Kind to the Cruel...

Young Co-ed is taken hostage by thug...

Police officer responds to situation.

Thug...

...confronted by cop, puts girl into headlock, gun to her skull, and threatens to kill her.

He then reportedly turns gun toward cop, using girl as shield.   Cop opens fire, killing both him and the woman.

Who's to blame for Andrea Rebello's death?

Interesting back and forth at Instapundit via reader emails, and some other in the comments of the article  linked above.

I think there is some validity to the idea that the cop might have responded to the call differently, as he was fully aware that a hostage situation was in play.

A roommate of Andrea's was sent out to an ATM by the thug to get cash, and she instead called police, so the police knew the somewhat what they were dealing with here.

Perhaps surrounding the house with police might have been better, or perhaps not openly confronting the criminal in a position where the officer could have been fired upon and thus be forced to respond in kind.

As someone mentions on Instapundit, it appears the officer was NOT trained to deal with the kind of shot required to kill Dalton and spare Rebello.  That takes specialized training.  It would have been better had he gotten that kind of training, in hindsight.

All good points.

Now, having gotten that out of the way, let's also realize that second-guessing is real easy in the aftermath.

The police had no idea what was exactly happening in that house when he got there.

For all the police officer knew, Dalton Smith was torturing, raping and/or murdering Ms. Robello and other people in that house.  He went into that house most likely thinking that some truly horrendous could be happening to 3 innocent people while he waited, so he chose to go in.  He had every reason to fear for his life, but he went in anyway, hoping to prevent a tragedy.  The fact that a tragedy occurred is not his fault, because he was not he one who created the situation in which Andrea Robello lost her life.

Let's assign the blame firmly where it belongs.

Dalton Smith.

You'll notice Mr. Smith is wearing some sort of orange shirt.  That is not some sort of bold fashion statement, or part of a pumpkin costume from a Halloween past.  It is from a jumpsuit, the kind supplied to you when you have been behind bars.

Dalton Smith was a repeat offender.  News reports I have read claim he had previously been convicted of such crimes as armed robbery, assault, auto theft. At the time of this shooting, he was wanted for violating his parole.

Dalton Smith broke into the house where Andrea was sleeping, he took her and others hostage and he put the gun to Andrea's head, and then pointed a gun at a police officer.

Dalton Smith is the one responsible for Andrea's death.

But, he is not alone.

The society that left Dalton Smith roaming the streets after he had proved multiple times to be unfit to be walking around free is guilty.  I would love to get a final tally on his rap sheet, being that he was only 30 years old when killed, but suffice to say he was not some wayward youth.  He was a grown man for whom the thug life was a way of life.

The society that decided that such a reprobate, who had on multiple occasion committed acts of violence and criminality, should have the freedom to do what he did, leading to Andrea's death, is guilty as well.  By being kind, or at least indulgent, to a person who had shown they could not behave in a lawful and civilized manner, they were in the end very cruel to Andrea Rebello, and to the officer who will now have to live with what he was forced to do.

At the time he was standing in a sorority house, holding a gun to the head of a young woman who I am betting was about half his size, Dalton Smith deserved to be chained up, breaking rocks or picking up garbage.  Had be been so, not only would Andrea be alive, but perhaps in 10 or 20 years, Dalton might have been tame enough, or broken, enough, that he could have returned to society and live out some semblance of a decent life.

INSTEAD, he's lying in a morgue somewhere, as is Andrea, and he will go to the afterlife with the death of a young woman added to his list of sins.

Good job, indulgent society!

Now, those of the progressive ilk (I don't call them liberals, I will explain why in another post), will try and blame society for not "helping" Dalton Smith, for "failing him", forcing him into his life of crime.  Instead of condemning society for not keeping an animal off the streets, for exposing innocent people to violence and death, they will bemoan how poorly society performed in assisting Mr. Smith, leading to his villainy.

Bullshit.

First, society will never completely eliminate men like Dalton Smith, and that being the case, it has a duty and obligation to keep them apart from the people who don't make theft and violence a way of life.  When it fails to do so, it fails, period.

Second, progressives will always credit the idea of a systemic failure of society creating criminals by failure to care or empathize enough with them, but never seem willing to embrace the idea that the systemic coddling and leniency of deviancy they advocate might in fact be a contributing cause.

They will also accept no criticism of cultural practices and behaviors which they view as being politically incorrect, no matter the evidence indicating they are indeed contributing factors to the creation of a "man" like Dalton Smith.

Why? Because reducing violent crime, even against women, is of minor importance when it comes to maintaining certain narratives.

Dance, Monkey, Dance...

One of the things I try to warn my progressive friends about government largesse (which is really taxpayer fleecing and redistribution) is that when you come to rely on it, the government gains power over you.

Whether it is housing or food stamps or loans or WHATEVER, when you come to rely on it, the government can then threaten to take it away unless you do their bidding.

HOW people do not understand this principle, I cannot fathom.  It is a common theme in entertainment, i.e., someone gets in deep with someone for money or a favor granted, and then is horrified when the bill comes due.

Another case in point...

"sweeping speech codes just imposed by the Departments of Justice and Education on virtually every college campus in the United States...states "sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as 'any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," including "verbal conduct."  The new rules apply to all colleges and universities receiving any sort of federal money, including Pell grants, federally backed student loans, and more. The letter contends the conduct in question need not be offensive to an "objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation." That means that there is effectively no check on what might count as harassment. Course materials, overheard comments, stupid jokes - it's all potentially actionable."

Now, many politically correct progressive nimrods may be perfectly FINE with these speech codes, and would welcome the Feds getting involved.

But the point here is that if you DON'T agree with this policy, if you think it is utter horse shit and/or a gruesome example of fascistic overreach by a government out of control, then suck it up unless you go to one of the FEW institutions of learning which don't take handouts.

Even if you are independently supporting yourself in a university or college, the institution to which you go IS not.  It relies on that government cheese.  SO, if it wants to keep raking in the Federal money (which is yours, BTW, or it WAS), it will clamp down on you and your speech to remain compliant.

This, in another form, is the same scam the IRS was pulling with its intimidation audits.  They have the power to hurt or even ruin you financially if you DARE speak out about things they don't want to hear.

If you are not chilled by this, you are either a blithering idiot, or a closet fascist.  

Passive Aggressive Planners...

Not sure if the above is the right term, but I am going with it right now.

I am annoyed by the people who will NOT make a decision about something when you offer them choices, but will THEN do so after you go ahead and make a decision to cut short the back and forth, vetoing what you suggested/offered.

Example:

"Where would you like to eat?"

"I don't know. Somewhere close."

"Well, there is A, B and C..."

"OK, but how about D, E and F?"

"Okay, how about we meet in front of F?"

"Uhmm, let's meet in front of E. It has X..."

"Why the F*** did you not just suggest that in the first place."

Yeah, I Guess the Debate IS Over...

I have not posted in over a year, but I had written something some time ago, just after the 2012 election which I never posted, apparently/. Just reading the first sentence, it seems like it might be curiously appropriate for today, considering everything which is going on. Let's take a look...

**************

It is interesting to try and form a snapshot of the world around us today, and wondering how that picture will look in a year, two years, and then 5.  I am betting it will not look pretty, but am I wrong?

We have a president in office, elected for a second time, who truly seems to believe in autocracy.  He is not the first to exert his executive power overzealously, no doubt, but it is more troubling this time.  Why?  

He, and his administration, truly don't seem to give a damn what a good portion of the country thinks, even the majority on certain issues, and seems determined to rule rather than govern.  He seems openly contemptuous (and he is not alone) of anyone or anything that seems to challenge his will.  And the same seems to go for much of the "watchdogs" who are supposed to guard against such hubris and protect the little people, but whom seem just as disgusted by the peasants who refuse to get with the program.

Perhaps it does not help that a professor of constitutional law at a major university thinks the constitution is passe', and that the "newspaper of record" would publish it without comment, let alone rebuttal.

Perhaps it is also that he is not the first person of supposed position and esteem who has espoused the same view in recent years.  

Perhaps it is some of the same people, and certainly the same side, which just a few years earlier was screaming "Fascist!" when a different man held the office.

Perhaps...

Could it be that I am wrong about that future when a nation which already has the best armed, by far, populace in the world, feels the need to buy even more guns, or guns for the first time, even as the political class talks about "getting them off the streets".   People even like my spouse, who two years ago, did not want ANY gun in the house, and now ponders whether we should get a second?

Am I in error to worry about a worldwide financial system which seems increasingly based on cheap parlor tricks to keep it chugging along, even as the wheels falls off?

Am I paranoid to think that an Arab Spring which supposedly would usher in a new era of freedom and democracy more resembles the lights going out in Europe circa the 1930's or the march of Communism post 40's? 

Maybe.  

As Hindenburg reportedly claimed, maybe God does look after drunks, little children and the United States of America.  

Of course, we are busy pushing God out of the public square, mocking him in the private, except when he is worshipped by those who take such actions as legitimate cause for murder.  So, God may decide to sit events out for a while.  Sorry.

The point of taking this snapshot now is to keep in mind these kind of ironies...

...in the future as events unfold, in the vain hope some might understand how we got where we end up.

I say vain because I don't think it will happen, at least not until the shit well truly hits the fan, and, to paraphrase Herman Wouk, the scales don't fall from people's eyes, but are shot off.

I told a friend of mine today that I had found a new kind of loathing for the Left to describe my changed feelings toward them, but I realize that was not quite right.  I always had loathing for the Left, and it's not really a matter of degree that has changed.

What is different now is that previously, I felt it was important to try and engage in some sort of discussion or dialogue with them, to argue or even beat them over the head with facts and logic in an attempt to get them, at least some of them, to see reason.

I no longer feel that.  What I feel is that the Left, the hard core liberal cult, is not interested in facts, logic, fair play, consistency or anything else.  None of that matters when it does not suit them.  Their agenda matters in the ultimate expression of the ends justifying the means.

So, the Left, having made it clear to me and others with differing views that nothing we do or say, nothing we prove or disprove, nothing experience reveals nor common sense dictates will ever divert them from their goals, have made my task in dealing with them far simpler, if not easy.

Resistance. Pure and simple.
  

*No energy to be burned in pointless arguments with those not interested in debate.  

*No effort exerted to master or organize facts or issues.

*No time wasted trying to convince those whose faith trumps all reason.

No, that time is past. What remains is to decide what core principles and beliefs we hold dear, and to hold on to them without any negotiation or equivocation.  

******
Interesting that I would return to this blog, to find this unpublished post, at this time, when much evidence of what I am talking about is coming to light.
"We have a president in office, elected for a second time, who truly seems to believe in autocracy."

The IRS admits to using the power of it's organization for partisan political ends.

Allegations that the EPA did very much the same thing.

The Department of Justice secretly obtaining phone records of a media outfit, and then hedging on who ordered it.

The continuing Benghazi cover-up.

There have been plenty more indications that this administration simply does not care about the rule of law and simple accountability, but this week seems to a particularly busy one for scandals.  

Will it amount to anything?

Well, if history is any measure, no.

 A compliant press corp, even if annoyed at being bullied and spied, will likely fall back in line as it has done before.

A Republican leadership, too drunk on the same power which fuels their opposition, will be unwilling to pursue this kind of malfeasance far enough to make a difference because that will mean diminishing governmental power when it's their turn.

The problem is, that it is not the administration alone, not the entire left, and sadly, even the politicians on the right.  This administration has been the most blatant in its abuse of power, but it is aided and abetted by a Left wing for which standards are applicable only when they view it as beneficial.  That things that were unspeakable abuses of power before, are shrugged at now, if even acknowledged.  In some cases, there is literally an attitude of, "Well, it's us, doing it, so it's cool."  The Left as a whole has gotten used to not being called on things, and for obvious reasons they wish that to continue.  Ideals and standards are simply tools to be picked up and put down as needed.  What matters is POWER.

Of course, this is where the Right comes in, insofar as the establishment Right.

They like power just fine, even if they make the obligatory protestations about the encroachment of governmental reach.  After all, if we really did reduce the size and power of government, it would reduce the stature and power of ALL members of government.

Who readily gives up power and prestige, particularly when you have come to rely on it as your only means of subsistence?  

The American people sense this increasing sense of entitlement to rule autocratically in much of the government structure, and they are making preparations for it, because it does not seem it will stop and recede on its own.  

One can label all those people buying guns and ammunition as militia crazies, but when one looks at all the corruption, abuse of power and haughty denial of responsibility rampant in government, one has to ask; when does it stop?

And if you cannot answer that question, then you will understand why people are preparing themselves for some of the worst possible scenarios.