Seems About Right to Me
Aug 14, 2009 Political
Looking over stories in the New York Times ( on the basis that it is a good thing to know your enemy), I came across a story that absolutely warmed the cockles of my heart. I understand why not everyone would feel as I do, but this is truly a tale about morality.
They strode into the restaurant supply store in Harlem shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday, four young men intent on robbery, one with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. The place may have looked like an easy mark, a high-cash business with an owner in his 70s, known as a gentle, soft-spoken man.
But Charles Augusto Jr., the 72-year-old proprietor of the Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Corporation, at 523 West 125th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, had been robbed several times before, despite the fact that his shop is around the corner from the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street.
There were no customers in the store, only Mr. Augusto and two employees, a man and a woman. The police said the invaders announced a holdup, approached the two employees and tried to place plastic handcuffs on them. The male employee, a 35-year-old known in the community as J. B., struggled with the gunman, who then hit him on the head with the pistol.
nytimes.com
Yeah- that’s right, another robbery in New York- go figure, right? Four punks, who felt as if this Mr. Augusto Jr. should just hand over his hard- earned money to them, were in for a shock-
Watching it happen, Mr. Augusto, whom neighborhood friends call Gus, rose from a chair 20 to 30 feet away and took out a loaded Winchester 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a pistol-grip handle. The police said he bought it after a robbery 30 years ago.
Mr. Augusto, who has never been in trouble with the law, fired three blasts in rapid succession, the police said, although Vernon McKenzie, working at an Internet company next door, heard only two booms, loud enough to send him rushing to a window, where he heard someone shout: “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
The first shot took down the gunman at the front. He died almost immediately, according to the police, who said he was 29 and had been arrested for gun possession in Queens last year and was the nephew of a police officer.
Mr. Augusto’s other two blasts hit all three accomplices, who stumbled out the door, bleeding.
nytimes.com
Oooh- Snap! that’s a big error on the part of the robbers- and they got what they deserved- I know that this is traumatic for this older man, because it is traumatic to shoot anyone, even if they had it coming.
There was no way that Mr. Augusto could have known if these robbers would leave them alive after the robbery, and he did exactly the right thing, since, as I have pointed out before, the Police are a reactive force, generally brought in after the fact. They solve crimes, but in reality, rarely prevent them, although they surely would love to.
The reaction of the relatives of these robbers was striking-
Outside the emergency room entrance of the hospital, at 113th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, relatives and friends of the dead and wounded men screamed and wailed in anguish as word of what had happened spread.
“No! No!” a woman cried. “They said he just died!”
Another crying woman, surrounded by family members, heard one of her relatives had been shot trying to rob a store.
“Oh my God!” she wailed. “Why would they want to rob a store?” She started to scream: “Damn! Why? Why would he go to a family store? He got money!” She slumped against the wall and began to pray.
Later, a man ran into the emergency room and came out screaming, “Oh, God!” He held his head in his hands and sat at the curb, apparently devastated.
A youth about 16, crying and pacing at the emergency room entrance, slammed his fist into a yellow pole.
nytimes.com
Where were these people in providing a moral compass to guide these young mens’ behavior? It clearly wasn’t an economic thing, judging from the comments of the relatives, so why? The only answer I can come up with is weak morals. A person cannot be led by the nose if he or she has the moral clarity to resist. These young men did not, and now two are dead, and two are in the hospital, and the short story line is, “That’s Justice.”
Unfortunately, this occurred in New York, so Mr. Augusto does not get off with a medal, but with a citation-
Paul J. Browne, chief spokesman for the Police Department, said that Mr. Augusto had not been arrested or charged. He was being treated like a witness and was still being questioned early Friday at the station house. It was unclear if the shotgun was registered, but Mr. Browne said, “There is a lower threshold for owning a shotgun in the city, a permit as opposed to a license.”
A law enforcement official said that the district attorney was considering a possible misdemeanor weapons charge against Mr. Augusto, indicating that he did not have a permit for the shotgun.
nytimes.com
No good deed goes unpunished, as they say, especially in New York. This man not only thwarted a robbery (a crime in itself), but possibly saved not only his own life, but those of his employees. For that, he should be given a medal.
There need to be more Mr. Augustos.
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And You Wonder Why We Are Nervous?
Aug 12, 2009 Political
The Resident keeps on mocking his detractors regarding the Healthcare bill, saying that they are resorting to “scare” tactics to try and kill this obamanation of a bill, but in reality, all one has to do is look at the architects of this bill- who had input in the formation of the terms by which these “people” ( and I say that provisionally) wish to dictate our lives.
Take Professor Peter Singer- a man who believes that a baby is not human until it can have actual thoughts, and recognize that there is a tomorrow. That alone is scary stuff, but there’s more-
Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. A preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus, at least up to around eighteen weeks, says Singer, has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother’s preferences to have an abortion, therefore abortion is morally permissible.
Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood — “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness”[28] — and therefore “killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.”[29]
en.wikipedia.org
Kind of Nazi- like, isn’t it? But then he gets really bizarro- Don’t believe me? Okay, here we go-
In a 2001 review of Midas Dekker’s Dearest Pet: On Bestiality, Singer argues that sexual activities between humans and animals that result in harm to the animal should remain illegal, but that “sex with animals does not always involve cruelty” and that “mutually satisfying activities” of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans and animals, and that writer Otto Soyka would condone such activities.
en.wikipedia.org
Gee, now there’s somebody you don’t want working at the SPCA, much less having input in the most intrusive and expensive Healthcare bill ever to be debated.
Now we come to John Holdren, who, believe it or not, is the Resident’s Science Czar- Really? Allow me-
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.zombietime.com
This, unfortunately, is just the beginning of the wrong- headed thinking that pervades the White House, and after becoming just a little acquainted with these two sc**bags, you really feel like washing your eyes out. These are people we want to have power in deciding our fate? Is their “input” really something that is positive? Or is it as repugnant to you as it is to me?
I know that after doing the researchI have done, I no longer feel that Sarah Palin’s “Death Panel ” comment is that far out of line- indeed, sorry to say, she might be right on in her assessment, because these are not the only two that (A)- have had input on this bill, and (B)- are “Czars” in this administration.
The Resident once said that if we want to know how he is going to make his decisions, to just look at the people he surrounds himself with. Well- we are looking, but the glimpse is certainly not reassuring us about the state of our Healthcare.
Tomorrow, I will introduce you to Ezekiel Emmanuel, the brother of the Resident’s Chief of Staff, and Van Jones, the Resident’s “Green Jobs Czar”. They also hold views that are puzzling, considering the Healthcare Debate.
In the meantime, study these people- the more you know, the more horrified you will be.
And if I was the Resident, I wouldn’t leave Peter Singer and Bo, the Resident’s dog, in the same room.
It’s just not safe.
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Tags: eugenics, morality, rationing, Sterilization