I write here of ways to combat crimes of violence and crimes against liberty, both of which are on the rise. Barring an electoral revolution (against the left) in the next few years, extraordinary measures will be required to halt the nation’s decline into an morass of anarchy mixed with oppression. I also believe, as I discuss below, that extraordinary measures are unlikely to be tried or to succeed if they are tried. Dystopia looms.
CRIMES OF VIOLENCE
A Case in Point
You may have read about the case of a juvenile who was driving a stolen car and struck a mother pushing her baby in a stroller:
That image is from a Fox News story about the juvenile’s sudden death. Here’s the background:
The case made national headlines last year when Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon's office sought a five- to seven-month sentence in juvenile probation camp, a punishment for young offenders described as less severe than military school but harsher than summer camp….
The teen was already on felony probation for poisoning a high school girl's drink at the time of the hit-and-run, which surveillance cameras captured on Aug. 6, 2021.
The video shows a stolen vehicle speeding the wrong way down a one-way backstreet. It plowed into a woman walking her infant son in a stroller. Then he hit the gas, accelerating away from the scene, where a good Samaritan in a pickup truck rammed the suspect vehicle head-on.
Los Angeles police responded and found drugs in the driver’s system and marijuana in the car, according to an incident report obtained by Fox News.
The good news is in the lead paragraph:
A Los Angeles 17-year-old who ran over a mother walking her baby in a stroller in 2021 and received just a few months of diversionary camp as punishment was gunned down in Palmdale, California, this week.
It is my fervent hope that the juvenile, named in the story as Kevin Braca, was gunned down in act act of revenge for the young mother, and that the killer isn’t caught.
Generalizing from the Case
The news of Braca’s untimely death (i.e., several years too late) led me think about how to exact vengeance (i.e., justice) and combat crime despite prosecutors and judges who are unwilling to protect the citizenry from violent criminals.
Here’s an example of what I have in mind:
When a heinous crime occurs, a local police chief or sheriff with some guts and a strong sense of justice would be prepared to exact swift and certain justice.
The chief or sheriff would have a trusted team of officers capture the perp alive and hustle him away from the scene.
Well away from witnesses, the vehicle carrying the perp would be intercepted and the officers holding him would be “forced” to release him to the interceptors.
The perp would later be found hanging from a tree. There would be no useful leads from the rope used to hang him, from DNA, from shoe prints, from stray objects left behind, or even from satellite coverage.
The perpetrator would have been grabbed and hanged in the dark of night, and his executioners would have left the scene on foot under cover of darkness, wearing unidentifiable clothing and footwear. The vehicle they used, which would be left behind, would have been stolen hundreds of miles away by well-disguised persons and kept under cover until it was used in the capture and hanging of the perp. For that purpose, it would have appeared suddenly from a covered position unrelated to anyone involved in the hanging of the perp.
The success such an operation could inspire similar acts by other sheriffs and chiefs of police who are dedicated to justice and not bound by allegiance to a “justice system” that is becoming a haven for criminals. If enough sheriffs and chiefs of police take up the cause, there would be a noticeable reduction in violent crime (and, indeed, most types of crime) — at least in the regions where justice is swift and certain.
Assessment
It’s possible that some mass shooters who are said to have committed suicide were in fact executed by law-enforcement officers. But the circumstances have been murky enough to make suicide believable. An execution under such circumstances has no deterrent effect. An execution must stand out as one to have a deterrent effect.
But an obvious execution invites an intensive investigation — if not by local and State prosecutors, then by federal ones. That prospect alone would challenge the wits and guts of anyone who is thinking about staging an obvious execution. If there are any such executions, they will be few and far between, and therefore will not have a daunting effect on violent criminals.
CRIMES AGAINST LIBERTY
The State of Play
Paradoxically, the abettors of violence — leftist government executives, legislators, judges, and prosecutors — are also on the side of oppression against “ordinary” citizens: hard-working, law-abiding taxpayers. The oppression is justified by appealing to “the narrative”, which boils down to this: Humanity is beset by many threats and dysfunctions: public-health emergencies, climate change, white supremacy, racism, over-incarceration, sexism, arbitrary “assignment” of “gender” at birth, patriarchy, inequities, income and wealth inequality, market failures, transgression of “rights” of all kinds, disregard of “the science”, etc., etc., etc.
The oppressors argue that government must combat and rectify those phenomena, regardless of the consequences for liberty and prosperity. To that end, persons who question the existence or severity of the threats and dysfunctions, the necessity or efficacy of government programs that address them, or the power of government in general are guilty of spreading “misinformation” and must be silenced (at least).
As I (and many others) have amply documented, the road to serfdom is paved with (ostensibly) good intentions. Sir Ernest Benn put it this way:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
“Orwellian” is an over-used but accurate appellation for the present state of affairs in America and much of the Western world. If Americans were to find a way out of the nightmare, the rest of the West might follow suit.
How can Americans overturn the present regime, given its reach, power, and methods?
The left is after everyone who opposes its agenda…. It would be disastrous (for the left) if its opponents could muster enough electoral support to overwhelm the combination of hard-left voters, squishy centrists, and stuffed ballot boxes (and their electronic equivalents).
The left thrives on control. The left therefore seeks every opportunity to transfer power from civil society and the States to the central government; disproportionately engages in electoral fraud; and seeks to undermine social norms and shape them to their own view of how the world should be. Anything that delays or thwarts the left’s march toward totalitarianism is called a threat to “democracy”. What leftists want is “democratic”; anything else is profoundly wrong or plain evil.
… The conspiracy includes not only most Democrat politicians but also vast portions of government bureaucracies throughout the land; most of the public
educationindoctrination industry; most institutions ofhigher learningadvanced indoctrination; most media outlets; most “entertainers”; far too many corporate executives and administrator; and, of course, Big Tech (owners, managers, and employees alike).As these various institutions slid to the left, they formed an informal but tight alliance that moves in lockstep to attain left-wing objectives. Their combined power enables them to advance the left’s agenda by shaping (distorting) perceptions of issues, and controlling the making and enforcement of laws and regulations. The whole thing is a classic Stalinist operation: scapegoat, shame, suppress and prosecute the opposition, and -- above all keep -- an iron grip on power. (The left loves to project its own feelings and methods onto its opponents.)
The broader conspiracy is an open one, but no less dangerous to liberty than subversion by agents of a foreign power.
Here, my recommended remedy isn’t to operate in secrecy until the enemy relents, but to operate openly in massive resistance to the regime.
A Possible Solution (for Some): A National Divorce
The form of resistance would be the simultaneous secession of several States, which I call a national divorce. The case for it is made in the introductory paragraphs of this post. The formal instrument of secession, which makes the case for the legality of secession, can be found by scrolling to section E.
There are twenty-two States whose governorships and legislatures are controlled by the Republican Party. If a dozen or more of those States simultaneously seceded and created a new nation, what could Washington do? A suit in the Supreme Court wouldn’t work because the States would no longer consider themselves subject to the decisions of the Court — or of any other component of the government that sits in Washington.
A threat of violence would be that government’s only recourse. The national guard units of seceding States would no longer be controlled by Washington, and most of them would either desert or rally to the cause of secession. It seem unlikely that they would turn on their native States.
That would leave it up to the president and Congress (what remained of it) to invoke existing laws (e.g., the Enforcement Acts) or make up new ones to justify the invasion and occupation of seceding States by U.S. armed forces. Such a move wouldn’t be universally popular in Congress; large numbers of U.S. senators and representatives who oppose the leftist regime would still be there. And there could even be some opposition from the few remaining leftists who are actually opposed to the oppression of ideological enemies.
At that point, the president would have to choose between (a) maintaining a façade of reasonableness by deferring to Congress or (b) ignoring Congress and proceeding with military action against the seceding States. Contrary to the secession that sparked the Civil War, this secession would be a peaceful one. An incumbent Democrat could be expected to invoke the memory of Abraham Lincoln and order the use of force without first consulting Congress. (Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces on April 13, 1861. Lincoln waited until July 1, 1861, to ask Congress to approve and augment his actions against the Confederacy, which included calling up 75,000 troops and revoking habeas corpus.)
Assessment
The president and Congress would be well prepared for an act of secession. It couldn’t be kept a secret. It would dominate the news for weeks before its consummation. The president would issue stern warnings. The congressional delegations of non-seceding States would pass legislation authorizing the president to use force against seceding States. The effect would be to daunt all but a few determined governors and legislatures — and they must believe that force would be threatened but not used. The secession movement, thus reduced to a token showing, would fizzle.
(For assessments of other options, see sections A, B, C, D, and F of “A National Divorce”.)