Category Archives: ethics

Restoring Police Funding

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…in Progressive-Democrat-run cities. But I repeat myself. There aren’t any Republican/Conservative-run cities that have defunded, or even tried to defund, their police departments.

Some of those Progressive-Democrat jurisdictions are seemingly starting to refund their police departments.

In Texas, the Democrat-led Austin City Council voted last August to cut funding for the Austin Police Department by $150 million, slashing a range of services that one year later have proven to be sorely missed. Last month, the department announced it was no longer responding to non-life-threatening emergency 911 calls, and its homicide rate spiked.

But not unless forced:

In response, a citizen-led movement collected enough signatures for a petition that resulted in adding a November ballot measure to restore police funding.

Baltimore is another being forced to refund and expand:

Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan (R) announced the state was investing $150 million in a “re-fund the police” initiative. …
“Our $150 million ‘re-fund the police’ initiative will provide a desperately needed shot in the arm to our state and local police agencies and their critical efforts to stop crime,” Hogan said.
…
The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness. There’s a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute crime.

And this foolishness in Seattle:

[T]the Downtown Seattle Association called on city leadership to use federal COVID relief money to subsidize private security costs….

Because there aren’t enough cops left on the force.

New York City and Los Angeles are trying pay raises to stem the outflow of officers from their departments and to recruit replacements.

Burlington, VT’s, “Democratic/progressive-led city council”

cut the police budget and ordered a 30% reduction in the number of uniformed officers.

Now the city is trying $10,000 bonuses just to keep existing officers from walking and $15,000 signing bonuses for new hires. And Burlington suburbs

South Burlington is offering a $7,000 sign-on bonus to fully certified officers, Berlin a $4,000 bonus to senior officers, and St. Albans a $10,000 bonus[.]

Frankly, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to go to work, or go back to work, in any of these Progressive-Democrat-run cities, no matter the level of claimed “refunding.” Especially since in at least some of those jurisdictions, the refunding has to be forced into their unwilling budgets.

At least not until the incumbents in those city governments have been replaced 100%. Those worthies already have demonstrated they cannot be trusted actually to support police or policing.

“Take the American People for Fools”

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That’s what Congressman Jodey Arrington (R, TX) says the Biden-Harris administration and their Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate are doing to us average Americans with their claims that their $3.5 trillion reconciliation package won’t cost us anything.

It’s actually more like $5 trillion, Maria, and their gamesmanship and their sleight of hand will be to try to truncate the duration of these policies. But no matter how short the duration the policies are, they will be extended, they will be made permanent, and they will be expanded like every other mandatory spending and entitlement program that has ever showed up on the balance sheet of our government.

But it’s not only Biden-Harris and their syndicate who are taking us for fools.

They will be extended. They will be extended only because politicians—Republicans and alleged Conservatives, as well as Progressive-Democrats—will actively vote to extend them, and Presidents—Republican and alleged Conservative, as well as Progressive-Democrat—will sign those extensions into law.

Certainly, it’s hard to cancel, or to expire, such policies. Certainly, it’s hard to stop trading welfare payments—however unneeded they are in truth, however damaging to our free market economy, and so to our individual liberties and responsibilities, they might be. It only gets harder, though, the longer such unneeded programs are allowed to exist.

Those who vote for extension, permanence, expansion while proclaiming the damages such programs do are choosing their own, their personal, political fortunes over what they know to be their duty to their constituents and to our nation.

It’s often hard to do one’s duty. Hard, though, means possible. And duty is a necessity, not a nice to have.

Those who, like Arrington, claim to be against such programs yet keep extending them are the ones who take us for the biggest fools. Just like they do with every other mandatory spending and entitlement program that has ever showed up.

An EU Attack on National Sovereignty

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Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, is objecting to the European Union’s claims to overriding authority over its independent constituent nations, Poland in particular. In an open letter to the EU’s parliament, then in debate during the next parliament session, he said

…EU mission creep…would lead to a “centrally managed organism, governed by institutions deprived of democratic control.”

And then,

EU competencies have clear boundaries, we must not remain silent when those boundaries are breached. So we are saying yes to European universalism, but we say no to European centralism.”

Which argument for the sovereignty of the Union’s constituent nations was answered dismissively by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen:

Your arguments are not getting better. You’re just escaping the debate[.]

She then laid out three options by which the EU would seek to compel Poland’s acceptance of EU suzerainty:

  • first: a so-called infringement, where the European Commission legally challenges the Polish court’s judgment, which could lead to fines
  • second: a conditionality mechanism and other financial tools whereby EU funds would be withheld from Poland
  • third: application of Article 7 of the EU’s treaties. Under this, rights of member states—including the right to vote on EU decisions—can be suspended because they have breached core values of the bloc

Despite this,

Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party says it has no plans for a “Polexit[.]”

Maybe the party and the citizens should begin thinking about it.

Domestic Spy

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That’s what Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seems to see as his primary job: spying on his employees, prying into their personal medical status.

The US Department of Homeland Security is seeking proposals for a new system that will allow it to track the biometric data of its workers in order to monitor their physical and mental well-being.

Government tracking of Americans’ biometric data. This is the Biden-Harris Surveillance State—rest assured that if this is allowed to go forward, it will spread rapidly to all the rest of Government—complementing the administration’s already radically expanded and expanding (see their reconciliation bill and it’s a priori amendment, their “infrastructure” bill) Administrative State.

Here’s a thought, admittedly inconceivable to Progressive-Democrats, but plainly obvious to us average Americans: improve the physical and mental well-being of those workers—and the rest of the folks involved in law enforcement in any milieu—by giving those workers the tools and support they need actually to enforce our laws. Stop denigrating them, stop defunding them, stop telling them to enforce only some laws, and those only partially.

The cognitive dissonance that results from being told to do a job, but don’t do it, from doing a job and then being castigated for doing it, can be devastating. And no biometric data collection, no snooping into personal medical situations, is needed for that.

Inconsistent, or…?

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Have vaccine proof, will travel.

The Biden administration plans to lift travel restrictions for international travelers…who will need to be fully vaccinated and show proof of vaccination.

No, it’s duplicitous of the Biden-Harris administration. Illegal aliens can stream across the border with or without vaccination, but honest travelers are restricted to proof of vaccination.