Strike The Root Blog

Chesley B. (”Sully”) Sullenberger is a god.

Seriously. If I were to run into the guy on the street tomorrow, I would simply be in awe of his presence. That’s because Sullenberger actually crash landed a malfunctioning U.S. Airways jet on the Hudson friggin’ River and nobody was seriously injured. That is just positively amazing. It’s one of those achievements that should stand as a glaring reminder to the rest of us as to what human beings can really accomplish. That act was nothing less than the culmination of many years of intense focus, careful study and much mastering of some very tricky technical skills. Just amazing.

It’s interesting, though, that I hear so many people around me mention his experience as an F-4 fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. The upshot of these conversations is thank the gods for “our” military, so that people can learn such highly valued, life-saving skills. The irony never seems to dawn on these people that the mission of the armed forces is to destroy human life, whereas Sullenberger preserved human life.

But they also seem to forget that Sullenberger has been flying commercial airliners since about 1980, whereas he spent only six years in the Air Force. Why jump to the conclusion that what Sullenberger was able to do yesterday must have come from his military experience, rather than from his more numerous years as a commercial airline pilot?

And why this assumption that only the military could provide the kind of training needed to fly airplanes so skillfully? It’s true that many military pilots take their flying experience into the commercial airline industry. But surely if there was no military at all, that does not mean that we would all be doomed to flying in planes piloted by incompetents. There’s no reason to doubt that some of the billions and billions of dollars that would be spared from “national defense” each year would instead be spent by the airline industry itself, or currently existing flight schools, on continuously improving pilot training and education.

Interestingly, Sullenberger is the founder of a business that provides “technical expertise and strategic vision and direction to improve safety and reliability in a variety of high risk industries.” Sullenberger’s actions yesterday demonstrate that highly skilled individuals offering their technical expertise in the marketplace in pursuit of their own personal gain—rather than myriad bureaucrats and their rules and regulations—are the most effective at keeping people safe in potentially dangerous situations.

(Cross-posted at The Postmodern Tribune.)

Not everyone is onboard with the American Empire:

Who will the Orcs vote for? More power for Mordor, to be sure:

State flags make good snot rags:

Blood stains- the calling card of the US Crusaders:

Doin’ what they do best- hands in pocket, feet comfortably apart:

Sheep always listen carefully and do as they’re told:

The list is long for victims of the voting gang wars:

Wrap thy young in the cocoon of death….

….and never forget- Country, not your children, First:

“Are you a capitalist?” One day closer to Apocrypha Obamolies:

Will crossover voters play a part….

….in the “advance auction of stolen goods?”

State initiated violence keeps peaceful individuals on the move:

One crusader is thankful he’s not injured.  If only he could change his species:

The state’s need to regulate is never quenched….

….nor is its thirst for blood:

Is Jo Mac’s campaign in the toilet?

Just in case the election doesn’t work out, Sarah has a back up plan:

Safer ballots than electronic:

In addition to initiating two major wars and vastly expanding the warfare state, adding on a whole new program to the costly state socialist health insurance boondoggle, innovating new legal interpretations in order to permit torture of mere suspects (including their children), and subjecting increasing numbers of Americans to government surveillance, George W. Bush is about to pull off one more massive Federal power grab before he leaves office:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation’s financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability. That would include new powers to examine the books of any institution deemed to represent a potential threat to the proper functioning of the overall financial system.

Wow.

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Southlake, Texas, a small suburb of 24,000 uppity souls in the northwest corner of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, is becoming a dangerous place to live. Southlake is a pristine town that struggles to maintain its dignity and purity in the face of the multitudes oozing out from crowding neighbors.

A police blotter from February 8 describes these evildoings:

• 12 juveniles consuming at a party that had gotten too loud
• vandals shooting out a residential window
• vandals shooting out a vehicle’s windows
• 3 DWIs (all adults)
• two identity thefts
• theft of a stove (!) from a residence
• theft from a storage unit
• two construction thefts, including one arrest of an adult

That’s the sum total for one week of violence in Southlake. Obviously things are out of hand here. And the blotter doesn’t even mention the worst of it: the public nuisances presented by unruly teens at the local mall.

Local mall? Well, no, Southlake would never be so undignified as to allow a mall. (Southlake doesn’t even allow you to rent a tool from Home Depot. Apparently, town founders felt that residents shouldn’t fix their own houses, they should hire undocumented migrant workers.) Instead, Southlake features something called the Southlake Town Square—a ludicrous, Disneyland-ish attempt to re-create an old fashioned downtown area. The Town Square features places to work, shops (generally overpriced trendy crap, in my humble opinion), eateries, a movie theater, and, to the distress of many, a place to hang out for annoying hordes of middle school urchins.

An article today in the predictably leftist local rag talked about Southlake’s interest in cracking down on the hangers-out. The pubescent hordes are perceived as little more than a nuisance. They hang out in the book store, a roomy Barnes & Noble that stays open late. B&N is corrupting the souls of our youth! This must be stopped! A curfew is required! The police chief will petition the city council for an 11pm curfew for children under 17.

Never mind, of course, that there is no real crime problem, youth or otherwise, in Southlake. It’s kids being kids, being loud, and getting out of hand once in a while. The merchants should have the right to solve this problem on their own without a heavy-handed intervention and crackdown by local ordinances and flatfoots.

Oddly, no one views hundreds of kids in one place as a blessing and an opportunity. At least they have somewhere to go, somewhere that the watchful eyes of many adults keep them from getting into any real trouble. And they should represent a tremendous financial opportunity for someone–if you can’t make a buck sucking up the bored dollars of the overly pampered middle school and high school set, you’re not trying. Maybe the owners of Southlake Town Center should push out one more unnecessary Ann Taylor store in favor of an arcade.

A Southlake curfew will represent one wonderfully bad but typical example of the predominant modern use of government: as a force, to suppress behavior of others, behavior that you don’t happen to like. The affected teens can’t vote, so there’s no fear of resistance or reprisal. Of course, the bogus argument is always that it’s “for the safety of the kids,” and to help curb vandalism. We all know, though, that it’s about people who are tired up putting up with snotty, loud teenagers. But a curfew will only push the kids whose parents don’t care further into the shadows.

Back in August, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer—perhaps the most aptly named politician of my lifetime—had, through sheer force of his and the New York state legislature’s will, “guaranteed” certain “rights” for consumers of air travel. That law officially went into effect as of Jan. 1^st.

This “Passenger’s Bill of Rights” mandates that “passengers in New York who are delayed on planes for more than three hours will not be without basic amenities including: water, snacks, fresh air and working restrooms. And if they feel their rights are violated, they can report it and airlines could face penalties of up to $100,000 per passenger per violation.” The new law also creates costly new roles for government bureaucrats, i.e., a New York-based “consumer advocate” charged with coordinating communication between airline officials, Federal agencies and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the event of serious delays.

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Health insurance is a mess. Indeed. I’m watching Michael Moore (and moore and moore) on Leno. Interesting mention of the bonus plan in England: Doctors get bonuses at the end of the year, based off of how well their patients improve. Also, Moore made some interesting admissions that Hillary and the Democrats are just as complicit in the health care debacle as are the Republicans.

Wonderful. An excuse for socialized medicine? No doubt. Never mind that there are so many other aspects to the problem: deliberate limited competition among doctors (causing price increases), ludicrous lawsuits and awards based on sympathy (creating ludicrous doctor insurance costs), costs signed off by a consumer that never sees them, and excessive government bureaucracy, to name a few. The government itself created many, if not most, of the problems in health care today.

It all leads to cries again for socialized medicine (aka “universal health care”). The government should handle it, says Moore. It’s a “human right.”

Here’s one simple argument against: I work hard to live a healthy lifestyle. I resent the notion that I should be helping pay for someone who does not—for example, an X-games motocross competitor, or, say, an unhealthy tub like Moore.

Ahh, the arrogance, to try and force one’s moral system onto the rest of us.

Dallas police have finally arrested a man responsible for robbing local convenience stores by throwing hot coffee in the face of cashiers and than grabbing money from the cash register.

Maybe it’s long past time for our heroic legislators to offer remedies for such crimes. Obviously, cups must be registered by the state and given traceable serial numbers even before attempting to pour said coffee. A “C-chip” could be required in all coffee dispensing machines that would not deliver the hot product into any cup that is not legally registered. Perhaps proposing a three day waiting period for hot coffee purchases. This period would give time for a complete background check of the potential customer. Let’s make a law requiring that coffee be dispensed cold (temperature to be checked periodically by ATF&C spot inspection) and requiring that said coffee be reheated by the customer outside the boundaries of a “hot coffee-free zone;”  being anywhere within 500 feet of a convenience store cashier.

There are endless possibilities for “doing something” to end such crimes. All of them bring endless opportunities to restrict individual freedom. But hey, our masters say we have too much of that freedom stuff, anyway.

I spent over 2 hours yesterday going to another city by Metro rail and then bus and spending a considerable amount of time lost on my feet trying to find a friend’s apartment. I was completely exhausted at the end of the day, which was a 12 hour one for me. And yet, despite all that pain and effort, I’ll consider it preferable to spending another minute at the Department of Motor Vehicles.I hate dealing with the DMV. They’re not there to serve you, you’re there at their mercy.

I don’t have a driver’s license, and have managed for years with only a learner’s permit, which I’ve rarely used to drive, anyways. I mostly walk and take the Metro wherever I need to go. But after practicing during the last few months I agreed with my dad to go to the DMV and take the road test to get a license, my general anxiety about giving up any information for the government aside.

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Make sure to watch and listen to Jimmie Vaughn (“a free independent, sovereign Texan”) performing Down with Big Brother at a recent Texas Independence Day celebration in Austin, Texas.

Don’t want no shackles, Don’t want no shackles on me.

I say, ‘Down with Big Brother, always trying to track and trace me!’