A quick read of this article will surely leave you outraged. The story is simple enough: a neat amalgam of barbarism and PC bureaucracy, the sort of anarchy compounded by oppression that Liberalism so excels at producing.
A former British soldier endures as his neighborhood terrorized by a pack of feral young thugs (“yobs,” as they call them over there) for several days. He calls the police; they never come. He looks for an officer; finds none. Coming home one day to find his wife in tears and terrified, he finally has enough, and goes out to execute a citizen’s arrest, dragging one of the thugs into house and calling his mother. Thereupon the police arrive with the mother — and naturally arrest the homeowner.
This is justice under Liberalism.
Let it be noted that there was a somewhat similar case in Illinois five years ago, where a man who fought off an intruder in his house was charged with a handgun violation. State Sen. Obama voted against bills to remedy this manifest injustice twice.
Yesterday we all sat around in worried anticipation, hoping the Supreme Court would manage, this time, to maintain the plain meaning of the words of our Constitution and restore to us our self-government. The outcome was a good one — barely. But the tyranny of the Court is still in place. The four Liberals very frequently succeed in persuading Justice Kennedy to join them in their usurpations. They care not one whit about the plain meaning of the Constitution. They do exactly as they please.
Here in America, packs of feral youths exist in appalling abundance, just like in Britain. But most of them are well aware that their potential victims may be armed. On that fact, friends, much of our liberty hangs.
And we are only a tendentious opinion from one of the Liberal Usurpers on the Court, or their creature Kennedy, under the spell of the New York-DC elite adulation — one tendentious opinion citing foreign law, or sweet mystery of life, or mystical evolving standards, away from the same tyranny that would send the homeowner who defends his wife against thugs to jail, while showering the thugs with sympathy.
Comments (14)
I am having trouble with the link to the original article. It may be a me problem, but you might want to check it out.
Posted by Jay Watts | June 27, 2008 8:56 AM
Thanks. Fixed.
Posted by Paul J Cella | June 27, 2008 8:59 AM
At the risk of being overdramatic, I've long thought a system in which the authorities will not protect you on the one hand, and on the other hand not only deny you the means to protect yourself, but even arrest you for trying, was truly satanic in its mockery of justice.
Posted by Scott W. | June 27, 2008 9:31 AM
That's exactly what they have in England. What esp. strikes me about that horrible story from England is that they _would not come_ for all the homeowner's calls but showed up in a big hurry when the young hoodlum's mother called. What this says is that this is a matter of priorities, not of understaffing. It wasn't that they couldn't come to help him out; it's that they wouldn't. They just didn't care.
This reminds me of that even more horrible story Steve Burton linked some time ago about the young mentally disabled man beaten to death over a period of hours around a housing estate in England. I kept asking why someone didn't call the cops. I said that it's bad enough that people in England apparently think they can't defend an innocent person from being systematically beaten to death over hours, but couldn't they at least call the police who are the only people they believe have the right to defend the innocent? But one (British, I believe) commentator pointed out to me that in all likelihood the police would have ignored such a call, writing it off as "youths rough-housing" or something like that. This story confirms that statement. For all we know, perhaps someone _did_ call the police during that young man's ordeal, was put on hold for 45 minutes, and then ignored. And if a few fellows had gone out and defended him, they would have been arrested. Wrong is right, and right is wrong in the West today.
Posted by Lydia | June 27, 2008 9:41 AM
Paul,
An excellent post and I wouldn't normally write simply to praise you for pointing out the terrible state of affairs in England, however, I did find the use of the word "creature" to descrive Justice Kennedy somehow inappropriate for the elevated standards at this website. Justice Kennedy's opinions and reasoning may be foolish, dangerous, unreasonable, etc., etc.; but to claim he is therefore some sort of "creature" seems to me a tactic out of the Leftist playbook. Attack the man's opinions by all means, but to impugn his humanity seems out of bounds.
A minor quibble, but one I thought it worth mentioning.
P.S. Mayor Daley (who I generally think is a good Mayor) was very, very upset at the Heller decision but I was ecstatic. I applied yesterday for my State of Illinois Firearm Owner Identification Card and plan to purchase a gun for my home soon. It will be only a matter of time before Chicago's law is ruled unconstitutional and I can happily own a legal gun!
Posted by Jeff Singer | June 27, 2008 10:19 AM
I heard Daley on the radio today gassing on. (Sorry if that lowers the elevated tone, Jeff, but he _was_ gassing on.) All about what a "frightening" decision it was. Or perhaps he used the word "dangerous," but I think it was "frightening." All about how perhaps this means we should abolish the courts and "go back to the old West where I have my gun and you have your gun." Ah, yes, we all know how the very existence of courts protects us all from street violence. Why the thugs just say to themselves, "Oh, wait, we live in a nation of laws with courts. I mustn't go beat up this hapless person walking down the street."
Posted by Lydia | June 27, 2008 11:37 AM
Jeff,
Had Paul used cretin, your objection would have merit, even if some might rightfully argue for the accuracy of the term. However, creature is an apt, albeit humbling term, as it serves to remind us of our relationship to our Creator. I personally would not take offense if it made it's way onto my gravestone, though I understand why a libertarian might balk.
Posted by Kevin | June 27, 2008 11:47 AM
I would say, Jeff, that Paul's use of 'creature' with the possessive--'their creature'--is a fairly well-known trope in which 'creature' means approximately the same thing as 'tool' or 'person who toadies to someone else and does not think clearly for himself'. It does not seem to me inappropriate. For many years now Kennedy has shown what I would call a juvenile mind involving a pathetic desire for the approval of the Anointed and a desire to be one of the Anointed himself. His opinions are erratic and to not manifest any clear, coherent, or logical notion of jurisprudence. Sometimes he does the reasonable thing--reasonable even in terms of constitutional interpretation--and sometimes he very radically doesn't. It often seems that it just depends on what he had for breakfast on a particular day. In this sense he is all too much like former Justice O'Conner who also was a "swing" vote on the Court--swinging so much that one thought sometimes she must have made herself dizzy. You have probably heard the story that has come out about his back-and-forth-ing on the Casey decision years ago. And it is a matter of sad history where he finally came down. To say in this context that he is the "creature" of the liberal usurpers on the Supreme Court seems to me accurate.
Posted by Lydia | June 27, 2008 11:52 AM
Lydia said it far better than I could have.
Posted by Paul J Cella | June 27, 2008 11:54 AM
A friend of mine who lives part time here, part time in England says this kind of stuff happens all the time. In Roger Scruton's book "News From Somewhere" he tells the story of a neighbor of his who surprised a burglar and chased him from his house. The burglar got in his car and sped away, the homeowner followed him in his car, dialing the police from his cell phone while en route. By the time the police got there the burglar had gotten away, but the homeowner was fined for driving while using a cell phone.
Posted by Rob G | June 27, 2008 12:25 PM
Re: Kennedy and Casey, what finally tore it for me with him was when I saw him doing a sort of Q&A and someone asked him about that decision. In describign why he was so indecisive, and why he finally came down as he did, he started talking about his own daughter, how he imagined what a hard situation it would be for him and his family, then he started choking up, to the audible sympathy of his audience. It was a moment that literally embodied the tendentious, self-serving irrationality and sentimentality that has characterized the Kennedy-dominated Court.
Posted by Sage | June 27, 2008 12:35 PM
I've been asking this for a couple of years now, but I haven't asked my colleagues and our readers here at W4: Does anyone know what is meant when one hears that the court was set to "virtually overturn Roe v. Wade" in the Casey decision when Kennedy swung? I have heard that this came out when someone's memoirs were published a while ago (Thurmond's??), but the news stories just repeat this phrase "virtually overturn Roe" and never say what this means. I mean, were they going to overturn it or weren't they? Does anyone know details? (I apologize, Paul, if this is a thread-jack.) I tried googling it last year but got no further info.
Posted by Lydia | June 27, 2008 1:14 PM
Lydia,
Since Kennedy was originally going to vote with Rehnquist, his dissent indicates that he would have overturned Roe. With some amusement, I would point out that his first footnote refers to the legal decisions of foreign courts.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZX3.html
Posted by Step2 | June 29, 2008 1:34 PM
Yes, that's what I would have thought (that Kennedy was thinking of voting to overturn Roe), but why do summaries of the history throw in some qualifier like "in essence would have overturned Roe" or "would virtually have overturned Roe"? It's odd and makes it seem that we can't just take Rehnquist's dissent, eliminate the aspects that make it clear that it's a dissent rather than a majority decision, and assume that it would have been the majority decision in which Kennedy almost joined. Just a small mystery. But you may be right and perhaps I'm making too much of the qualifiers in the summaries. Or maybe the people who write those things don't know any more about the matter than anyone else.
Posted by Lydia | June 29, 2008 3:05 PM