique – as those of us who were with the Sad Puppies a few years back can attest.
Secondly, Vox Day’s Arkhaven Comics has launched an alternative to Webtoons, Arktoons. The site aims to be competition not only to Webtoons but to the dying mainstream comics companies, who it certainly has beat on not only quantity of content but quality.
Thirdly, after neglecting the poor thing for far too long, I am updating Wombat’s Bookshelf, which is just what it says on the label: an index to the book reviews I’ve done here. I’ve gotten caught up through the end of 2019, and I should have 2020 and 2021 done by this evening. I invite you to take a look and see if there’s anything you missed; the site includes helpful links not just to the posts but to Amazon for the books reviewed. 
Finally, I don’t remember often enough to beat the drum for the National Fantasy Fan Federation, now celebrating its 80th year. In addition to the monthly newsletter, the N3F also publishes eight zines covering just about every aspect of geek culture, with a ton of reviews. Public (non-voting) memberships are free, voting memberships start at $6/year, and all publications come to your email box in PDF format regardless of your membership level. (Disclaimer: I am the treasurer & membership/recruitment-wallah.)
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Probably the best thing I’ve read in the last month or so is the H. Beam Piper Megapack, which includes just about all the SF Piper ever published (except, oddly enough, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) plus two non-SF novels, Rebel Raider and Murder In The Gunroom. Now, if you have the Ace/Baen anthologies and novels from the 1980s, you already have most of what’s in this book, but for 99 cents it’s still a great deal – and a lot more portable than the paperbacks. 

I was not nearly so impressed with Marko Kloos’ Aftershocks, the first in a new series from him. We meet the protagonist as he’s being released from a POW camp, having been on the losing end of an interplanetary war – which somebody seems to want to restart. Regardless of George R.R. Martin’s opinion, this is not nearly as good as Kloos’ Frontlines series; there was nothing about it that made me interested in looking at the sequels, whether or not they’re free through Kindle Unlimited. Now, Orders Of Battle, on the other hand, that’ll be worth the $6 it’ll cost to keep it. The seventh novel in the aforementioned Frontlines series, this tale of a reconnaissance in force against the former colony planet Willoughby, held by the alien Lankies since the beginning of the war, grabs you and drags you in – perhaps because you know the protagonist (and his wife) very well after six books, and perhaps because Kloos is writing a straightforward space opera instead of farting around with skulduggery and secret plots. 

That’s something Peter Nealen does a lot better, quite frankly. Took me a while to finish up Thunder Run, which is the sixth in his Maelstrom Rising series, but when I did, it delivered. The story is still with the Triarii Grex Luporum teams in Europe, where the EDC is still trying to put the screws to Poland and the other Eastern European nations who are tired of their supranational shit. Things aren’t going well for the Poles and their fellow rebels, but the EDC isn’t having things all their own way, either. Nealen does a good job of covering everything from tactical combat up to and including the Big Picture, both military and political. I am looking forward to the next book, Area Denial, which is due out in September. 

Some of you may remember Moe Lane from his previous life as a political blogger; he’s given that up to blog about books, music, movies, and role-playing games, and is also writing books, like the most excellent Frozen Dreams, Set in a post-apocalyptic Baja California, it’s a fantasy that starts with the premise that magic has returned with rather brutal effects on the America we know and love. Officially, there’s no magic or magicians in New California’s Cin City, but unofficially, the cleaning ladies and stagehands know more than they’ll say about the subject, and that’s a good thing for Shamus Tom Vargas, who’s been Called to Clear a murder case. If you ever wondered what a mashup of noir detective film and urban fantasy was like, well, here’s your chance to find out. An excellent deal at $2.99.

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Category: Books, Zeitgeist

Media: The Enemy of the People

Posted on | April 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Media: The Enemy of the People

Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics remarks on Twitter:

Hard to imagine a more divisive, sensational, context-less headline. A textbook example of the media being the enemy of the people.

The story in question is by the Associated Press:

Even as the Derek Chauvin case was fresh in memory — the reading of the verdict in a Minneapolis courtroom, the shackling of the former police officer, the jubilation at what many saw as justice in the death of George Floyd — even then, blood flowed on America’s streets.
And even then, some of that blood was shed at the hands of law enforcement.
At least six people were fatally shot by officers across the United States in the 24 hours after jurors reached a verdict in the murder case against Chauvin on Tuesday. The roll call of the dead is distressing:
A 16-year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio.
An oft-arrested man in Escondido, California.
A 42-year-old man in eastern North Carolina. . . .
An unidentified man in San Antonio.
Another man, killed in the same city within hours of the first.
A 31-year-old man in central Massachusetts.
The circumstances surrounding each death differ widely.

Were they engaged in crime? Were they resisting arrest? Did they pose a threat of deadly violence? “Circumstances . . . differ widely,” we are told, but all the Associated Press and the headline writers at the Huffington Post are interested in is the number, with the implication that the lives of innocent Americans everywhere are endangered by the police.

Derek Chauvin’s knee is on all our necks — or so the media arsonists would have us believe. Here’s a point I made just yesterday:

What is the point of issuing pistols to police officers, if they never shoot any criminals? In 2020, about 1,200 suspects were shot to death by cops — a hundred a month — and very few of those shootings could legitimately be considered “controversial.” For every questionable police shooting, there are many dozens of cases that are strictly “local news” because either (a) the suspect was white, and there’s no racial angle to exploit, or (b) the suspect was so flagrantly dangerous not even Ben Crump would object to cops shooting him dead.
My point is that cops shooting bad guys is not a rare event in America, and thank God for that, because the potential of getting shot — the credible threat — is what makes law enforcement effective. Why would anyone cooperate with a police officer otherwise?

What the Associated Press has done is to foster the false impression — a standard trope of BLM propaganda — that suspects who get shot by cops generally don’t deserve to be shot, that police are routinely using deadly force where it is not necessary or lawful. The only purpose this propaganda serves is to encourage more criminals to resist arrest, which will predictably result in more suspects being shot by cops, while at the same time every report of a suspect being killed will result in more riots and more political pressure to reduce law enforcement.

Even if someone is charging at you with a knife, cops can’t shoot them — that’s the madhouse toward which the media seek to lead us.

The journalists responsible for this are truly “the enemy of the people.”




 

Category: Crime, Media Bias

FMJRA 2.0: And Then I’m Going To Kiss Your Pineapple!

Posted on | April 24, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: And Then I’m Going To Kiss Your Pineapple!

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It was a beautiful sunny day in Tonopah today, so I opened the kitchen window while I played video games.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Jones v. Pushaw Update
EBL

FBI Knew About Indianapolis Gunman
Bacon Time
The Political Hat
Proof Positive
EBL

Cancel Mob Comes for QB Mac Jones
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Yes, That Song
A View From The Beach
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: Hane Ame
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Not All Heroes Wear Capes
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.19.21
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

CHAUVIN GUILTY
Dark Brightness
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.20.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

There’s Always a Backstory: Why Was Ma’khia Bryant Living in a Foster Home?
Moonbattery
First Street Journal
357 Magnum
EBL

Nika Holbert, the ‘Drug War’ and the Importance of Penalizing Stupidity
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 04.23.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending April 23:

  1.  EBL (12)
  2.  357 Magnum (8)
  3.  (tied) A View From The Beach & Proof Positive (7)

Thanks to everyone for all the linkagery!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Video: A Death in Omaha

Posted on | April 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Video: A Death in Omaha

Two important details about the death of Kenneth Jones:

An autopsy later showed that Jones’ urine and blood tested positive for phencyclidine, or PCP, a hallucinogen. . . .
Jones had a felony conviction on his record and would have faced a mandatory three years in prison if convicted on a charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon.

The loaded .45 Jones was carrying on the night of Nov. 19, 2020, had been purchased by his brother. We do not know — the article in the Omaha World-Herald doesn’t tell us — whether the brother acted as a “straw man” purchaser to provide his criminal brother with a weapon, which would be a federal felony. Liberals are always proclaiming they want “common sense” gun-control laws, and prohibiting convicted felons from possessing firearms is about as common-sense as it gets. Need I explain the relevance of this to the death of Kenneth Jones?

  1. Contrary to what liberals would have us believe, there are already numerous laws — federal, state and local — which regulate the sale and possession of firearms.
  2. Criminals do not obey gun-control laws. If it were in their nature to obey laws, they wouldn’t be criminals, would they?
    and
  3. The way to prevent “gun violence” (a phrase beloved by the liberal media) is to enforce existing laws.

Guess whose job it is to enforce laws?

Oh, wait — it’s the police! And liberals hate the police.

So it’s about 7:30 on a November night, a week before Thanksgiving, when Omaha police officers Dan Faulkner and Rich Martier are on patrol on the south side of Omaha, on South 27th Street about a mile west of the Missouri River. Let me ask the reader: What do you know about Omaha? And what do you know about standard police procedures?

Knowing nothing at all about the geography of Omaha, I would hazard a guess that the city’s south side includes what most people would call “bad neighborhoods,” that the south side is home to most of Omaha’s black population, and is also where most gun violence in the city occurs. Because the job of law enforcement is to prevent crime and apprehend criminals, I would further speculate that Omaha cops spend a lot of time patrolling the south side of the city: “Hunt where the ducks are,” as the old adage goes. All of which is to say, it was not a coincidence that officers Faulkner and Martier were in the vicinity of South 27th Street on the evening of Nov. 19. They’re both four-year veterans of the force, and had probably spent a lot of time in that neighborhood, so when they saw a Dodge Charger driving erratically, they knew what was up.

“Probable cause” — an impaired driver, that was what they suspected. There were three women in the car, and Kenneth Jones was in the back seat on the driver’s side. Even before they exited their patrol vehicle, the cops saw Jones reaching around in the back seat. If you’ve watched enough bodycam videos on YouTube — you are subscribed to the Police Activity channel, right? — you’ve seen this scenario played out dozens of times in office-involved shootings: Cops pull over a bad guy, notice him moving around in the vehicle in a way that suggests he’s trying to hide something, and the order is shouted: “Show me your hands!”

Before we get to the video, let me digress for a moment and ask you to consider something: What is the point of issuing pistols to police officers, if they never shoot any criminals? In 2020, about 1,200 suspects were shot to death by cops — a hundred a month — and very few of those shootings could legitimately be considered “controversial.” For every questionable police shooting, there are many dozens of cases that are strictly “local news” because either (a) the suspect was white, and there’s no racial angle to exploit, or (b) the suspect was so flagrantly dangerous not even Ben Crump would object to cops shooting him dead.

My point is that cops shooting bad guys is not a rare event in America, and thank God for that, because the potential of getting shot — the credible threat — is what makes law enforcement effective. Why would anyone cooperate with a police officer otherwise?

You’re driving 90 mph and see the blue lights in your rearview mirror, why not just keep going, if the cop can’t shoot you? The cop wants to put you in handcuffs? Just say “no,” because he can’t shoot you. That gun on the officer’s hip is there for a reason, you see. If cops were prohibited from using their guns, there would be no real law enforcement, and criminals would be able to perpetrate felonies with impunity.

This is the future anarchy toward which anti-cop rhetoric is leading us. America will become a society in which criminals have no fear of police, in which no one will be safe from violent predators. And while I’m digressing, let me ask: How many unsolved homicides have there been in Omaha in the past 15 or 20 years? I ask this because Kenneth Jones was 35 years old and had apparent been perpetrating felonies his entire adult life. He had been busted at least three times on weapons charges, and in 2014 was sentenced to prison: “Jones was released on May 3, 2018 after serving three-and-a-half years with 191 days of good time, according to records from the Department of Corrections.” Is anyone foolish enough to believe that Jones was in the habit of carrying weapons for peaceful and legal purposes? No, don’t be silly — he was a full-time criminal, and the pistol was a tool of his felonious trade. We will never know how many people Kenneth Jones robbed, assaulted, or murdered during the course of his criminal life, but we do know this: He’ll never shoot anyone again.

 

“I’ve got my f**king gun right on your face.”

Say what you will, but you can’t say Officer Martier failed to explain the situation clearly to Kenneth Jones. Everybody else in the car raised their hands, but Jones kept reaching around, because he knew damned well he was going back to prison if he got caught with that gun.

How often have you heard liberal advocates of gun control speak about the need to “get guns off our streets”? Well, how do they suppose this is going to happen? Whose job will it be to apprehend criminals and confiscate their weapons? Cops, that’s who. And what will happen when, predictably, criminals don’t cooperate with the program?

You just watched the video. Now imagine how many more shootings like this we’re going to see if Democrats enact new gun-control laws.

Maybe you think more laws are the answer to the “gun violence” problem, but in my opinion, the real solution to the problem is more effective enforcement of the laws we already have. And really, how could any American be against effective law enforcement?

Kenneth Jones could not be reached for comment.




 

Category: Crime, Nebraska, Racism

In The Mailbox: 04.23.21

Posted on | April 23, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.23.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Relationship issues

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How’s That Affordable Bail Working Out?
EBL: Dean Martin – April Again
Twitchy: Drew Holden’s Receipt-Filled Thread Absolutely Decimates The Ma’Khia Bryant News Cycle
Louder With Crowder: Joe Biden Masks Up For Zoom Call With 16 World Leaders – He’s The Only One That Does
Vox Popoli: The Beatification Of St. Floyd, also, One Can’t Miss What Isn’t There
According To Hoyt: On Sparing The Rod
Monster Hunter Nation: ShivWorks ECQC, Utah 2021
Stoic Observations: A Cop On Trial
Gab News: Gab Welcomes Pushback Against Experimental Vaccines

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Gretchen Whitmer’s Crumbling Kingdom
American Greatness: Senate Republicans Just Handed Matches To An Arsonist, also, VA DOE To Eliminate All Accelerated Match Courses As Part Of “Equity” Plan
American Thinker: Liar Liar, Media Pants On Fire, also, The Left’s Orwellian Perversion Of Language
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Taking The High Ground Friday
Babalu Blog: Several Cubans Burned By Exploding Croquettes Sold In State-Owned Stores
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, SpaceX’s Endeavour Successfully Launches Four Astronauts To ISS
Cafe Hayek: “Malign Psychological Changes”
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Five Thoughts Under The Fedora, also, Ayn Rand Warned Us When She Wrote The Fountainhead
Don Surber: White Flight 2021
First Street Journal: Sarah Longwell & Jennifer Rubin Don’t Like Democracy, also, Is It Any Wonder Black Americans Don’t Trust The Police?
The Geller Report: French Policewoman Stabbed To Death By Muslim Screaming “Allahu Akbar”, also, “Cancel Rent” Champion Ayanna Pressley Raked In Thousands As Landlord
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Profitable LARPing? and Shooting To Stop
Hollywood In Toto: RudinGate Shows Hollywood Morality On Pathetic Display, also, Nicholson & Penn Team For Unflinching, Unforgettable Pledge
The Lid: Another Leftist Hit Piece – WaPo’s “Fact Check” Of Sen. Tim Scott
Legal Insurrection: Southern Illinois U Prof Indicted For Concealing Red China Ties, also, Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Make Wall Street Pay For “Free” College
Michelle Malkin: Astroturfing COVID Agitprop
Nebraska Energy Observer: Friday Roundup
Outkick: Jim Jordan Heads List Of Congressmen Demanding Documents On MLB Decision To Pull All-Star Game, also, Mainstream Media Covering For LeBron James
Power Line: Democrats Vote To Continue Discriminating Against Asians, also, The DC Statehood Gambit
Shark Tank: Firebrand Val Demings’ Biggest 2022 Election Challenge Could Be Herself
Shot In The Dark: Parody Meets Reality. As Usual.
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, #BLM Activists Storm A State Capitol
Transterrestrial Musings: Earth Day, also, When Will SN15 Fly?
Victory Girls: Caitlyn Jenner, California’s Next Governor?
Volokh Conspiracy: Race & Mass Shootings
Weasel Zippers: VA DOE To Drop All Accelerated Math Classes Because Minorities Are Underrepresented, also, DHS Whistleblower Says Border Guards Are Burned Out From Biden Policies Already
The Federalist: Stunning Chauvin Juror Confession, also, Corporate Media & Other Race-Baiters Have Incited More Violence Than Trump Ever Did
Mark Steyn: The Eyes Don’t Have It

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | April 22, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

The science is settled!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Candace Owens Has A Few Words For LeBron James
EBL: Happy Birthday, Rome, also, Do Black Lives Matter? Not To Democrats
Twitchy: Dana Loesch Wants To Know If Police Should Have Broken Up That “Old Fashioned” Knife Fight That Killed A Thirteen Year Old
Louder With Crowder: Joe Biden Threatens Americans That July 4th May Be Canceled If They Don’t Do What They’re Told
Vox Popoli: Alone, You Will Fail, also, The Rorschach Test
Gab News: Jesus Saves – American Populism

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Playing Catch Up
American Conservative: So You Say You Want A Culture War
American Greatness: How Much Ruin Do We Have Left? also, It’s Not A Race War, It’s Something Much Bigger
American Thinker: The Democrats’ Divide & Conquer Strategy Is On Steroids
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Clueless Queen Nancy News
Babalu Blog:  On This Day In 2000 – Bill Clinton Sends Federal Agents To Kidnap Elian Gonzalez
BattleSwarm: Why Does The Dallas City Council Want Illegals On Their Commissions?
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, First Images Of Ingenuity’s Second Flight
Cafe Hayek: “Get Out Of My Pub!”
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: My Very Simple Brian Sicknick Question, also, MLB Playing Statistical Games On Streaming Viewership
Don Surber: Parkland Survivors Cheer Runcie’s Arrest
First Street Journal: An Interesting Juxtaposition, also, Earth Day 2021
The Geller Report: Biden’s Climate Hoax Agenda, also, Spanish Watchdog Warns Of Far-Left Antisemitic Parties In Upcoming Elections 
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Another False Report
Hollywood In Toto: Faith-Based Walking With Herb Lands In A Spiritual Sand Trap
The Lid: Twitter Grants LeBron James “Dumb Jock Privilege”
Legal Insurrection: Howard U Dissolving Its Classics Department, also, Minority Students At Loyola U Want To Cut Western Civilization From Honors Program
Nebraska Energy Observer: Tentacles
Outkick: OJ Gives LBJ Advice On Talking About Knives & Murder, also, DeSantis, Florida Open “Oasis Of Freedom” With 100% Indoor Capacity For UFC 261
Power Line: Through Douglass’ Eyes, also, The Latest Anti-Police Fraud
Shark Tank: FL AG Ashley Moody Leads National Coalition Against Court-Packing
Shot In The Dark: One Day, Driving Through Eastern Ukraine, also, In A Linden Hills Household
STUMP: Public Finance – Full Accrual Accounting & GASB Testimony
The Political Hat: Cannon Fodder For Social Justice
This Ain’t Hell: 82nd Airborne Soldier Dies In Training Accident, also, AF MGEN’s Sexual Assault Case Moving To Court-Martial
Transterrestrial Musings: The Latest Witch Hunt, also, The Martian Atmosphere
Victory Girls: Black Lives Only Matter When They Fit The Narrative
Volokh Conspiracy: Duty To Retreat & Duty To Comply
Weasel Zippers: Remember – The Founder Of Earth Day Killed & Composted His Girlfriend, also, #BLM Claims Black Communities “Terrorized” More Under Biden “Than They Had Been Under Trump”
The Federalist: NBC Deceptively Edits 911 Call, Bodycam Footage To Conceal Teen Wielding Knife, also, A Conservative Defense Of Camille Paglia
Mark Steyn: Summit For Nothing, also, Race To The Bottom

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | April 22, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.22.21 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Sadly, This Is NOT A Joke
EBL: Scapegoat
Twitchy: CNN’s Briana Keilar Has An Interesting Way To Describe Ma’Khia Bryant’s Intended Stabbing Victim
Louder With Crowder: White House Shows True Colors – Repeats False Narrative About Columbus Shooting, also, Postal Service Running Op That Monitors Your Social Media Posts
Vox Popoli: Portland Envy. also, People Have The Power
Stoic Observations: The Meritocracy Question

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: 
American Conservative: Red China & The Limits Of U.S. Sanctions
American Greatness: #BLM Activist Says Teens Have Been Having Knife Fights “For Eons”, Police Don’t Need To Intervene
American Power: Tucker Carlson & Mark Steyn
American Thinker: Why Maxine Waters Wanted A Mistrial For Derek Chauvin
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Cuban Communist Party With Raul Castro Vs. Cuban Communist Party Without Raul Castro
BattleSwarm: L.A. Homeless Injunction – Something For Everyone To Hate
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, The Anti-Sat Missile The USSR Designed For The Salyut Station
Cafe Hayek: The Tyranny Of Tiny Risks
CDR Salamander: Kiwis Go Wobbly
Da Tech Guy: My “Defund The Police” Compromise, also, Going Up The Country
Don Surber: Dear George Bush – You’re A Jabroni, also, Aussies To Red China – GFY
First Street Journal: It Looks Like Lexington Is Trying To Become Philadelphia, also, Is It Time To Start Calling It The China Virus Again?
The Geller Report: “Squad” Members Spent Up To $32,000 On Private Security While Calling For Police Defunding, also, House Democrats Support Bloody Street Violence, Block McCarthy’s Resolution To Censure Maxine Waters
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, A False Report
Hollywood In Toto: Boys From County Hell Misses The Mark On Horror/Comedy Blend, also, Seven Causes You Won’t Hear Championed During The Oscars
The Lid: Derek Chauvin Did Murder George Floyd, But It Had Nothing To Do With Racism
Legal Insurrection: Democrat Withdraws Bill To Reveal California Recall Petition Signers, also, Norfolk Police Officer Doxxed & Fired After Contributing “Anonymously” To Kyle Rittenhouse Defense Fund
Nebraska Energy Observer: The Old Mill, Part 4
Outkick: LeBron James Irresponsibly Tries To Ruin Police Officer’s Life With Tweet, also, Former UFC Women’s Champ Ronda Rousey Announces She’s Pregnant
Power Line: Thoughts On The Chauvin Trial & Verdict, also, A History To Be Proud Of
Shark Tank: DeSantis Accused Of Having Broward County School Superintendent Arrested
Shot In The Dark: Public Health Theater Of The Absurd
This Ain’t Hell: Russian Update, also, Neither Snow Nor Rain, Comrade
Transterrestrial Musings: Nelson’s Confirmation Hearing, also, Trump’s Biggest Failure
Victory Girls: Critical Race Theory Promotes Discrimination & Racism
Volokh Conspiracy: Framing & Ratifying The 14th & 15th Amendments
Weasel Zippers: Teen Girl Shot & Killed By Police Was Trying To Shank Another Black Girl When Shot, also, Sen. Whitehouse Speaks Against Dark Money At Event Funded By Dark Money Groups
The Federalist: White House Condemns Police Shooting Of Knife-Wielding Teen As Racist, also, There’s No Way Americans Can Trust The Chauvin Verdict
Mark Steyn: Police State Backpedal

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Category: Linkagery

Nika Holbert, the ‘Drug War’ and the Importance of Penalizing Stupidity

Posted on | April 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Nika Holbert, the ‘Drug War’ and the Importance of Penalizing Stupidity

We have talked before about this case (“Nika Holbert and the BLM Myth”), but I must again address the death of Nika Holbert because one of the YouTube channels I watch regularly has featured it.

John Correia’s Active Self Protection channel is both entertaining and educational. If you want to see real-life violent confrontations analyzed by a specialist in self-defense, this is the channel for you. Seldom do I ever disagree with John Correia, but in analyzing the shootout between Holbert and Officer Josh Baker, Correia suggest that the way to prevent such incidents is to end “the drug war.” Watch the video:

 

John is just wrong on this issue of “the drug war,” and I’ll explain why.

Narcotic use is a proxy for stupidity. Yes, there are people at Harvard with drug habits, and plenty of folks with high SAT scores might enjoy the occasional tab of ecstasy or toot of coke, but in general — as a sociological statistic — dopeheads are not valedictorians. Beyond that simple fact of life, an important but less-appreciated aspect of the “drug war” is that the way you get busted for dope is by being stupid.

When I was a teenage dopehead, the importance of avoiding interactions with the law-enforcement community was obvious enough. You didn’t want to be caught “holding,” as we said, especially when you were involved in the, uh, commercial distribution of illegal substances.

A smart dopehead would not be driving around with dope in the car. Leave your stash at home, dude. But if you are going to carry dope with you, maybe you shouldn’t be driving a car owned by a drug dealer with six felony warrants. That was Nika Holbert’s stupid mistake, followed by the even more stupid mistake of pulling a gun on a cop.

Think of this in terms of incentives. As a society, it behooves us to reward intelligence, to make sure that the smartest people get into positions where their intelligence can be most usefully employed. Without clever people to design computers and so forth, our civilization’s technological advancement would be impaired. But the obverse this principle is also true — stupidity must be penalized. Why? Because stupid people, if left to do as they please, will screw things up for everybody.

Who Broke the Milkshake Machine?

Everything wrong in our country — from traffic jams to lousy restaurant service to the presidency of Joe Biden — is the fault of stupid people.

Think about all the ways stupid people make your life worse. Say you pull into the drive-thru line at McDonald’s. You’re going to wait longer than necessary because, somewhere up ahead of you in the line, there is a stupid person who can’t get their order right. Instead of ordering something simple — “Give me a Number Three meal” — they have to do it all complicated, and not communicating very clearly. Because they’re stupid. When you finally get to order your large chocolate milkshake, they tell you, “Sorry, the milkshake machine’s broken.” Why? Who broke the milkshake machine? A stupid person, that’s who.

Excuse me for digressing into a gripe about my pet peeves, but my point is, there is a shortage of intelligent people in America, whereas we have a vast surplus of stupidity. Why? Incentives.

As a society, we are no longer sufficiently penalizing stupidity. Among the potential penalties for being stupid is a loss of income, but apparently you can’t fire people for being stupid nowadays, because they’ll sue for “worker’s rights” or whatever, which is why McDonald’s keeps hiring idiots who don’t know how a milkshake machine works.

This same basic problem is why a fat idiot thinks she can drive around with dope in her purse and a pistol in a car owned by a drug dealer, but starts shrieking like an innocent victim when a cop tries to put the handcuffs on her. And then gets killed because she is apparently too stupid to know what happens when you point a pistol at a cop.

According to online records from both Metro and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Nika Holbert’s criminal background includes several repeat misdemeanors, including driving with a revoked license and theft under $500.
Holbert also had a felony drug charge from 2010.
Her last listed interaction with law enforcement was a public indecency charge in 2017.

“Live and learn” as the old adage says, but stupidity is incurable. The only way to protect society against the harm caused by stupid people is by quarantine — put them behind bars so that they can’t make life miserable for the rest of us. Alas, however, stupid people are voters, and they tend to vote for the kind of politicians who think the answer to every problem is to make life easier for the stupid people who elect them.

“Let’s decriminalize drugs,” say the stupid people, who are statistically more likely to be dopeheads, and also more likely to get caught. Then the politicians who pander to such people get elected, and when their stupid policies turn communities into nightmare wastelands, everyone pretends to be surprised by this predictable outcome. Oregon legalized dope, and Portland is a lunatic hellscape. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

While we’re at it, let’s discuss the role of technology in what happened to Nika Holbert. You see, the reason she got pulled over was because he ran the license plate number on the Camaro she was driving and learned it was owned by a drug dealer with six outstanding warrants. Cops now have computers in their patrol cars that make it much easier to do this and, in many jurisdictions, police cars are equipped with automatic scanning devices that alert cops to vehicles that are stolen, or with other issues including outstanding warrants. You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that the Democrat-controlled city council in Nashville considered tag-scanning technology to be “controversial”:

License plate reader technology was previously banned in Metro Nashville back in 2017.
After street racing problems caused public safety concerns, the conversation has been brought back into focus for the Metro Council. At the start of 2020 three different bills looked to address how LPRs could be utilized properly in Nashville.
“We need some more tools in our toolbox in order to help completely eradicate this dangerous activity,” District 26 Councilmember Courtney Johnston said.
Johnston, whose legislation was deferred until February 2, said she listened to people’s concerns on how the technology would affect policing and privacy.

Who are the “people” who have these “concerns”? The same people, I suspect, who got tag-scanners banned in Nashville in 2017.

Stupid people, that’s who. You see, stupidity is a hereditary trait, and so there are a lot of people out walking around on our nation’s streets — voting for Democrats, and attending city council meetings — who have stupid relatives in prison. When you see a story in the media talking about how the “community” is concerned that police are being too successful at putting criminals behind bars, this “community” sentiment comes from the stupid relatives of stupid criminals.

This is where all those “family demands answers” headlines come from whenever police shoot a stupid criminal. Your teenager daughter is living in a foster home and trying to stab people, but you’re too stupid to understand why she got shot? “FAMILY DEMANDS ANSWERS.”

Man, if I’d been stupid enough to get myself shot by cops back when I was a teenage dopehead, my family wouldn’t have been “demanding answers.” My kinfolk are smart enough it would have been obvious to them that I’d simply suffered the predictable consequences of stupidity.

“No, sir. I have nothing to say. I understand that I have the right to have my attorney present during questioning.”

Never went to prison, because I’m not stupid.

Also, eventually, I realized the error of my ways, and one of my youthful errors was hanging around with losers and troublemakers.

This is another reason why I’m against John Correia’s idea of surrendering to stupid people in what he calls “the drug war.”

Some People Should Ride the Bus

Stupid behavior leads to bad consequences, and smart people eventually notice this pattern, either in their own lives or by observing the lives of others. It is only the truly stupid among us — the hopeless dimwits — who are repeatedly in trouble with the law.

Did I mention that Nika Holbert’s criminal record was released by officials? As evidence of incorrigible stupidity, it’s quite conclusive. She kept getting caught for driving without a license, or driving with fake tags on the car, or possessing small quantities of marijuana, which are exactly the kind of things that stupid people get caught doing.

Stupid people should not be allowed to drive. That’s why we have public transportation, for people who are too stupid to drive. What part of “Nika should have been riding the bus” do I need to explain here?

America’s problem is not merely our failure to penalize stupidity, but also that intelligent people are far too polite for their own good. We have been taught that it’s wrong — “insensitive” or too “judgmental” — to make stupid people feel ashamed of their stupidity. This is an unfortunate consequence of the “self-esteem” cult that took root in our education system decades ago. The emergence of this cult was a typical example of what happens when mediocre minds (think, education majors) are exposed to sociology statistics without proper adult supervision.

Some education professional noticed that (a) successful people tend to have (b) high self-esteem, and concluded that (b) was the cause of (a).

This is like the “Think System” in The Music Man.

Notice how I just assumed that the reader is (a) capable of understanding analogies and (b) familiar with Broadway musicals. This is because I understand that 1,500 words into a blog post is not where you find people who should be riding the bus, IYKWIMAITYD.

No, the kind of people who are still reading after 1,500 words are extraordinarily intelligent. So smart are my blog readers, in fact, that some of them are designing space robots for NASA.

And driving German cars. I don’t know if there are any sociological studies on this, but based on a small sample of space-robot engineers, I have observed a distinct preference for German automobiles. However, correlation is not causation, and simply buying a Volkswagen won’t turn you into a NASA engineer, the same way that high self-esteem won’t make you successful. This is the error of the Cult of Self-Esteem, which has ruined our school system because teachers think they can make kids succeed simply by telling them how wonderful they are.

That’s why no one ever told Nika Holbert she was too stupid to be allowed to drive a car. And she ended up getting shot for it.

Oh, and pulling a pistol on a cop.

The Darwin Awards Committee could not be reached for comment.




 

Category: Crime, Racism, Tennessee
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