Defunding The Police, And Other Absurdities

Returning to Menominee, Michigan from an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. one day, I couldn't help but notice that there were a few hundred people on the lawn at the Menominee Marina, given that my apartment faced the marina. I went down to see what was going on. I found some friends there who told me that there had been an antiwar demonstration at the marina a couple of days before, and they were now protesting a curfew that the city had put on the marina. I was sitting on the lawn with them for no more than about fifteen minutes when the police came. Of several hundred people, only a few were arrested, and I was one of them. I was charged with inciting a riot, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.

Well, there was no riot. There were a few hundred people sitting on the grass and since I had been back in town for less than a half-hour, I had trouble figuring out how I had incited it, and I certainly wasn't being disorderly, unless they meant that my shirt wasn't tucked in or something. In the end, they dropped the two crazier charges and reduced the other one to civil trespass, which I thought about fighting because I hadn't passed by any signs saying there was a curfew and, until my friends told me why they were there, I had no way of even knowing there was a curfew. My apartment overlooked the marina, and I was frequently there at night. But, since the deal was that I would only get probation for it, I decided to plead guilty and be done with it.

I actually had fun with that. As a part of my probation, the judge banned me from being at the marina, and he also required me to keep a diary of sorts, a record of what I did each day. I began my diary with, "Got out of court, and went down to the marina." I hadn't really, but I thought it was funny. So did the judge. I ended up including short stories, poetry, and various musings. The judge loved it. He said it was very well written and funny. Of course, his son was a friend of mine and I was at his house sometimes.

 

You could try not supporting communist agents.

 

There are times the veneer of "freedom" is way too thin.

 

One of the rare times that I use a smiley, and you still didn't realize I was joking.

 

Yeh, that's been going on for a while, if I believe what I've been told the past few years.

Organs are taken over a period of time, harvested in a specific order so the "host body" can be kept alive until the heart has been sold (just as in the book "Coma.") This all came to light when an American told his doctor he had a transplant "scheduled" a few weeks out, and was flying to China for the procedure. That's not how it works.

Funny how that "we're all the same ethnicity" has worked out for some Chinese (you can add China's One Child forced abortion policy to that list of "Where's the ethnic self-love?") But as Ed said, "as long as you stay in line."

Japan is the one country that guards its racial purity more than any other. But the benefit accrues to the collective, not to the individual. At one point, their suicide rate was 5x that of America's (and they don't have guns.) That's hardly evidence of a happy people.

I prefer the ideals of our system where every individual has an opportunity. If the man or woman standing next to me has it, merely be virtue of being "created equal," then I have it, too. If their opportunity can be repressed, then so can mine..."justifications" can always be contrived.

That's the situation we're living with right now...contrived justifications. Some would say it's always been that way, depending on who you are. "Universality" is also on the chopping block via good old tribalism...whatever form it may take. Universality is the governor that keeps workable individualism from degrading into tribalistic Darwinism.

But I get what you're saying, Ed. In essence, we all long for "cleaner" times...almost for childhood. But the desirability of that time of our lives is highly dependent on how functional the parenting was, huh? Lots of parallels...