RashyNullPlanet

Some well-meaning but very stupid folks in Ypsilanti, MI catalyzed another unnecessary police escalation and derailment of a family’s lives:

While she returned to the car to get her cell phone so she could locate her friend, Emily Brumbaugh said, her husband approached the group.

“I heard, ‘Give me my kid,’ and ‘You’re not getting him,”’ she said.

At that point, that crowd was guilty of kidnapping.

The idiot cops who arrived on the scene didn’t help by sorting things out or dissipating tension:

Egeler said Lloyd Brumbaugh ran to the boy and picked him up, but Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputies had arrived by then. He said he was told to put the boy down so they could talk. Brumbaugh complied, but when Deputy Katrina Bourdeau reached for the boy, Brumbaugh pushed her away and grabbed him, Egeler said.

There is no dispute that the Lloyd is the father of the boy, so when the deputy attempted to take Brumbaugh’s son, she became guilty of attempted kidnapping. Getting between a parent and his child is like getting between a grizzly and her cubs: you’re just asking for serious? trouble. Surely even a cop knows that, and should be able act accordingly without escalating the situation.

Emily Brumbaugh said she was placed in a patrol car until she calmed down and Brumbaugh was taken to a hospital, and didn’t learn where her husband was until he called her from jail at 7 p.m. that night.

And at that point the police made themselves guilty of kidnapping both Emily and Lloyd.

Unfortunately for everyone, cops everywhere are increasingly shooting first and asking questions later, if they bother to ask questions at all. As far as I can tell, they operate on only one premise: their authority must be respected at all costs.

Market Watch had the text of Obama’s acceptance speech online even before he started spewing. In part:

That’s the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

He left out a couple words there. What he meant was this:

That’s the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper, or else.

Obama would be your keeper, and compel you to be your neighbor’s keeper, even if it fucking kills you.

My comment, earlier today at Mark Perry’s blog:

“Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers,”

So the flipside is: subsistence farming with nothing but crude hand tools strengthens the ‘position’ of workers.

The Obaminator would have that “strong government hand” securely around your neck.

To a man, the commenters at that link are arguing about symptoms. The underlying idea they never question is that it is acceptable to use force to accomplish anything.

The folks in Pillsbury, ND had an election, and no one came.

But on June 10, no one showed up. Not even those on the ballot.

Unfortunately, the zero turn-out wasn’t because they realized that voting is delegated coercion, or even for any sliver of recognition of the force underlying voting. They were all just too busy to gather round the cannibal pot that day.

Last Saturday I was utterly shocked to learn that my dad cut off the tips of two fingers on a table saw. My dad is Mr. Safety. He survived more than 30 years working on elevators, on the edge of open shafts, and near huge machinery, with some injuries, but nothing like this.

I heard about SawStop saws a while ago. A saw like that would have prevented my dad from losing the tips of his fingers.

I’ve done some more reading about SawStop saws since last Saturday, and came across this:

In an effort to get the power-tool industry to adopt safer technology, Gass recenlty visited the Consumer Product Safety Commission outside Washington D.C.

SawStop sure has a great way to prevent injuries. I wish my dad had been using a SawStop saw last Saturday, but there is no way that I would ever use the club of government to bludgeon anyone into submission to some product of mine.

Steven Gass makes a great product, based on great intentions, but using government coercion to compel people to use anything is never right, no matter how great the product or intentions.