Destroying Babylon

Babylon, in reggae and hip-hop slang, is a term for a corrupt place — it is sometimes used to refer to white society. Bascunan and Pearce interviewed more than 100 rappers worldwide for the book, to be published by Random House of Canada, talking about the role guns played in their lives.

"How many rappers have been shot, lost a brother, lost a friend?" asks Bascunan. "How much gun violence have we heard of? It seemed pretty obvious what the problem was. Guns escalate violence."

There you have it. The cause of violence in the gangsta community is white society and guns! It must be so, because more than 100 rappers say it is...(I wonder if they interviewed Proof?)

My favorite line comes from Ms. Dynamite, who started out strong and then blinked:

I want a man that has, if not a job, then is looking for a job.

Yeah, baby, I'm lookin'...

We've talked about crime and violence in "the community" before, and acknowledge this is fraught with the peril of being branded with today's Scarlet Letter, the dreaded "R." I will repeat myself:

[W]e also can't forget to look at race--not as a cause of violent crime, but as an indicator of populations most directly affected by and responsive to a continuing history of destructive government policies.

If we're afraid to even address this, we're never going to be able to make things right. And those hurt the most by this self-imposed blindness will continue to be the least properous and protected among us.

Hristos a Înviat!

Adevarat a Înviat!

"Student Safety Was Not in Jeopardy"

A lockdown at the West Bend High Schools Thursday yielded a gun in a vehicle that led to an arrest. No drugs, however, were found in any locker or vehicle.

The gun, a cased, 22-caliber rifle, was found in a West student’s truck in the parking lot. Ammunition was found in the Ford truck as well.

The driver, a 17-year-old town of Trenton male, said he was an avid hunter and forgot it was in the truck behind his seat, according to the West Bend Police Depart-ment and the school district. He was arrested and taken to the Washington County Jail on charges of possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, the police said.

The cased rifle was confiscated.

Students’ safety was not in jeopardy.

Sounds like they've taken the one kid who, in his spare time, pursues activities requiring patience, discipline, intelligence, work, knowledge and skill, and dropped the hammer on him for it.

The compulsory education system requires individuals to attend and report to a specific location for a specified time. To then turn around and require them to submit to warrantless searches and seizures sounds a lot like the state ordering you to surrender your unalienable rights--and assuming the power to punish you if you don't.

It sounds like that because it is like that. Not that you could ever get one of the black robed high priests charged with abiding by "the supreme law of the land" to agree...

We're the Only Ones Following You Enough...

A former police officer has been convicted of stalking a woman with whom he claimed to be romantically involved.

Yep, sure glad this creep spent decades carrying a gun where you and I could not.

We're the Only Ones Immune Enough

A former FBI agent accused of helping a ruthless mobster plot gangland slayings in Brooklyn more than a decade ago wants his case moved to federal court, his lawyers said in court papers.

State prosecutors have charged R. Lindley DeVecchio with four counts of murder in what they billed as one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. They said on Tuesday that they would fight to keep the case in state court...

Attorneys for DeVecchio claim the case belongs in federal court because there -- unlike in state court -- they would be allowed to argue that he was immune from criminal charges arising from his duties as a federal agent.

It certainly sounds like he was operating by the book...and still is.

Second Amendment Sunday

Free Constitution shares some thoughts on the First and Second Amendments.