Saturday, September 28, 2019

Solving America's mental health problems, for the solution read on....

Starting in the 1960's, the U.S. slowly abandoned the concept of locking crazy people away in mental health institutions such as were run by Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'  By the 1990's, they were all shuttered and the inmates were turned loose to fend for themselves.

We as a nation chose this path and were of the opinion that it was better to have sociopaths, drug addicts, and the myriad of undesirables living among us rather than risk a few innocents getting caught up in the mental health system.  The abuses of courts and medical practitioners in committing otherwise sane and law abiding people to confinement in mental health institutes has run its course, and we will not return to those former Soviet/East German-style practices anytime soon. And we still are of this opinion as I speak.

And now we are seeing crazy/evil people shooting up schools, malls and work places.  We step over mumbling basket cases living on the mean streets of urban liberal cities.  "Don't make eye contact" is the best protection against these human debris, or so they say.  Ignore them.  That solution is not really working all that well anymore.

We are not considering bringing back the nut houses and insane asylums of the past.  But the former inmates of these institutions are now starting to cause great harm to many in polite society.  How does the law abiding citizen protect themselves from these miscreants among us?

Simple.

1.  Enact a national concealed weapon carry law that allows free people to protect themselves from those that would harm them.  Yes, the miscreants would also wind up with concealed weapons themselves, but should they choose to wield their weapons against others, they would meet deadly return fire almost assuredly.  Soon, the many miscreant evil-doers would find that their aggression against others will assuredly result in their own injury or demise and accordingly they will cease using force to enhance their positions at the expense of others.  It's difficult to say with any precision how many good people comprise society versus the proportion of criminal elements but in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, I would have to say that 90% good vs evil is roughly the number.

In short order, violent crimes committed by undesirables against law abiding citizens would fade to levels acceptable to our society.  Reducing that number to zero is simply not taking into account reality and human nature and we will as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west always have crime.  But we could live with the resulting lower numbers of  violent crimes such as murders, kidnappings, rapes, robberies, etc., as they most assuredly would plummet to levels not seen before.  The most aggressive scum bags would wind up in the morgue, while the marginal nut jobs would have a basic understanding that should they choose to harm others, their days would be numbered.

Will this proposal turn the country into 'the Wild Wild West?'  Where there are gun fights on every corner at all times of the day and night and that scenes from the 'O.K. Corral' will play out as a result of a minor disagreement or perceived insult?  No.  The Wild Wild West was never like that, either.  Polite folks were armed to the teeth back in those days, and the evil elements knew that drawing their guns on others almost always ended up in a hail of gun fire coming their way.

An armed society is a polite society.  Or, as NRA President Wayne LaPierre correctly puts it, 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.'  No truer words were ever spoken.

2.  Enact national vagrancy laws.   It's no longer considered against the law to be a bum.  Or, as we used to call them, a vagrant, a hobo, a vagabond.  Someone with no visible means of support.  They are now called 'the homeless.'  Nuts to that.  We need to call them what they are, and that would be vagrants.  Vagrants with no visible means of support always resort to crime to prop up their chosen disreputable lifestyles.  And these criminals prey on the rest of us polite folk.  Bring back the days when these undesirables were rounded up and thrown in jail.  Regardless of whether they are nuts or not, they need to be incarcerated.  Many of these bums will in time understand that they need to get a job to avoid the slammer.  The crazy will languish in jail.  So be it.






Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Get ready for the sob stories.....

Yes, it's hurricane season again in the warm waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.  Happens every year, without exception; hurricanes develop and wipe things out.

Like the sun coming up in the east and setting in the west, you can count on it.  Every year.  Every dagnab, doggone, dadgum year (as they say down there where these hurricanes happen).  Some are just bigger than others, but they all cause damage.

The highest point in the Bahamas is around 40 feet above sea level, but most of the inhabitants live around 5 feet about sea level.  The photos of the devastation from the wind and storm surge on the western islands reveals almost complete destruction of anything man made.  And most of the trees, too.

Everybody who has lived in U.S. hurricane prone areas for 10 years or so knows about these hurricanes - they've lived through them (or many of them have lived through them).  And yet when hurricanes rise up and wipe out their mobile home, there they are; standing there in front of the camera, stained wife-beater T-shirt proudly displayed, tears in their eyes wondering how such a thing could happen.  And then the Governor declares the place an emergency, FEMA swoops in and hands out free goodies, and everybody gets free stuff.  

Who pays for all this free stuff and rebuilding going on in known flood areas and hurricane alleys?  The rest of us do, those who don't build with the intent on getting wiped out.  We cough up in tax payer dollars and increased insurance premiums for these idiots who get reimbursed by all the common sense folks out there who don't put themselves in harms way on purpose.

Why do we put up with this, year in and year out?  And why, when the gambler stumbles out of the casino dead broke, after having put up his life savings on black at the roulette table and it came up green, do we not dip into our pockets and bail this poor wretch out?

And why, when the sky diver's widow appears on TV, crying for the recent loss of her hubby whose chute didn't open, don't we just pay off all her debts and retire her mortgage and pay for all her kid's college tuition?

And how about all of those dopes who build their houses in New Orleans - BELOW SEA LEVEL - and then the inevitable flood comes into town, destroying everything there.  Are we still bailing out those dopes?

Apparently we are.  When will we ever stop enabling these fools who knowingly put themselves in peril, always expecting more sensible folk to come to their rescue?

Probably never.  Sigh.