Month: January 2018

Back when I was younger I practically lived for super hero comic books.  I lived vicariously the adventures of the heroes and heroines within them.  And before I grew up and got “respectable” I wanted to be a super hero and, if I may be frank, a part of me never really outgrew that.  And it’s with sadness that I realize I can’t, that the world doesn’t work that way and I would accomplish no more than to get myself stupidly killed accomplishing nothing.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t good inspiration that can be taken from comics.  And one of my favorites back before my general disaffection with comics (part of their generally becoming darker long about the mid 80’s–I pretty much drifted away after DC’s “Crisis on Infinite Earth’s”) was Marvel’s Captain America.  Well, it was recently brought to my attention that as of the “Civil War” arc of a few years ago Cap was still a worthy source of inspiration:

“I remember the first time I really understood what it was to be an American…What it was to be a patriot.”

“I was just a kid…A million years ago, it seems sometimes. Maybe twelve. I was reading Mark Twain.

And he wrote something that struck me right down to my core…something so powerful, so true, that it changed my life. I memorized it so I could repeat it to myself, over and over across the years. He wrote –‘In a republic, who is the country?

Is it the government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the government is merely a temporary servant: it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. It’s function is to obey orders, not originate them.

Who, then is the country? Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it, they have not command,  they have only their little share in the command.

In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country: In a republic it is the common voice of the people each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.

It is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians.

Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.

If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of’.”

Cap continues, “Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree besides the river of truth, and tell the whole world–

—No you move.”

This, of course, isn’t the first stirring speech that Captain America made.  He was noted for them.  Another good one, involving his intervention in an altercation between a neo-Nazi group and a group of Jewish counter-protesters.  Protest and counter-protest quickly grows into riot.  Cap intervenes, breaking up the fight, and…

“All my life I’ve had a habit of making speeches.  Some people have criticized me for it.  They may be right.  Because I cannot express with words the horror I feel at seeing what you’ve done here today.

Don’t you realize that in your attack, you’ve attacked your own freedom as well?

The Freedom that guarantees all ideas–both noble and ignoble–the expression that is imperative if our society is to survive!

[Ed:  speaking to Jewish protestor] You!  Can’t you see that in stooping to your enemy’s level–you’re being made over in his image–that you’re becoming the very thing you loathe?

[Ed:  Speaking to Neo-nazi] And You!  In your fear and ignorance you deny reality!  Rewrite history!  I wish I could take you back with me to the day we liberated Diebenwald [Ed:  Presume this is the name given to one of the death camps in the Marvel Universe]–let you smell the stomach-churning stench of death–let you see the mountain of corpses left behind by the corrupt madman and murderer you idolize!

You two aren’t interested in the truth—are you?

You’re only interested in your own self-consuming hate.

Two of  a kind.

Even in short bits:

When a government functionary demanded that he submit himself to following government orders:

I’m not Captain President or Captain Government.  I’m Captain America.

Or when a General comments that he knows Captain America is loyal:

[Ed:  Touching the hem of a flag] I’m loyal to nothing, General–except the dream.

Since then, the company that put those words in Cap’s mouth seemed bound and determined to destroy the very ideals he stood for.

But the old ones are still out there, and still worthy of being a good place to seek inspiration.

The dream…survives.

 

You know, I’ve been looking at this budget crisis and it occurs to me. Would it really be such a horrible thing to live on the budget we had in, say, 2004? Even the fight against ISIS, et al, isn’t really more expensive than the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns we were fighting then, right?

So why not set the budget equal to what it was in 2004. Oh, there will have to be adjustments. I think it’s reasonable to increase the budget proportional for the US population. After all, a lot of functions do scale with the number of people “served” by the government. Not all of them, but let’s use that anyway so we can be generous and increase the budget by 12.3% to account for that population increase.

Prices have gone up too, so we’d better increase the budget to accommodate that as well. The figures I’ve seen give a net 29% inflation between 2004 and today. So let’s increase the budget that amount as well.

So, let’s see, the expenditures of the us government in 2004 (right off the GPO’s .gov web site) were 2.3 trillion. Increase that by 12.3% then again by 29% and we get a value of $3.33 trillion.

The CBO’s estimate for 2017 tax revenue will be $3.377 trillion.  That not only completely wipes out the deficit, but leave $47 billion extra to start paying down the debt.

Sure, not everybody would get everything they want, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it? After all, it wasn’t the end of the world in 2004 so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be today.

What has been done, can be done.

A bit of fiddling was necessary with the cover, but the new book is now up and available.

Three tales, each giving a different view of the God of Thunder:

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Donner Rothskegg:  When a struggling family man is mugged on his way home, a homeless drifter saves him.  Strangeness follows this drifter who proves to be more than he at first appears.

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In the Hall of the Giant:  Thor and Loki journey to Jötunheim, the land of the giants.  There, Thor faces his most difficult challenge, and his most implacable foe.

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God of Thunder: In the waning days of the Viking colonies on Greenland, a young warrior follows Skraelings, raiders from the icy waste even further to the north, that had been attacking their village.  He finds something even stranger and more terrifying and discovers the truth of the old stories.

I keep running into this idea that Jesus was a socialist.  There was a meme going around during Christmas with various “Christmas Heroes”.  There’s a quote misattributed to former President Jimmy Carter about how you can’t say you want a Christian nation if you object to your tax dollars being used to help the poor.  All over the place people on the left arguing “Jesus was a socialist.”

Utter rot.

Now, full disclaimer.  I am not a Christian.  I grew up in a sort-of Christian religion (many dispute that characterization because of differences in the nature of what more conventional religions call the trinity and in the belief of ongoing revelation and prophecy, but I go with a more basic definition, summed up in Simon Peter’s declaration “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God”) but I long since found I could not believe it any more and once I separated from that one, none of the other Christian sects appealed to me any more.

However, I understand Christianity far better than these Christian left people.

Christ taught giving.  Giving means taking ones own property and passing it on to someone in need.  Nowhere did he advocate taking from others by force and “redistributing” it.  He certainly did not advocate taking from others, using what’s taken to fund a huge government bureaucracy, and pass out a pittance of the remainder to the poor (have to justify that bureaucracy somehow).

Nowhere in the Bible is there a passage similar to this:

When people advocate socialism enforced by government, they are advocating using force to take from some to give to others.  Nowhere in his teachings did Christ advocate that.  Nowhere.

This is where some people say “but Christ said Render unto Caesar.” Yes.  He did.  In response to a question intended to trap him.  Context matters.  Christ had rising popularity among the masses which concerned the Jewish leadership greatly.  So they planted the question of whether they should give tribute to Caesar.  If Christ had simply said “yes” he would have lost his popular audience and his ministry would have died right there.  If he had said “no”, he would likely have been arrested (“we caught him forbidding tribute to Caesar” was one of the charges the Sanhedrin laid against him when handing him over to the Romans for execution).  And his ministry would have died right there.  Instead, he asked for an example of the tribute money, asked whose picture was on it, and gave his famous answer.  And if people followed him in that, the Roman reprisal, destruction of Jerusalem, and diaspora would have occurred before much of Christ’s mission was fairly begun.  If you accept his divinity, you have to accept that he knew this and gave the answer that allowed him to complete his mission.

But did “render unto Caesar” mean an endorsement of everything that tax funds were used for?  Did he endorse gladiatorial games?  Wars of conquest?  The capture and importation of slaves?  The use of government troops to put down slave revolts?  Let’s not be absurd.  Just because the Roman government did something with tax monies, or modern governments do something with it, “Render unto Caesar” is not an endorsement of that use.

Government is force, pure and simple.  That’s essentially a definition of government:  the legitimizing of the use of force.  Socialism imposed by government has nothing to do with Christian charity.  It is, in fact, very nearly the exact opposite, wearing a mask to confuse the unwary.

Beware of Socialists who come to you in Sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Woe to you agents of government and socialists.  Hypocrites!  For you are like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanliness.

As I pointed out in a post not too long ago, the police have no duty to protect you as an individual.  This has been asserted by law enforcement agencies and confirmed by the courts.

Somebody stops you on the street and threatens you with a knife lest you hand over all your money?  Not the government’s problem.  Oh, they’ll take your report and if by some chance they catch the guy they’ll add mugging you to the list of charges against him.  Maybe.  If they don’t plea deal that away.  But protect you from him in the first place?  Don’t be silly.

Some big ugly brute rapes your sister, wife, or daughter, beating her bloody in the process?  Still not the government or police’s problem.  Again, they’ll take the report and…good luck with that.

A gang breaks into your house killing your family and your dog (we’ll leave aside that this “gang” may wear badges for this discussion–that’s for another day).  Police come to photograph the bodies, collect evidence, and once again if they catch the folk use this evidence in court against them.  But you remain singularly unprotected.

Call the police telling them there’s an intruder and can they come protect you?  You’re on your own there, buddy.

And when they’re right there?  Well sometimes.  Maybe.  But then there’s…

Be attacked by a knife wielding maniac on a subway car with police right there in the operator’s compartment.  They’ll come out and arrest the maniac if you successfully subdue him despite being stabbed multiple times.  But protection?  I guess today was not your lucky day.

And so it goes.

Want to put a material into your body that the State considers harmful to you?  The police won’t… Wait a minute!  This one’s different.  The state will make that illegal in order to protect you from yourself.

The State disavows any responsibility to even try to protect you as an individual.  It’s only mandate is to protect “society.” But somehow, the State takes it on itself to protect you from yourself.  It bans things because you might hurt yourself doing them.  Whether the Narcotic act of 1914, the Volstead act in 1919, the manifold drug laws to follow, New Yorks “large soft drink” ban, and so on and so on, the same State that refuses to take responsibility to protect you from violent hoodlums takes upon itself the responsibility to protect you from yourself.  Advice and education is not sufficient.  It will protect you so hard that it will throw you in jail with violent criminals in order to “protect” you.

How does this make sense?  It doesn’t, not if “protection” is the reason.  If the State really was interested in protecting me then it would at least take responsibility for a best effort to protect me from violent criminals, not just society but each of the individuals that make up society.  Yes, I know they can’t protect everyone, but that doesn’t mean they should not try to protect those they can.

As Kaila said, in the following exchange in my novel The Hordes of Chanakra:

Before Kreg could even begin to feel uncomfortable about the banter over him, Shillond smiled at him and said, “Don’t mind me.  We have this argument quite often.  Last week it was an injured sparrow; the week before, an orphaned fawn; Kaila has difficulty realizing that she cannot save the entire world from hurt and harm.” He cast a sidelong glance at his daughter.

“And if I cannot defend all the weak and helpless of the world,” Kaila said, “Is that not all the more reason to defend and aid those who do come under my hand?”

But they don’t do that.  Maybe there’s a reason for that.  Maybe “protection” is not the goal.

So ask yourself, if it’s not to protect you from yourself, what exactly is the purpose?

Actually with an APAP, that detects Apnea events and adjusts pressure (within a range of 4 to 20 cm water) as needed.  The unit I got was a ResMed AirSense 10

First there was a slight problem at the fitting.  I was the last one of the day and they had two styles of nasal pillows (I wear a full beard so that seemed the best option at least to start with) to try.  However when they opened the package for one the contents did not match the label so that left us with the other as “take it or leave it.”

While I was there, I tried it.  No sweat.  I breathed easily at its low setting of 4 cm.  They also recommended a chin strap to help encourage me to keep my mouth closed when sleeping at night.  they also provided another strap to fit around my head and help keep the chin strap in place.

On the way home I stopped to pick up some distilled water for the humidifier in the CPAP.  First stop was the local Kroger.  The only “distilled water” they had was in the drinking water section with “minerals added for taste.” Yeah, getting the minerals out to avoid deposit buildup in the system is kind of the point.  So Kroger’s a bust, so I try the local CVS pharmacy.  After much searching I find it–over with the humidifiers.  Pick up a gallon.

Get home and set the device next to my bed and figure I’m ready to go.  And that’s where it stays until I go to bed.  I fill the humidifier, turn it on, put the mask on and go to bed.

And that’s when the adventure begins.

It takes me a long time to get to sleep.  Then I wake up about two hours after finally getting to sleep to find the mask has come off.  So I put it back on,  tighten the straps a bit (uncomfortably so, but I figure, I hope, I’ll get used to it).

Several times during the night I wake up to find that the mask has shifted.  It’s either completely off my nose or, in some ways worse, partially shifted so the openings of the pillows themselves are partially closed, and the CPAP has run the pressure up enough that it’s actually a chore to exhale out through it leaving me falling into “in through nose, out through mouth.  Return to basic of life, Daniel-san, breathe.”  Sorry Mr. Miyage.  Not when I’m trying to sleep.

In the morning, about seven hours after I got to bed, I find that the machine has only registered just under 3 hours of use.

All in all, the first night was a total fiasco.

Except…

Over the course of the day I have not had the daytime groggies.  I’m more awake and alert than I remember being for some time.  So even the minimal actual use of the machine, and the multiple actual wake-ups long enough for me to remember them, seems to have had a significant effect on the “quality” of my sleep.

So the trick now is to see if we can get past these initial problems and get this worked out.

Brief one tonight.  I’m preparing to release a new ebook, “The Thunderer” containing three stories featuring everyone’s favorite God of Thunder.

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Donner Rothskegg:

When a struggling family man is mugged on his way home, a homeless drifter saves him.  Strangeness follows this drifter who proves to be more than he at first appears.

We had reached a vaulted room. At the far side stood a dais with a throne. On the throne sat a, what, a werewolf? Some kind of half man, half wolf. No not wolf. Coyote.

“Welcome, nephew,” the creature said.

“Trickster you may be,” Donner said. “But that does not make you my uncle.”

“Am I not?”

“You are not so clever as he. You are trickster and tricked. He was ever the trickster never the tricked.”

“No? Was there not…”

Donner bowed. “One time only. And I am not so sure that he did not merely pretend to be tricked as part of some larger joke.”

The creature waved its hand in dismissal.

“Return the child,” Donner said.

“I claim that child as my own.”

I shouted before I could think. “No!”

Donner put a hand on my arm. “I think not, Coyote.” He smiled. “Stories in pictures, to entertain children. Such a simple thing. And yet this child believes in those stories. She believes in me. Her heart calls to me. She is under my protection. Return the child.”

The creature, Coyote, stood. “And if I refuse?”

Donner set his sack on the floor and opened it. He reached in and pulled out a wide belt of hinged metal plates. He buckled the belt around his waist. Next he drew from the sack two gloves, also of jointed metal, and slipped them onto his hands. Finally he pulled forth the largest hammer I had ever seen, at least a twenty pound sledgehammer with a handle only about ten inches long.

“Return the child!” Donner’s voice boomed like thunder.

“I claim the child as mine, to be raised in the old ways. Perhaps if she has no family to claim her…” Somehow–I did not see Coyote move–he was holding a bow and quiver of arrows. He drew and pointed. I knew that I saw my death.

The arrow flew. Donner lashed out with an arm and swept it around me. He pivoted, drawing me in and placing himself between me and Coyote. I heard a meaty thunk and six inches of arrow protruded from the front of Donner’s left shoulder.

My knees felt weak. Donner grinned down at me. “Flee up the passage. This is my work, my fight.”

I looked back over my shoulder. The passage was gone. “What passage?”

Donner pushed me back and turned to face Coyote. I saw the remainder of the arrow protruding from his back. “Ever the Trickster.” His arm swung with invisible speed. His hammer flashed across the room. Coyote stepped aside, evading the missile which struck instead the throne, reducing it to rubble.

Then, impossibly, the hammer flew back to Donner’s hand.

Donner? No, say the name I knew from my own childhood. Thor.

I stared. Thor. The stories I’d heard from my own childhood brought to life. Thor. Thor of the hammer, the hammer that always returned to its masters hand. The hammer that never missed.

And yet it had just missed.

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Thor and Loki journey to the land of the giants.  There, Thor faces his most difficult challenge, and his deadliest foe.

Toward evening Skrymir stopped.  Thor caught up with him, breathless, Thjalfi at his side.  Loki arrived a few heartbeats later.

“We will pass the night here, I think,” Skrymir said.

Thor looked up at the giant. “You said your brother’s place was near.”

“And so it is.” Skrymir nodded amiably. “We shall reach it soon come morning.” He stretched. “I am tired and think I will sleep.  Here.” He dropped the bag. “There is food within.  Eat.”

With that, Skrymir lay on the ground and was instantly asleep.

Thor dragged the bag to a sheltered spot between two great roots of the oak.  He sat and began to work at the knots sealing the bag.

Thor pressed his thumb and forefinger into one of the cords tying the bag closed and pulled.  The cord refused to budge.  He tried another with the same result.  Frowning, he tried to work the tie over the end of the bag.  That, too, failed.

“Thor?” Loki looked down from where he sat on one of the oak’s roots.

“The bag will not open.”

Loki chuckled. “The mighty Thor, stymied by a cord?”

Thor held up the bag and stared at it for a moment.  He took a handful of its cloth in each fist.  He pulled, straining his back and shoulder muscles.

The bag did not give.

Thor threw the bag to the ground.

“The giant tricks us.  He violates guesting law.  He offered food and then withheld it by this…this trick.

“He…tricks…us.” Thor drew his hammer from his belt and stalked to the sleeping giant.  He held the hammer overhead the swung it down in a massive strike against Skrymir’s head.

Skrymir’s eyes opened and he blinked sleepily. “Has a leaf fallen on my head?”

Skrymir rolled, his eyes falling on Thor who stood dumbfounded, Mjölnir hanging loosely in his grasp. “Why, Thor?  Have you eaten?  Are you ready to sleep for the night.”

“We…we are just going to sleep,” Thor said.

“Rest well then, Thunderer.”

“And you, Skrymir.”

Thor retreated to the meager shelter formed by the tree roots, chewing at his lower lip.  Never before had Mjölnir failed him.

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In the waning days of the Viking colonies on Greenland, a young warrior follows Skraelings that had been raiding their village, and learns the truth of the old stories.

Yes, children, let me sit by the fire. The cold gets into my bones these days. I will tell you a story.

That story? Yes, though your parents frown and the priests scowl, I will tell the story, for I have seen the truth of the old tales and they have not.

…

Night came and we found ourselves a hollow shielded from the wind. It had a small cliff with a slight overhang. There we stopped for the night. We built a small fire before the cliff. The rocks would hold the heat, you see, and would keep us warmer with a smaller fire than if we were out in the open.

Eirik set the order of the watch, to keep the fire lit as much as to watch for the skraelings, and the rest of us huddled between the fire and the rocks wrapped in our cloaks and slept.

That night I was, all of us were, awakened by a mighty thunderclap. I had never heard one so loud, not even the time I was standing three arm spans from Aelfred Olegsson’s chimney when lightning struck it. I thought I had been struck deaf but was proven wrong when the thunder returned, not with the crack following a lightning flash or the low rumble of distant thunder but in a steady roar that went on and on and on.

I held my hands to my ears and huddled on the ground calling on the Christian God to still the noise and take the pain away. I could see the others doing the same. But that God did not answer, or if He did, the answer was “no.”

Even in my pain, I could see that lightning was flashing over the ridge, striking in the next valley. This lightning against the sky shone into our own hollow and turned it to day. We could feel the very heat of it against our skins even through the pain of the thunder.

Even through all that, some part of my mind could only wonder that the skies were still clear. There was no storm to create that unnatural thunder.

Eventually that horrid thunder ceased. I tried to stand but the ground spun under me and I fell to crack my teeth against the stones. The world continued to spin and I could only crawl as though I were stupid with drink.

I felt a hand on my arm and looked to see that Eirik had grasped me. He too, was crawling, so I was not alone with whatever madness had infected my body. Blood poured from his nose and I reached up to my lip to find that I, too, was bleeding from the nose. Eirik’s mouth moved but I could hear no words, nor could I hear my own when I tried to speak. I knew then that I had been struck deaf.

Yes child, I can hear you. The curse was only for a time and had already begun to lift before dawn reared its head.

While it may shame a good Greenlander to say it, we were terribly a-frighted and huddled under that overhang, not daring to sleep, until dawn broke the sky.

As I said, by dawn the curse of deafness was starting to lift. I could hear Eirik’s words as though from a great distance. And his words frightened me even more than did the horrid thunder. He asked who would go with him to the next valley to see the cause of that terrible sound.

I wanted to flee. Whatever could make such thunder would be too horrible for any man to face. And yet, if I fled, then it would always be with me and I would always fear to look behind lest I find it coming for me.

I was not the first to say I would go with Eirik, but nor was I the last. In the end, no one refused.

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If stories of Vikings and the Gods of the North appeal you you, you might also like my story The Spaewife:

What can a spaewife do, when even the gods are against her and the future she foresees is full of horrors?

For years Katla Gudmarsdottir told no one of the things the Norns, controllers of fate, told her were coming. She shared forecastings of when to plant and when to harvest and other simple things, but not the dread visions the Norns gave her.

Now Ulfarr, the Foul one, has kidnapped her and holds her children hostage for her foretelling.

And alone, forsaken even by the Norns, Katla must save herself, her children and her people.

Donner Rothskegg: A struggling family man encounters a strange drifter who proves to be more than he ever imagined.

In the Hall of the Giants: From the annals of Norse Mythology, Thor and Loki travel to the land of the giants and face their most fearsome foes ever.

God of Thunder:  A young warrior in the last days of the Greenland colonies is chasing Skraelings who have raided their village when he encounters something extraordinary.

The cover art is by my daughter, Athena.  Final steps in putting this together, including final cover design, are still underway but the ebook should be available shortly.

I keep hearing from people telling me “if you don’t like it, why don’t you just move?”

There’s just one problem with that.  For those of us who prefer limited government on Constitutional principles (as written according to the understanding of those who wrote it, and as properly amended not just redefined away), where could we go?  Short of building new colonies on Earthlike planets around other stars there is no place to go.

As Ronald Reagan put it in a 1964 speech:

The enemy he was referring to then, of course, was the Soviet Union.  That enemy collapsed 27 years after Reagan gave that speech.  Now it’s a new enemy or enemies, the rise of militant Islam is one threat.  The apologists who object to treating it like an enemy, much like those who did the same regarding the old Soviet Union, serve to heighten and extend that threat.

But in many ways we face a more insidious threat.  Many of the ideas the Soviet Union tried to spread to the US in its effort to achieve suzerainty still live on in the US.  They are propagated in the entertainment media, spread in schools and universities, often by people who are not even aware that they are Marxist ideas.  Ideas like class warfare, the idea that someone who is financially successful is the enemy.  Ideas like zero sum economics so that the only way someone can have more is by depriving someone else.  The idea that those who seek wealth are “greedy” and unworthy, but those who seek power (so long as they are opposed to those who seek wealth) are somehow virtuous and good.

Got news for you, to paraphrase an ancient proverb:  Wealth might not always get you power, but power can always get you wealth.

And the folk fomenting that, those who want to turn the US into a carbon copy of Europe, say “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.”

We did go somewhere else.  We came here.  Unless somebody develops true space travel there’s no place left to go.  In Reagan’s words, this is the last stand on Earth.

This, of course, is the point where someone suggests “If you hate government so much, then move to Somalia.”

Look.  A failed state broken into warring factions led by local warlords who are essentially absolute (until violently deposed) in their local authority is a far cry from a Constitutional government of limited powers with the rights of the people (actual rights not “whatever I want I have a right to and someone else has to pay for it” type “rights”) held sacrosanct.  Indeed, it’s at least as far from that as the US is today.

Now, perhaps Somalia could be used as a starting point to make such a society, but the local warlords will not give up their petty fiefdoms willingly.  So such a transformation would not be bloodless.  And, not being bloodless, the international community would with near certainty take it upon itself to intervene and prevent the transformation.

So no, “going to Somalia” is not an option for those who actually desire a free society.

The same is not true for those who want European style socialism/social welfare.  Europe, after all, is right there.  It’s exactly what they say they want.  No transformation necessary.  If you’d be more happy in that system it’s there.  You can go there.  I would not deny you.

But you would rather stay here and deny me the kind of government that would make me happy.  Not just me, but a lot of other people like me.

It’s not that you want to live under the social, political, and economic system that pleases you that bothers me.  It’s that you want to force me to live under that system.  I can wave my arm indicating all the choices you have for your desired system.  You, and others like you, have worked hard through long years and decades to make sure there is no other choice for folk like me.

And that is why I will never stop fighting to leave at least one place in the world where Constitutional principles and individual liberty are given more than lip service.

That’s a motto still sometimes emblazoned on police cars.  It’s a nice thought but there doesn’t appear to be any reality behind it.

The first thing you need to understand is that the police have no obligation to protect any individual.  Even in the special case where the court has issued a restraining order on your behalf the police have no obligation to protect you from the person restrained. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The theory is that police serve to protect “society” rather than individuals.  There’s just one problem with that, what is society without its individuals?  Take away the individuals and show me “society”.

Now, on a certain level they have a point.  The police cannot guarantee each individual’s safety.  They can’t put a 24 hour guard on each individual, not even each individual who has a restraining order against someone.  Can’t be done.  Thus, it would be unjust to make them legally liable for failing to provide that protection.  They can’t always be there.

But there’s a problem with that.  Since they don’t have a legal responsibility to provide protection, many take that to mean that there is no responsibility, legal or moral to even try.  They may not always be there but even when they are there they have no obligation to intervene.  This additional level of lack of concern for the individual was confirmed in New York were police were only a few feet away from a man being brutally attacked at knifepoint until after the victim, thanks to his own training in martial arts (and suffering multiple knife wounds in the process).  Only once the knife wielding attacker was subdued did the police emerge from the motorman’s compartment (on which the attacker had previously banged the door claiming to be a cop so their claims they didn’t know ring a little hollow).

To be blunt, a duty to protect “society” which does not include a good faith “best effort” to protect the individuals that make up that society when they actually encounter situations to do so is nonsense.  It’s not protecting “society”.  At best it’s protecting the regime which seems more the job of a third world dictator’s secret police than the peace officers of a free society.

Without that best effort, “to protect and serve” isn’t even an empty motto.  It’s nothing but a bad joke.