I’m Sure I posted this before but it’s timely and relevant so watch and enjoy:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY[/youtube]
Monthly Archives: May 2009
What’s So Funny About Being a Good Citizen Anyway?
James Hart over at Crime Scene KC recently said “this was the dumbest thing you’ll see today:”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1ADqPplQ4[/youtube]
He then went on to call Shadow Hare “Barney Fife in a Fetish Suit” and he apparently isn’t alone in his assessment, given the condescending attitude of the talking heads in the news reported this story. My question to both the snarky blogger and smirking reporter would be this: exactly what have you done to help out your neighbors?
It’s easy to mock the man in spandex isn’t it? But while that reporter phoned in his piece, Shadow Hare and company were handing out sandwiches to the homeless. The same homeless that he and most other people step over and ignore. While Crimes Scene KC does an admirable job recording criminality, there is a movement of people who want to help stop crimes from happening. These people, who refer to themselves as Real Life Super Heroes, are surely a peculiar sight but mainly because they care. Even if they took off their masks they’d be derided for attempting to protect their fellow citizens.
The media reaction to Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels proves that.
When I lived in the Bronx I was well known among my neighbors as the person always watching for trouble. I in fact called the cops several times to intervene in crimes I saw and almost without exception when there was a crime reported I was pretty much one of two or three people in an area of a few thousand that bothered to call it in. My neighbors joked about me being the neighborhood watch, and they freely admitted to hearing screams or fights and never bothering to even look out their windows to see if anyone needed help. When my wife and I finally moved, the daughter of one of our neighbors told us she always felt safe coming home at night because she knew we’d be making sure everything was safe.
How I wished for a Shadow Hare all the times I was calling the cops or intervening in a crime. How I wished that just once there was someone besides my wife and an old man who lived a couple of blocks over who cared enough to try to keep the area safe. Most people in New York don’t care how many rapes and murders happen there, as long as it doesn’t happen to them. Our increasingly liberal, self-absorbed and infantilized society produces quasi-adults who think it’s the responsibility of the invisible hand of the nanny state to keep them and their families safe, to look out for their friends and neighbors and keep the worst of society at bay. How’s that attitude working out for New York? Los Angeles? Detroit?
It’s easy to mock the Shadow Hares of the world, to imply that he’s living out some childish fantasy but ironically he and his Allegiance of Heroes and the whole R.L.S.H. sub-culture are the only ones who seem to understand that the real childish fantasy is the idea that we can simply hope and change away the rising tide of filth that is enveloping us. While Crime Scene KC yuks it up about how pathetic Shadow Hare is, people are being raped, murdered, robbed and victimized in a thousand different ways. While people smirk about costumed do-gooders, perverts are engaged in an organized campaign to minimize and normalize their sexual exploitation of children through groups like SoClear media and SOSEN.
Where’s the blog posts and news reports on that?
And before anyone even starts, of course I see the danger that Shadow Hare could be in. But I can attest to the fact that sometimes just the presence of a person or group of people can stop a crime. Hell, I’ve stopped crimes by standing around smoking a cigarette. Just the presence of a bunch of oddly dressed people on the streets may stop a mugging or two, and if they are willing to take the chance that they could be hurt than isn’t it worth it?
I’m not breaking out the spandex or claiming anyone else should. But I do support neighborhood watch programs and people getting involved in helping their fellow citizens no matter how they happen to like to dress. Maybe it’s because I like to wear a camouflage cowboy hat and have been know to wear far too much jewelry but I just don’t think people dressing up like superheroes is a big deal, and if they’re trying to do some good they deserve our respect, not our derision.
So I’ll put to the readers this question: costume or not, what’s so funny about being a good citizen anyway?
More snark from The Telegraph. The World Super Hero Registry is here. Here’s a follow up on Shadow Hare.
$5000 Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest of Honduran National
From the Chicago F.B.I. website:
Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced today that a reward of up to $5,000 is being offered for information leading to the location and arrest of ORLIN ORTIZ, age 19, whose last known address was 4355 West Thomas in Chicago.
ORTIZ, who is a Honduran national, is wanted by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) for the April 9, 2009 murder of his 28-year old girlfriend, Maribel Alvarez, who was a Chicago native. ORTIZ was charged in a criminal complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Chicago with Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution, which is a felony offense. The filing of this complaint has led to the initiation of a nationwide manhunt for ORTIZ, which is being coordinated by the Chicago FBI.
According to the complaint, ORTIZ is believed to have stabbed Alvarez to death in his apartment, following an apparent domestic dispute. ORTIZ fled the scene before police arrived and has not been seen since. While it is possible that ORTIZ has fled the area, initial investigation by the FBI and CPD has led investigators to believe that ORTIZ is still in Chicago, attempting to raise the funds necessary to aid in his return to his native Honduras.
ORTIZ has been in the United States illegally since 2008 and speaks limited English. He has family members in Chicago, as well as New York City and Los Angeles.
ORTIZ is described as a Hispanic/male, 5’ 7†tall, 140 – 150 lbs., medium build, with black hair and brown eyes. He is known to frequent the areas of Devon and Western, Division and Kostner, Division and Pulaski and Warren Park.
Based on the charge of First Degree Murder that is pending against him, ORTIZ should be considered Armed and Dangerous.
The search for ORTIZ is being coordinated by the Chicago FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force, which is comprised of FBI Special Agents, Detectives from the Chicago Police Department and Investigators from the Cook County Sheriff’s office. Anyone recognizing ORTIZ or having any information as to his current whereabouts is asked to call the Chicago FBI at (312) 421-6700 or the Chicago Police Department.
Just doing the job Americans won’t I guess. Sounds like someone can make an easy 5 Gs if they’re willing to do the right thing. Keep your eyes open if you’re in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.
h/t Da Cribmaster
New DHS Domestic Terrorism “Lexicon” Lists Neo-Paganism but Not Islamism
The Janet Napolitano led D.H.S. has struck again, releasing a handy glossary of terror related groups which omits Islam yet singles out … Neo-Paganism. Something tells me that generally left leaning Wiccans won’t be too upset since they single out Asatru and Odinism as “Conservative” and thus evil, yet it is extremely dishonest to claim either have been a factor in any terror attack.
Odinism is too often associated with racist groups even by other neo-Pagans, but there are people who worship Woden (myself included) who not only aren’t racist but could never be a part of a White Supremacist movement. The D.H.S report defines “Racial Nordic Mysticism” this way:
An ideology adopted by many white supremacist prison gangs who embrace a Norse mythological religion, such as Odinism or Asatru.
The problem is that A) There has never been a widespread movement among White prison gangs to move to paganism (and White prison gangs are allied with Mexican prison gangs anyway, making their racism suspect to say the least) and B) Asatru and Odinism are two different religions. Odinism can mean different things to different people (though most people now avoid the term because of the Wiccan-run smear campaign) but the one thing it doesn’t mean is a person who is involved with Asatru which almost always has a strong anti-racism message:
There is a very strong anti-racist, anti-Nazi stance among national Asatru groups in the Scandinavian countries. This is also found in almost all Asatru groups in English speaking countries. They typically have a clear rejection of racism written into their constitutions. Unfortunately, some anti-racism groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (in its Megiddo report) have mistakenly accused the entire religion of racism.
I would theorize that this mistake is one part lazy research and two parts going to Wiccans (who are the polar opposites of asatruar, as followers of Asatru are sometimes known) for religious definitions. While there may be racist groups who refer to themselves as Odinists, most Asatru groups and people dedicated specifically to the Way of Woden are not involved in White power movements, as a little research would show. I defy anyone to find a terror attack on American soil, or anywhere in the world, committed by a Heathen.
There have been over 13,000 terrorist attacks by Muslims since 9/11. 13,000!
Yet no version of the Islamic Imperialism of Jihadism is mentioned in the memo, as Hot Air points out. Modern Paganism, which has never been linked to an atrocity is on the D.H.S. list of extremist groups, while modern Islam which is responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the last few decades, is absent.
Animal rights groups, “Jewish extremists” and Black Separatists all make appearances on the report. And while animal rights groups have been escalating, I fail to see how they get the inclusion while Jihadists don’t. America has little to fear from “Jewish extremists” and Black Separatists are hardly a national security threat.
This latest hack-job from Napolitano’s D.H.S. shows just how politicized, and incompetent, the new administration is. America is not safe with people like this guarding our country, who believe groups that have never attacked the homeland are more worth mentioning than Islamic terrorism. If we aren’t the victims of another 9/11 style attack in the next few years it will truly be a miracle.
Why I’m Against Hate Crime Legislation
I grew up in the 70s the only Bi-racial child in an all Black area. Throughout my childhood I was specifically targeted for assaults, muggings and in a couple of cases attempted murder by Blacks specifically because of my mixed race. I know this because the people attacking me called me “zebra” or “cracker” and were often enough known to me, at least in that way you would know people from around your neighborhood. I will guarantee you now that not one of the leftists who supports hate crime legislation would suggest the racists who attacked me be prosecuted, because that’s not what hate crime legislation is about.
Hate crime laws are designed to, by process of elimination, create a class of acceptable victims. That why the Christian-Newsom murders were never considered hate crimes even though the heinous brutality of the murders indicate some motivation aside from robbery and rape:
According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner at the subsequent trial of Eric Boyd, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks. He was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back, and his body then set on fire. Christian’s death would come only after hours of sexual torture, medical examiner Mileusnic-Polchan testified. Christian suffered horrific injuries to her vagina, anus and mouth. She was not only raped but savaged with “an object,” possibly a broken chair leg, the doctor testified. She was beaten in the head. Some type of chemical was poured down her throat, and her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area, likely scrubbed with the same solution – all while Christian was alive, the forensic expert said. She was then “hog-tied,” with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered tightly with a small trash bag and her body stashed inside five large trash bags before being placed inside a large trash can and covered with sheets. Christian died slowly, suffocating, the medical examiner said.
The Wichita Massacre was similar in depravity and explicit racism of the attacks, and I would put forward that both were not prosecuted using existing hate crime statutes because there is general agreement among Americans that hate crime legislation should only be used against Whites who commit crimes against an identified protected class. It is no wonder that many gays (especially White liberal gays) sought to have hate crime legislation expanded to cover them as it plays into their desire to be perceived as a minority like Blacks or Native Americans. For the record I don’t believe being gay makes White people “as oppressed” as Black folk were in this country.
I personally happen to subscribe to the theory that there is a spectrum of sexuality, and that people can’t be fit into the Straight/Gay/Bi categories that people who have no other spark of individualism like to use to define their existence. But if we were to accept that it was healthy to base your entire identity on who you prefer to date would that make crimes perpetrated against you by some bigot worse and deserving of more punishment than the crimes perpetrated against Hugh Newsom and Channon Christian?
Is Allen Andrade (who I believe should have died for his crime) more “hateful” than the Newsom-Christian murderers? No, of course not and therein lies my essential argument against hate crime enhancements. They are an implicit recognition by the government that some people’s lives are worth more than others.
No murder is worse than another and no motive for murder is worse than any other. The taking of another human life is only justifiable in the defense of yourself or others, your freedom and in some cases your property. Otherwise, all killing is reprehensible and, on some level, motivated by hatred. If Allen Andrade deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison then so does every murdering, lying thief. But hate crime bills like the one just passed argue that had he killed me or my wife his crime was somehow deserving of a lesser sentence. To me that it truly hateful.