There's a Word for This, but We Don't Use It Often Enough

   If you dislike gay people, you are a homophobic. If you deny women equal opportunity, you are a sexist. If you mistreat Black people or Hispanics or Chinese, you are a racist.

   So what if you discriminate against or have ill feelings for those who are crossing our southern border, or those who are homeless on the streets of our cities? These don't even get a name. Perhaps society does not recognize the bias against them. You don't give a name to a bigot unless he is a bigot; if you can't clean the cloud from your eyes enough to see that you are being unfair to the immigrants, you won't give the condition a name.

   Immigrants arrive under the stigma of being criminals, and of coming just to take advantage of our welfare, and of overcrowding our society, and of lowering the wages and of taking jobs away from us. They do not deserve equality, according to those who hold ill feelings toward them. Why would you reward someone who is breaking the law by coming here? No, they are not to receive equality. Would we give equality to a criminal who belongs in a tight prison cell? 

   And, the homeless are all a bunch of panhandlers and drug addicts, right?

   One of the marks of discriminating, is the assigning of faults to all the people in the group, classing them altogether, faulting them all. The immigrants certainly suffer that treatment. The one who crosses the border is judged by the one who came before him. If one of them came and ended up killing someone in America, then everyone who crosses the border is also a criminal. If one of them is a drug smuggler, they all should be punished by preventing them from coming. 

   And, how about those in poverty? Are they falsely treated and lumped together? Actually, there is a word for the discrimination against them: povertyism. And, if  you hold disgust towards poor people, that is aporophobia. But you never hear either of those terms used. Aporophobia is a big word and we are too small to use it. When we write our laws saying who shall not be discriminated against, we say no one shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, or national orgin. Discriminating against the poor is not against the law like it is against the law for other things.

   And, actually there is a word which sometimes is used for discrimination against those who are immigrants. It is called xenophobia. Xenophobia is the rejection of foreigners. It doesn't clearly take in those who arrive without permission (did I just sidestep calling them illegals?) but, the same: those who are averse to undocumented border crossers are sometimes placed in the category of being xenophobiacs (I just made up a word there; xenophobia is a word, but xenophobiac isn't).

   Well, I'm just saying it is just as wrong to marginalize the immigrants and poor as it is to marginalize someone based on their race. Equality for all means what it says, equality for all. It is a principle America was founded upon and should be precious to our hearts, and we should be loath to think that we would ever discriminate against the immigrants and poor. 

Thomas Jefferson Suggested Rewriting the Constitution Every 19 Years

"Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right. " -- Thomas Jefferson

That's quite a quote. Going by that, the Constitution should have been replaced a dozen times by now. 

Why did Jefferson believe the Constitution (and all other laws) should only be good for 19 years? In his thought, one generation should not be bound by the past. Each generation has the right to create its own rules, to govern itself. One generation should not dictate to the next. You set your own rules and should not be subject to laws that others might try to impose upon you.

I will repeat, though, it is quite a statement. This is one of the most respected figures of all time. He is one of the founding fathers of this nation -- and he said that?

I will confess, I do not think it wise to rewrite the Constitition every 20 years . . . but Jefferson's quote makes me wonder. My thought is, there will be charlatans, and the more doors you leave open for them to walk through, the more of them who will seek to rule your house. I wonder if we could trust some of the politicians of our day. I think of the current generation of insurrectionists against America, and shiver to think they might be the writers of our Constitition.

One of them has called for, as recent as a few months ago, "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," as they apply to elections. He would rip the elections out of our hands and take control of them to ensure his own election -- all the while crying how he is just trying to make elections fair. This is a man I do not trust. If I have high regard for Jefferson -- and I do -- I have little respect for Trump. 

If the Constitution were to be rewritten every 20 years, could we find a way to avoid the danger of it being written by charlatans and would-be dictators such as Trump? I cannot imagine any way to do that. 

Can Guns Save Us from a Tyrannical Goverment Taking Over?

  So, now that we've had this debate on whether guns save lives -- meaning, do they stop criminals -- can we get back to the question of whether guns save countries in this age and time? I mean, is it true that private ownership of guns is a protection against one's government? If government starts to get tyrannical, can the private citizens of the 21st Century pull their guns out of the closet and save the nation?

   Do guns save nations?

   I think if we are going to say they do, we should be able to cite a few examples. Googling, I found none. But, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Help me. Tell me about them.

   The gun enthusiast is quick to point out any instance in which he believes government took away guns, and that nation then sank into tyranny and lost its freedoms. But, if there are examples of where the lack of privately owned guns preceded the death of a free nation, are there also examples of when privately-owned guns were used to ward off a dictatorship?

   Like I say, I'm not saying they don't exist; I'm just saying I'm not finding any. Yes, I did find one report, but a study of it suggests it probably is incorrect. Says a PBS article, "SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot."

   So, I looked up the text to Bohme's 1943 memorandum and word searched it (it is about 200 pages long), typing in the word "Swiss." I didn't find anything of the sort about the German SS backing down because "every man was armed and trained to shoot." It might be in there, but I couldn't find it. 

  In fact, the opposite appears to be true. Instead of Hitler fearing the Swiss were too well armed, the German SS apparently felt the Swiss would not present an armed challenge. Says an entry in Wikipedia: "Menges (Captain Otto-Wilhelm Kurt von Menges) noted in his plan that Swiss resistance was unlikely and that a nonviolent Anshluss (union with Switzerland) was the most likely result. With 'the current political situation in Switzerland,' he wrote, 'it might accede to ultimatum demands in a peaceful manner, so that after a warlike border crossing a rapid transition to a peaceful invasion must be assured.' "

  This is not 1776. Back then, there was no standing army. When a war broke out, soldiers would gather, bringing their own guns because the government didn't have an arsenal of guns. This is now 2023. Personal rifles are no match for the tanks and missiles of our day.

   Not only am I not aware of any example of citizens with their guns saving a nation from losing its freedom, I wonder if it is even possible.   

Tax Plan II: Voluntary Taxes

    We need a new way of exacting taxes, and that would be to not exact them at all. Make the tax voluntary; if the citizen wants to pay it, let him; if he doesn't, that too is fine.

    You tax them, but you don't exact the tax. Exacting a tax is not a voluntary contribution, but an enforced payment.

   Oh, you've got me wrong if you think I think we should replace our current tax system with voluntary taxes. That's not what I mean. In fact, we probably can't do away with the as-we-have-it, IRS-will-chase-you-down-if-you-don't-pay taxes, at all.

   But, what about for special projects -- not for  essential services, but for (in the language of a person's own finances) discretionary spending -- just for things we can survive without, if necessary. Let the voluntary tax pay for education enhancements, certain research projects, extra police officers, or whatever.

   Yes, it's true that if the voluntary tax doesn't raise enough money, the project will not even get off the ground. So, arrange it so the taxpayer gets refunded if a private donor doesn't come along to make up the difference.

Travis Scott is a Repeat Offender

   Travis Scott is a repeat offender. Oh, it is that Nov. 5, 2021, concert for which he is famous. Ten people were killed. They rushed the gates to get in and rushed the mosh pit once they were in. But, Scott had a history long before that.

  Crowd crush. So tight was the crowd, that they crushed each other. In addition to those killed, more than 300 were injured at that concert in Houston.

   Yes, this is same Travis Scott the Utah Jazz have contracted with to bring in his friends, Don Toliver and Sheck Wes, for a concert for this year's NBA All-Star festivities.

   "Make some noise for my boy right there hanging in the tree," he would yell during the concert. 

   Make the ground shake, he would ask of those in the tightly-packed audience.

   "Y'all know what you came to do, Chase B, let's go," he would scream. And, what did they come to do? Don't let it get passed you that many of them were "ragers" and they came to pack so tight that crushing each other was inevitable.

   Get wild, go crazy, he would ask of them. 

   Fans dying at a concert is not new. You can cite a concert by the Who, or another by Pearl Jam. But, make no mistake, whatever other bands have or have not done, Scott has a record for inciting his fans. Unfortunate deaths can happen -- accidental deaths. Perhaps that was the case with the Who and Pearl Jam.

    And, hopefully, Travis Scott had no intention of bringing death upon his fans either. But, he certainly has a long scorecard of inciting riotous behavior.   

   So many times that he qualifies as a repeat offender. 

    In 2015 at a Lollapalooza concert, Scott was charged with disorderly conduct after inciting concertgoers to ignore security and rush the stage. In 2017 after a concert in Arkansas, he took a plea deal after being arrested on suspicion of inciting a riot. That same year, at a concert in New York City, he urged fans to jump off the balconies, suggesting the crowd below would catch them.

   Music exucutive Irving Azoff once dropped Scott as a client, saying he was too unmanageable. 

  Has he encouraged dangerous conduct? "I Tried Not to Die at Travi$ Scott and Young Thug's Show Last Night," read a headline in 2015.

   Say what you want about the deaths not being Scott's fault, the bottom line is he egged those in the mosh pit on to do what they did. Yes, he was very apologetic after the fact, and said he didn't realize people were dying. Still, when you incite someone to violent behavior, you are guilty of criminal neglect. 

Speak to Them with a Baton, for They Will Understand Nothing Else.

   We need a smaller shadow size for our law enforcement. As it is now, when someone is arrested, it is as if a 40-foot shadow is towering over them, just daring them to "make my day."

   No, you don't' get off easy when the law catches up with you. Sometimes, you don't even survive. Don't expect love and understanding; all the shadow understands is that you broke the law, and now you are going to pay for it.

   Sometimes, its not even that you broke the law, it's just that you did something the ominous Darth Vader in the sky didn't like. You offended him, and for that you must not go unpunished. Will you bring a rebuke from the officer? "Rebuke" is not a strong enough of a word. "Tongue lashing" might not even do. Growling is not enough. No, words are not enough; it will take a little physical violence to straighten you out. 

   Oh, not all officers are this way. Most of them -- perhaps far and far and away most of them -- are kind and gentle, polite and respectable. (Well, maybe, maybe not, but sufficient to say they try to be nice.) 

   But, it only takes one mean officer -- one officer who thinks he is a law unto himself -- to really mess things up. "One bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch, baby"? Well, in this case, it does.

   Yes, it just takes one officer who believes he is not only there to enforce the law, he is the law. You will be compliant and obey his every whim; you will be utterly submissive, or the walls will come crashing down on you long before you ever reach the walls of a prison. 

   These shadows are not what we need. We don't need officers who instill such fright and fear into their arrestee that the arrestee panics and looks for the first chance and any chance to bolt and get away. 

   You will argue that sometimes the arrestee doesn't know any other language. You must speak to them with the hardened end of a baton because they will understand nothing else. 

   But, no, you don't have to lower yourself to a criminal's level to arrest a criminal. There are those of us in the public who believe that instead of casting a shadow over the arrestee, we should cast an arm of love around them. 

   Heavy, isn't it? 

It's Kidnapping, You Know

   It's kidnapping, you know, if you put someone on a plane to Martha's Vineyard against their will; and it's kidnapping if you put them on a bus to Washington, D.C., or Chicago against their will.

  It's dang near human trafficking.

  The governors of Florida, Texas, and Arizona have all employed the stunt. Law enforcement officials should be interviewing the migrants to see if any were coerced against their will. And, kidnapping charges should be filed.

  In Florida, the minimum time in prison for kidnapping is four years. In Texas, it is two to 10 years. Arizona? A minimum of 10 years. Governors Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Doug Ducey should be facing some pretty heavy time. 

  They won't, of course. When it's immigrants, somehow that's different. They were clogging up your city, so getting rid of them is hardly viewed as kidnapping. It should be, though. Just because someone is a poor and destitute immigrant -- an unwanted part of society -- doesn't mean you can or should be able to kidnap them.

   Unlawful restraint? It seems those involved possibly should also be charged with that.

   Oh, and human trafficking? Do we say what was done was human trafficking? Human trafficking, says the dictionary, is "the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labor or sexual expoitation." What DeSantis, Abbott, and Ducey did falls short of that, but is close enough to give cause to wonder. The governors aren't transporting them so they can benefit from working them, but they are transporting them for their (the governors') own benefit.

   It is ironic that we call them "illegal aliens," and all the flying saucer movies are about being abducted by aliens. Funny -- this time around it's the aliens being abducted.