We don’t have a school shooting problem. We have a perception of scale problem. There are roughly 15 million high schoolers in the US at any given time. What percentage of them are actually engaging in school shootings? It’s less than 1/10,000 of 1 percent.
Tag: crime
The Media Can’t Be Trusted
It absolutely astounds me that anyone believes the media tells the truth. The media is nothing more than the public relations department of the state, and every story (from the tales of local constables rounding up farmers and entrepreneurs in the “war on drugs” to the stories of courageous warriors “protecting our freedom” through the mass slaughter known as the “war on terror”) are all designed to mollify the fears and concerns of the gutless sheep who refuse to recognize their true enemy.
Why We Need Markets for Justice
Richard Ebeling once told me, “Government makes criminals of us all.” Government sets up society so that no person can live a life without using some sort of government service, paid for through coerced taxes. I later came to realize that government needs to make moral cowards of us all, in order to keep us dependent on it for the dispensation of justice.
Utah Case Highlights Need for Separation of Medicine and Law Enforcement
In July, Salt Lake City detective Jeff Payne violently abducted Alex Wubbels, a nurse at University of Utah Hospital. Most accounts don’t put it that way — they use the word “arrested” instead — but Wubbels was released without charges because Payne’s actions were clearly an extra-legal physical power play by a police officer who was angry at not getting his way.
The Existence of the State makes Evil People Far More Dangerous
Donald Trump or Barack Obama or George Bush or Franklin D. Roosevelt weren’t particularly dangerous until they obtained control of the state, and the same can be said of nearly every politician, dictator, and tyrant in history. What makes evil people so dangerous is that they can—often in an ostensibly legitimate manner—assume power over millions or even billions of other people.
WikiLeaks: Hostile is as Hostile Does
When the US Senate Intelligence Committee declares WikiLeaks “hostile,” the obvious question is “hostile to whom?” WikiLeaks is allied with the American people, while the US intelligence community — and, for the moment at least, the US Senate Intelligence Committee — is our enemy.
Everyone Misses This Lesson on Political Power From “Game of Thrones”
Getting a seat on the Iron Throne is a pretty raw deal, and even if you have it, you might now have it for long. So why do Game of Thrones‘s rulers spill so much blood to get there? Why not consolidate their own power elsewhere? And why does the question of who sits in leadership draw so many other people into the sinkhole of war?
New Reflections on the Evolution in France
The biggest change is the ubiquitous police and military presence. Teams of militarized police and policified military patrol every tourist site and every public function, plus numerous random locations. It wasn’t just Paris; even small cities like Bayeaux were on guard. I’ve never seen anything like this in the United States, even on September 12, 2001.
Let’s Try to Understand Before Casting Aside
I’m a firm believer in giving people enough rope to hang themselves, but I also try not to make judgments based on one or two often out-of-context comments.
War Crimes and the Long Run
In politics, the masses are highly impulsive. They favor whatever feels good at the moment; medium- and long-run effects are usually too dull and remote to contemplate. Elites, however, often want to claim the mantle of credibility – and deride their opponents’ short-sightedness.