Rants of a Fuzzy Curmudgeon

There.  I said it.  I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in drug deregulation until the last several years.  Things change.

Tamara Keel is currently healing up from a broken clavicle.  She’s having trouble getting decent painkillers, thanks to the stupidity inherent in the system, and she’s in a lot of pain.

I hate it that Tam is in pain. And she’s not the only person I know who’s in this predicament.  I have a brother from another mother who has been in horrific, chronic pain since they cracked him open to take out an esophageal tumor a number of years back. If I am recalling his situation correctly, he was on two big Oxycontin tablets daily (and living pretty much in an opioid fog as a result) till just a couple of years ago, when he finally found a pain management specialist who got him down to one tab a day, and got him back to living a relatively normal life.)  But he still has to fight the system to get his 30-day scripts filled. And if the doc is on vacation (as has happened) when it comes time to write him a new script (which by law has to be on paper, no electronic Rx allowed), he’s screwed. But those are the rules: You can have one 30-day script once every 30 days, period, no exceptions, even if you’re planning to travel during an overlap.  And don’t even think about asking for your script a day early.  And now they’re talking about making that 30 days only two weeks, I think.

This is because the federal and state government think that everyone who takes opioids is, by default, a fucking drug addict.  It’s like they think that you take one pill and you’re hooked for life.  Which is total and complete bullshit.

The current drug control regime is just as stupid as the current gun control regime. It penalizes legitimate users/owners while scofflaws do whatever the hell they want.  Criminals get guns in back alleys just like meth-heads buy their packets of white crystals on street corners.  They are completely outside the system and they are laughing at the cops and the bureaucrats who think that they’re going to obey some stupid law that only the law-abiding will follow.

And that’s the bottom line, really.  The problem is that the system is geared to the idea that if something bad is happening, a law to prevent it will solve the problem.  This completely ignores the fact that laws are for the law-abiding.  If everyone recognized and followed the laws, we would not have prisons.  But we do have prisons, and by all accounts they are full to overflowing, because we have laws on the books that some people refuse to follow.

I mean, let’s face it.  Murder is a felony.  Indeed, it’s possibly the most ancient felony about which there are laws on books.  “לא תרצח” wrote the ancient Hebrews, right at the top of the lists of the “thou shalt nots”.  Doesn’t matter how you kill someone, with a gun, with a knife, with a vehicle, with your bare hands.  It’s a felony and you deserve to spend time in stir or be strung up from a gallows for committing it.  Granted that there are grades of punishment based on various conditions of the murder (premeditated, heat of the moment, etc.).  And there are things like manslaughter, which cover accidental murder — still a damn serious charge with a damn serious penalty, but not at the level of cold-blooded murder.  The penalties for murder in any form are damn tough.  But people murder other people every day.  Why?  Because they think they’ll get away with it (even if that thought is informed by drink or pharmaceuticals or just plain madness).  That’s kind of an extreme form of “stupid law that only the law-abiding will follow”, but that’s what murderers generally think or they wouldn’t be murderers.

Rape is generally a felony.  Doesn’t matter to some guys.  Women are just there for the rapin’, as far as they’re concerned.  And all the fuckups with DNA testing haven’t made it easier to convict them, either.  They just figure they won’t be caught.  Like the swim coach up in Carmel who got nailed last week for screwing around with one of his 17-year-old students.  And that was a guy, for a change…most of the child rape/molestation cases coming out of schools are woman on boy, again, mostly because the teacher figures she’ll never get caught because the kid will never rat them out.*  (If you don’t believe that it’s mostly female teachers molesting their young charges these days, Instapundit’s got news for you.)

Vehicular homicide coupled with a DUI is also a couple of felonies tied together.  Doesn’t stop people from drinking and driving, particularly when cops do it and get off with a slap on the hand.**

The point of all this is to show that sometimes a law just isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, if someone is damn well disposed to violate it.  And generally such people violate the law because they don’t think they’ll get caught.

Thus it has been throughout the history of mankind.  Most of the Old Testament is laws because even back then people couldn’t be trusted to behave in a civilized manner.  And laws governing human behavior go back even farther than that.

So at what point do we throw laws out and let nature take its course?  Well, in my opinion, when laws are so ridiculous that they literally penalize those who are law-abiding.  Laws preluding murder, rape, and drunken behavior — not to mention theft and suchlike — don’t penalize the law-abiding, because by default, they won’t do such things.  Frankly, even laws against prostitution don’t penalize the law-abiding, because they’re likely home in bed with their spouse.

I don’t believe in gun control (other than insofar as it results in a nice, tight grouping on the target), not only because I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, but also because there is generally a Darwinian component to bad guys who have guns, viz., they tend to shoot each other up a lot, and when they try to start trouble in places where they shouldn’t, they often (sadly, not often enough) end up on the wrong end of someone else’s firearm — where “someone else” is usually a legal carrier.

Back when the drug and gang problem was in full swing in the fair city of Indianapolis (not that it still isn’t, but it’s cut down to a dull roar in comparison), my solution to the problem was, “fuck it, cordon off the major trouble area with National Guard troops and let them kill each other off.”  And it sort of still is, other than the fact that I know there are plenty of innocents living in that area.  To me, though, the problem is one that could be solved if we as a civilized society were willing to do what’s necessary to root out the bad apples.  But until we’re ready to do that, fuck it, let them kill each other, I don’t care.

I take the same attitude about drug addicts, particularly the problem children down along the Ohio River.  Let them OD and kill themselves.  Stop bringing them back to life so they can shoot up or snort again.  I have a paramedic niece in Cincinnati whose personal best was (if I recall correctly) Narcanning the same OD’d dopehead three times in the same week.  (They could have made appointments.)  But fuck that.  Let the guy die if he’s that intent on killing himself (or at least, that intent on behavior that is likely to kill him).

Our distant ancestors used to kill defective children to improve the breed.  In our own time, genocide has been practiced on people who belonged to the “wrong” community.  We used to think that people of one race were superior to people of other races, and vice versa.  But that isn’t the problem here.  Drug addiction cuts across all races and genders and all walks of life.  It affects everyone, even non-addicts, because of the anti-social behavior usually practiced by addicts.  Drug addiction is a very bad thing and whether you agree with me or not regarding how to solve the problem (or at least the worst expressions of it), the facts point to an inescapable conclusion about government drug control that is absolutely no different than the one many of us already draw regarding government gun control:

It doesn’t work because the only people who care are the people who abide by the law to begin with.

Joe Random Gangbanger and Jane Random Methhead aren’t going to stop what they’re doing because some stupid law inconveniences them.  The last count was something like 400 million guns on the streets in America.  And who knows how many kilotons of recreational drugs are making their way through the pipelines from Central America and China.

You can’t stop either one of them because the people who are already predisposed to tell you to fuck off don’t care about your efforts.  All you can do is penalize the people who need the pain killers or who want to exercise their God-given right to self-defense by legally carrying a weapon.

Nope.  It’s time to take the restrictions off.  Any and all restrictions in law that effectively penalize the law-abiding but do nothing to stop the scofflaws needs to go.

I’m a Fuzzy Curmudgeon and I endorse this message.

_________________

* As a former teenage boy who had the hots for a couple of his high-school teachers, I can fully understand why they might think that, too.  But the problem with teenage boys is they can’t keep their mouths shut about that sort of thing…eventually they have to brag.  Luckily, back when I was in high school, female teachers had a better-developed sense of morality and ethics, so if you ever heard about something like this, it was the exception, not the rule.

** And then the stupid shit can’t keep from getting ANOTHER DUI when he’s out on bail for the first one.

*tap tap* *SQUEAL* *tap tap*

Is this thing on?

Posting will resume shortly.  Vacation was nice.  Back to frickin’ work.

It’s time for a vacation, so I won’t be posting regularly for a couple of weeks.

What?

Oh…well…yeah, how is that different from when I’m not on vacation?  Not much.

Although I HAVE done pretty well at doing two posts a week for the last few weeks.

So PHBBBBBBBBT.

Anyway, posting will be (as we say in the amateur radio community) “holiday style” till the end of the month, meaning, I’ll post when I damn well please and about what I damn well please.  Even if it’s just beach and sunset pictures.

Aloha, baby.

Dear Councilman,

I am deeply disappointed that the City-County Council will be taking up Proposal 112 at its meeting this evening.

This resolution is, first of all, an attempt to violate the rights of law-abiding citizens.  But more importantly, it is completely meaningless, because the State of Indiana has statewide preemption of firearms regulation.  It’s clear that the council recognizes that fact, because Proposal 112 is merely a resolution to write a strongly-worded letter to the General Assembly, which will simply laugh it off.

However, the council will waste valuable debate time over something that makes absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things, but which can be waved around like a bloody flag at election time to prove that certain council members have checked off all of the correct political position boxes.  Banning weapons from the law-abiding public does not make them safer, as anyone who follows “armed citizen” reports would know.  But isn’t ensuring public safety part of the council’s bailiwick?  How do you do that when you take away the right of self-defense and “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away”?

Were the council truly interested in reducing gun violence in the City of Indianapolis, it would be encouraging efforts to enforce the myriad of existing gun laws, but more importantly, it would be taking steps to clean up the drug, gang, and homeless problems from which the City suffers.  Insisting on banning so-called “assault” weapons and high-capacity magazines is not how you clean up these problems – it simply removes the option of self-defense from law-abiding citizens, while those who are uncaring about the law and willing to break it will always find a way to obtain banned weapons.

We need only look to the City of Chicago and the problems they have with outlaws obtaining guns, regardless of having some of the strictest anti-gun laws on the books.  The City of Deerfield has been handed a setback in court regarding its attempt to remove weapons from its city limits.  The day of this sort of restriction is past; only dinosaurs and progressives are still pushing to strip us of the right to self-defense.

The fact is that laws are for the law-abiding.  It is an exercise in futility to enact legislation in the hope that the lawless will obey it.  The City of Indianapolis has better things to work on than debating useless measures such as Proposal 112.

Sincerely,
Fuzzy Curmudgeon

to acknowledge the blog’s 16th birthday.

Yes, the blog is now old enough to drive.

It’s also the anniversary of the end of the Battle of Midway, 76 years ago, so look sharp for those Zeros coming in from 12 o’clock high.

And ABC is probably going to find that out now that they’ve cancelled Roseanne based on a fairly mild racist idiot tweet from Roseanne Barr that I won’t bother to repeat here.  The article I read in the WSJ earlier today suggested that killing that production put hundreds of people out of work.  And talk about a knee-jerk reaction.  Would ABC have been so quick to kill a show that made fun of Donald Trump or one of his minions?  I mean, NBC has never cancelled Saturday Night Live, and it’s been ragging on GOP presidents and other conservatives pretty much from day one.  ESPN (a division of ABC/Disney) lost a huge number of viewers and billions of dollars over the anthem kneeling in the NFL, by all reports.  But they never used their bully pulpit to tell the NFL to put a stop to it or they’d take them off the air.

Well, here’s what I think about Roseanne.

I think she actually may have some personal liking for Trump, possibly from back in his days as a TV celeb. She might even have voted for him. But she’s independent as hell, plus she’s a few bricks shy of a full load to begin with. It wasn’t the Ambien talking — just like booze, the Ambien simply loosened her tongue, and out poured the resident evil. If indeed it was Ambien at all, she’s said some pretty outré things in the past without any apparent need for chemical encouragement.  When they said she’d come out as a conservative, I was honestly shocked, because I couldn’t stand her the first time around because she was such a damn liberal (as we called progressives back in the day).

A friend said he thought her conservatism was a sham, set up to give conservatives a black eye with this racist tweet and the resulting hooroar (as Pogo would have put it).  I doubt that.  The left is not generally smart enough to play the long game anymore. Their march through the institutions destroyed any chance of them bringing in a new generation of truly smart, well-educated leftists. Everything they’ve done lately has seemingly been for immediate gratification, and most of it has boomeranged on them. They’re scared to death of the Trump phenomenon, and it shows in their panic as the polls, which had them blue-waving in November, are inexorably turning against them.

Not that I trust the polls, but I find it interesting that Trump is polling as high as he is, and that the generic Congressional voter poll is in a statistical tie. Either the pollsters are trying to scare Democrat voters out of the woodwork and into the polling stations, or Trump’s numbers are really higher than the polls let on. Or both.

My guess is that Dem turnout in November will be down significantly, as many of them will be too depressed to cast a ballot. But the GOP needs to GOTV or it may be a wash regardless.

Seems like a simple concept, but I keep seeing posts on social media about how teachers/nurses/first responders/etc. should be paid a lot more than they already are.  Which sounds like a good idea if you don’t think about where the money is going to come from.  The latest one I saw involved the question of why a major league ball player should make millions of dollars for throwing a ball around (and occasionally hitting one, or tossing one in a hoop or some such) and nurses get paid squat for saving lives.

Well, shoot, folks.  If you’re willing to pay big bucks to go to the ballpark, you and maybe 20,000 of your best friends, and they get TV money and radio money and all that, the team can afford to pay a pitcher (say) the big bucks. And the pitcher is going to be able to pitch for maybe 10 years. Some last longer, some don’t. And they’re always an injury away from selling used cars in a bad suit, no matter what position or sport they play. If they’re going to have to retire in their mid-30’s, they’d better hope they put away enough money to keep their family going for the rest of their life, or that they actually got a college degree that’s worth something and can get a decent job after sportsball using that.

On the other hand, hospitals generally don’t see the big bucks. Yeah, it’s horrifically expensive to get anything done in a hospital, but you don’t see the overhead for operations, insurance, and everything else that makes the hospital run. Believe me, I’ve sat in hospitals, and I have no idea how they come up with that much money to keep the place running. Hospitals are unbelievably complex and massively expensive operations, from basic infrastructure right down to the scalpel the surgeon is using to operate or the cold washcloth the nurse uses to wake you up in the morning. (Sorry.) And in the end, hospitals pay nurses what they can afford to pay. It sucks, but it is what it is, and you can’t tell me you didn’t know the job paid what it does before you decided to do it for a career. But you’ll do that career until you retire, more than likely, and where the pitcher can pitch for maybe 10 years, you’ll be helping people for 40 or more. Will you ever make parity with the pitcher? No. But you’ll have a steady income that you don’t have to worry too much about.

Teachers are perhaps the most annoying of the “we don’t make enough money” bunch, because most of them ARE public employees, and they get paid by your local municipality or county or state taxing you to pay them. They work at schools that are also paid for on the backs of the taxpayer. And there’s a point at which the taxpayer isn’t going to stand to be taxed any more. But teachers insist that they are worth more than they are paid, constantly, to the point where you want to punch their lights out when they start threatening to go on strike, and tell them they should have picked another damn career if they wanted to make more money. It’s enough to make a man home school his children. If he had children. But I digress.

But again, a teacher has got a much more secure career and income than that pitcher we were talking about does.

Now me, I haven’t had a raise in five years, and what I got five years ago was a COLA raise. In the past five years I’ve been handed more responsibility than ever before. Five years ago, nobody worked for me. Today I have six engineers working for me. But I don’t complain (much), even though I feel I’m underpaid, because I would not make the kind of money I make today if I worked for someone else. And you can’t beat the Cadillac health insurance policy I don’t pay for and for which we pay a pittance for my wife’s coverage. But I chose wisely 23 years ago without realizing it, even if I do want to kill my boss on a regular basis. (Kidding. Mostly.)

In an ideal world, everyone would have everything they need and more. But it’s not an ideal world, and nothing anyone can say or do is ever going to make it one. And teachers and nurses and police and firemen and EMTs and paramedics and medtechs are always going to be underpaid, even as vital as they are to our modern society, because there just isn’t enough money out there to do more for them.

I’m sorry about that. If I were king of the world, and wealth was unlimited, I’d do something about it. Meantime, the government robs me every chance it gets and wastes half of what it takes on the undeserving and on gratuitous boondoggles they hope we never notice. If we want to pay folks what they’re really worth, the first thing we need to do is stop the grand theft called income taxation.

And to be honest with you, the first people I’d give a fat raise to would be the military.  Because without the military protecting our freedom, nobody is going to make big bucks doing much of anything.

Unless maybe they’re a collaborator.

So until you’re willing to take an honest look at why middle-class wages and salaries are insufficient, and admit that it’s because the government takes nearly half (or maybe more than half) of your paycheck in taxes, fees, and suchlike (and please don’t forget that, at least in Indiana, the governor* adds 7% to your purchases — and 9% if you eat in a restaurant anywhere in Marion County, 8% in the “doughnut” counties), then frankly, I’m not interested in your pissing and moaning about how it’s not fair that you work so hard for so little.

Especially teachers.  You fuckers (most of you) are unionized.  Maybe you should take an honest look at how your unions are spending your dues money.  You probably won’t like what you see.

_______________

* Yeah, we joke about “7% for the governor”, but the fact is, it’s the legislature that imposes taxes on us, including the 1%/2% “dining taxes” to pay for a football stadium that was torn down before a dollar of the principal on its loans and bonds was paid off, and the billion-dollar boondoggle that took its place (and that Jimmy Irsay now owns in all but fee simple).  The governor just signs off on their work (and his veto can be overridden if the legislature feels strongly enough about it).  So before you go hanging the Gov off of Oliver Morton’s statue, you might want to consider finding 150 lampposts along Capitol Avenue to string up our state legiscritters, first.