A Matter of Perspective, I Reckon

It has been fun the last couple of weeks reporting on and writing about some of our neighbors who are upset with the new chief of police here in New Bethlehem. A lot of us don't handle changes well and Chief Malnofsky and the new police force is definitely a change from the reign of Chief Ryan. Far be it from me to say one system was better than the other – but, policing in New Bethlehem is different than it used to be. What is interesting to me, is how differently some of us are seeing the same thing.

Most of the complaints about the new chief and his officers are coming from several of the social clubs in New Bethlehem and East Brady. It seems like some of the members of these clubs think that the new New Bethlehem Police Department is singling out club members for harassment. According to these spokespersons, it seems like the NB cops are spending an inordinate amount of time "stalking" club members and skulking around the parking lots looking for people to harass on car safety violations and DUI's and such.

It is not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

According to New Bethlehem's Borough Council President, Sandy Mateer, reorganizing and restructuring the police department was in the works before Chief Ryan decided to see if the grass really was greener on that side of the fence. Mrs. Mateer says that a lot of residents have been expressing concern about the lack of policing going on in the area. Adequate police protection is essential for the orderly growth, or revitalization, of a community. That is one of the driving forces behind many of the civic leaders in New Bethlehem here in the second decade of the 21^st century; to revitalize and renew the community in New Bethlehem and the Redbank Valley.

Part of the plans for reorganizing the NBPD was adding more full-time officers, having at least 2 officers on each shift, and splitting the coverage territory into 2 districts – New Bethlehem area and the Rimersburg - East Brady area. Longer range plans would eventually see a police substation in East Brady. With 2 officers on duty each shift and the work area clearly defined, Borough Council hoped to have greater police visibility and coverage. It's always good to have a plan.

Having a plan “b” is usually a good idea, too.

There are 2 pretty well-defined sides to the current NB cop debate. One side wants more policing and the other side, not so much policing. What is best for the community as a whole? Who really should decide how the police do their work? In an ideal, Libertarian world, everybody would respect everybody else and we wouldn't need police. That ain happening on this side of the Pearly Gates, so we have to accept some amount of policing as part of the price that we pay for living in a civilized society. Such as it is.

But, I digress. There has to be some amount, some degree of police enforcement in order to maintain that civil society. We don't always realize just how many laws, regulations, and ordinances we have allowed the Ruling Class to impose upon us! It is likely that every one of us breaks a bunch of laws every day without ever knowing it. No police department in the world can enforce all of the laws that we, living in the supposedly "land of the free" are bound by. Every police department has to be directed by a legislative body to prioritize the laws, regulations, and ordinances to enforce. The New Bethlehem Police Department is under the direction of the New Bethlehem Borough Council. The priority of enforcement, then, comes from the Borough Council.

In theory, we “the people” direct the Police Department through the Borough Council.

In theory. Seriously.

I think that if we are honest, each of us has things that we think the police should pay more attention to while paying less attention to other things. I imagine that some of us think that Ordinance enforcement is a waste of the police's time, while some of us probably don't think car safety (brake lights, turn signals, etc.) are an awfully big deal. Most of us probably think that violent crimes against people and property should be a priority of any police department – probably not much disagreement there. The disagreement comes in how much enforcement we want to see in other areas of our mutual communal interactions. I think that likely, our preference about non-violent crime enforcement comes from the things that we do, or leave undone, in our daily lives.

I'd like to see the police spend a whole day ticketing people who stop past the white line at the intersection of Broad and Wood Streets, but that's just me.

The social clubs say that the “nit-picking” police are hurting business at the clubs and that this is going to hurt the community as the clubs financially support school and community events. The police say that they are not targeting the clubs. Chief Malnofsky says that his officers don't have time to “stake out” the Moose, VFW, and Eagles. Personally, I would hope that he is right. One has to wonder though, how much damage the members of the clubs are doing by posting cop warnings on social media on Friday and Saturday nights.

It seems to me like our community is going through some changes and maybe we all need to calm down and let things settle for a bit before we get all “take to the streets” and protesty. The new chief hasn't hired up a full roster yet. The department is re-organizing and rebuilding. Be patient, give it time, things will fall into place with a new normal before too long.

In the meantime, I am going to go scrape the snow off my headlights and tail lights and make a quick turn signal and brake light check before I go over town. Maybe next time I'm at the bar, I will leave one beer sooner than usual. And, maybe I'll stop posting cop warnings on my Facebook page telling folks not to come to town. Maybe I will be a little more cautious driving through town. Maybe I can do some little things to help make the situation better.

By the way, the New Bethlehem Police are having a “meet and greet” Saturday, February 2, 1 PM at the Community Center. It will be interesting to see how many “concerned” residents will turn out.

Meanwhile, I'd still like to see more enforcement at the Broad & Wood Streets intersection.

The Snow Storm

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields” 

With these lines, 19th-century American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson begins his descriptive poem of the snow storm with it's enforced solitude and wind-driven sculpturing. Looking out my window this morning, I see the Borough of South Bethlehem and the creek hill beyond covered in a blanket of fresh, new snow. As in Emerson's “Snow Storm”, there is a quietness and an emptiness that seems to blanket the world this morning as well.

South Bethlehem in Snow

In Emerson's time, snow storms were a normal part of living in the north. They happened every winter, people planned for them, and people dealt with them. In that long-ago time, when people were so much more self-reliant, the snowstorm wasn't something to be feared and dreaded, it simply was something that happened and had to be dealt with. The winter snow storm was as normal, and natural and nothing to be overly concerned about. The snow would come. People would deal with it. The snow would melt. People would tell their storm stories well into summer. The snowstorm was simply part of living.

So much has changed in 200 years! With all of our modern, scientifically wondrous technology, the naturally, normally occurring snow storm has become something to be feared, something dangerous, something almost supernatural. We have become so removed from all things natural, that a potential snow storm takes on the properties of some sort of sinister, evil, living entity, bent on wreaking havoc, causing pain, and destroying human lives.

It is just a snow storm! Snowstorms can happen in any winter. Snowstorms have been happening since the beginning of time – long before mankind arrived on the scene and they will keep on happening long after mankind has faded out of the picture. It is as natural as the sun coming up in the east and going down in the west. Yet, with all of our sophistication, all of our technology, all of our great scientific advances, we are terrified, almost to paralysis by the threat of a snowstorm.

The very technologic nature of our modern lifestyle makes us far more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature than we were in earlier, less sophisticated times. We don't, as a rule, have food stockpiled in our freezers and pantries, as our grandparents and those before them did. We don't have our own water supply, our own waste disposal systems, our own sources of heat and “power” (lighting and cooking fuels). We have become dependent, and interdependent, on the providers of our water, sewerage, electricity, gas, and oil. Most of us cannot provide for ourselves, no matter how much we might want to, and no matter how much money we may have.

There may be a certain nostalgia for being snowbound in the old farmhouse in the hills. There were kerosene lamps, Coleman camp stoves, a fireplace, and a cistern from which we could draw water. There was a freezer full of meats and vegetables. We had our own milk cow. Being snowbound was no big deal. But, we were not reliant on electricity for our entertainment, work, and information. We did not live in an instantaneous world where we thought that we had to have moment by moment information from around the world. The snowstorm was not that big a deal in that time and place; we were self-sufficient, at least for a few days at a time.

While there may be a certain comfort in remembering being snowbound 50 years ago, I don't know that I would want to return to the standard of living we had back then. I am not really sure that I would want to milk the family cow twice each day. I don't really think that I would want to carry firewood in and ashes out every day. I am not sure that I would want to rely on the three broadcast TV networks for my news anymore and I would not want to be limited to network TV for my entertainment. I think it would be difficult to get along without cell phones. All in all, I guess I am more comfortable with our progress than with the self-reliance that we may have lost.

Most of the time.

Reading over what I have written so far, I have another thought. Is it possible that we, ourselves, are not as helpless and at the mercy of nature as I might think that we are? Is it possible that our constant exposure to news and social media intensifies the perception of impending danger from what are just natural occurrences? Think about it for a bit.

TV and Internet news starts warning of storms almost a week before they hit. The constant 24-hour news broadcasting may lead to exaggeration and overhyping. When you have space (or time) to fill with words, there is a tendency to use more words than you need. Superfluous adjectives become the norm and we may use exaggerated hyperbole to describe relatively mundane events. A snowstorm headed our way is normal, but “normal” is not a great headline. Writers and newscasters are pulled toward the extreme – “life-threatening”, “devastating”, “killer storm” get thrown around with almost wild abandon. A snowstorm, that may make travel tough for a day or two gets built up into the most frightening event of our lifetime.

Maybe, the fault lies not in ourselves, but in our media. (Apologies to Wm. Shakespeare.)

The roads here in the Redbank Valley were bad yesterday and are horrible this morning, but you can get through if you take your time and are careful. We didn't lose power. It was a snowstorm. We have seen others in the past and we will see more in the future.

Oh, and it's cold here this morning. Cold, not “life-threatening”, not “devastating”, not “apocalyptic”, just cold. Bundle up if you go outside.

Government Shutdown - Just Political Play

As we head into the fourth week of the “partial government shutdown” let us take a few moments and look around the Redbank Valley to see how the “shutdown” is affecting us.  Maybe if we calm down and think it through, we might be able to put this in perspective.

We went grocery shopping last night.  The shelves were full, telling me that the food producing, manufacturing, trucking, and retail businesses are still functioning as normal.  We had supper in a restaurant which was full to capacity.  Obviously, the restaurant had electricity and gas to run its stoves and ovens and had been able to get supplies.  The roads between here and there were no worse than usual.  There were no mobs ranging the countryside committing horrific acts of violence and mayhem against the peace-loving people of the Redbank Valley.  Lights were on in all of the houses – including a few still fully lit with Christmas displays.

Maybe there are advantages to living in “flyover country”, the backwoods, the hinterland.  There are not that many “non-essential” Federal employees in our area.  Our local economy is not being impacted by the loss of their income. That could be a very selfish way of looking at it, but during the 10 years of the Great Recession, government employees – federal, state, and local – got their pay raises and perks while the “great unwashed” struggled to exist in the third world economy that the Obama Democrats were trying to create in America.  Having watched the private sector suffer for so long because of government meddling, it is a little hard for me to overly sympathetic with the current condition.

That is not to say that I am not sensitive to the people who are suffering from the shutdown.  I have been broke.  There have been months in my life when I ran out of money before the month ran out of days and there have been times in my life when there have been more days than dinners.  Most of the time, in my life, these rough patches were self-inflicted – or to quote Jimmy Buffett “ 'twas my own damn fault.”  It isn't the federal workers' fault that they are not getting paid.  The situation is out of their control and I feel bad for them for that.  I could almost get angry at the politicians who have crafted this misery, but anger just doesn't suit me anymore.

Not to minimize any of the individual hardships that some federal employees and their families are suffering, how many workers are actually being affected?  There are about 800,000 Federal workers who are not getting paid.  They are considered “non-essential” workers.  Why in the world are there 800,000 non-essential workers?  That is a question that should be answered.  There isn't any concrete solid number of actual Federal employees on the payroll.  I have seen figures ranging from 7 – 9 MILLION Federal employees.  That's a mess of folks.  If we take a middle figure of 8,000,000 and figure that 800,000 are “non-essential” and not being paid during this shutdown, we see that about 10% of the Federal workforce is considered “non-essential”.  This is a lot of people being affected – but I have to wonder why they are on the government dole in the first place?

Taking a larger view.  There are about 206 MILLION working-age Americans. The 800,000 unpaid “non-essential” Federal workers represent less than ½ of a percent of working age Americans.  This is not a particularly huge number of workers when viewed as a portion of the entire working - age population in the US.  The “shutdown” is a bitch-kitty for those workers who are not getting paid, but life seems to be going on for the rest of us.   As much as the Ruling Class wants to make us believe that we are, we are not as dependent on the Government as they want us to be.

The thing that irritates me the most, is the incredible hypocrisy that so many of our so-called “leaders” are exhibiting.  Every single one of the self-righteous hacks that are condemning a border wall has all voted repeatedly for building a wall in the recent past. Every two-bit, sleazy politico who castigates Trump for wanting a wall has been in favor of walls.  And, every single one of the no-account buggers lives behind walls to protect them from the rest of us “deplorables”.  If walls don't work, why do they live behind walls?  If walls don't work, why are their walls around prisons? If walls don't work, why did the Soviet Union and its puppet states build miles and miles of walls to keep their slaves from escaping?  Walls work, and a sovereign nation needs to be able to control who comes into the country.  It's a very simple thing.

There is absolutely no sound, intelligent, logical argument against building a border wall along our Mexican border.  None.

And their hypocrisy extends in total unreality when they start caterwauling about the “cost” of building a wall.  President Trump was asking for $5.7 Billion next fiscal year.  The Federal government will likely spend between $5 and $7 TRILLION dollars in the next year.  $5.7 Billion is a mere 1/10 of 1% of expected Federal spending. 1/10 of a percent.  That would be like your checkbook being 2 cents out at the end of the year.  A tenth of a percent is a rounding error.  Our Government throws away more than that every day.

The hypocrisy about spending should be clear if you stop and think that many of these same Congresspersons and Senators approved $900,000,000,000 in the great pork barrel of the “Stimulus Package” of 2009.  They threw away almost a TRILLION dollars on a stimulus that did nothing to end the Great Recession.  This is the same Congress that has authorized $20 TRILLION more in spending than the government could steal from the economy in fees, taxes, and fines, leaving us, the taxpayers to pay off with interest at some point in the future.

The whole government shut down is a cynical, political game that is being played at the expense of the government workers.  Securing the border was the lynchpin of President Trump's presidential campaign.  He promised to build the wall and the Democrats and establishment Republicans are willing to do anything to prevent Mr. Trump from achieving this goal.  It's not a question of morality, it's not a question of cost, it's not a question of effectiveness; it is simply to defeat Trump at any cost.

Our country cannot absorb the tens of millions of migrants who want to come into our nation.  Our society and our culture cannot withstand the tsunami of drugs and crime that is waiting to sweep across the border.  The American people understand that border security and the wall are essential.  It is time for the members of Congress to quit playing games and do their duty to the American people and build the wall and secure the border.

Happy New Year to California!

Most of us look forward to the New Year as a fresh start, a time of renewal, some sort of new beginning.  And while most of us woke up Tuesday morning with a sense of hope for the New Year, Californian's woke up to more than 1,000 NEW laws taking effect in the Golden State.

1,000 NEW laws.  I cannot comprehend 1,000 TOTAL laws, let alone 1,000 NEW laws.

Among some of the new laws are these; SB 100 which requires California to have 50% of its electricity generated by non-carbon sources by 2026 and 100% by 2045.  Even if it could be done, the cost will be horrific. SB 100 guarantees that Californian's will pay the highest rates for electricity in the United States, fleecing the public whilst the corporate “fat cats” get richer.

AB 406, a boondoggle to the teacher's unions, prohibits “for profit” companies from operating charter schools.  For all of the chatter about “a woman's right to choose” - apparently Governor Brown doesn't think women should have the “right to choose” how their kids are educated.  Besides, we can't let any more teachers get away without paying union dues for the Democrat Party!

SB1192 bans sugary sodas as a kid's meal default beverage.  Beverage choices were limited to water, plain milk, and non-dairy substitutes like yummy almond milk, while AB 1884 bans full-service,    dine-in restaurants from offering single-use plastic straws unless they are requested by customers.  The compromise legislation exempted fast-food chains and which type of restaurant uses the most plastic straws do you think?  Banning plastic straw?  I could not make this stuff up.

And, for any of you who still suffer under the delusion that Democrats are against corporations, SB 901 allows Pacific Gas & Electric power utility to raise rates to pay for liability associated with 2017 forest fires supposedly sparked by power lines and provides $200 million to thin forests.  The legislation avoids controversy about homeless starting forest fires and the legislature's passing laws limiting logging roads that served as fire breaks.  Once again, California's “ruling class” will force the people to pay for the mistakes of their corporate cronies.

From protecting unions and corporate cronies to forcing parents to pick “politically correct” beverages for their kids Californians will see more and more of their individual freedoms and liberties eroding away to the hopelessness of servitude to the State.

1,000 NEW laws.  It boggles the imagination.

1,000 NEW laws.  How many so-called laws does each of us violate every day without even realizing that we are breaking a law?  How many arcane, outdated, and maybe idiotic, ordinances, municipal, county, state and federal laws are there of which most of us are unaware?  How many laws did I break today?  I have no earthly idea, but I am quite sure that somewhere, somehow, today I broke one or more “laws”.  Is the world better off for all of these “laws”?  I genuinely have to wonder.

The question that comes to my mind, is why do sovereign people need 1,000 NEW LAWS to continue to function as a society?  Maybe a better question is, why do sovereign people need 1,000 laws, period? What has happened to us, Americans, that we have become willing to surrender so much of our liberty over to the various Governments?  How have we allowed this to happen?  What has been the thinking process that has made us willing to let a “ruling class” control so much of our daily lives?  And, maybe even more frightening, how are there so many among us so willing to tell the rest of us how to live?

I cannot begin to imagine telling others how to live their lives. I cannot begin to imagine wanting to control other people.  That is so alien to my way of thinking that there simply is no way for my mind to grasp controlling others.  What dark lust drives someone to want to control another human being?  What form of evil seeks to deny freedom and liberty in the lives of others?  What weakness has grown in the rest of us to accept it?

Have the Totalitarians among us used our big-hearted, kindness against us?  Have the Totalitarians among us made it “politically incorrect” to speak up in defense of our freedom and liberty?  Is it just not “cool” to be concerned about government overreach, and most definitely, divisive to speak of it?  Has our desire not to offend anyone allowed the Tyrants among us to run amok?  How much of our individual liberty will we surrender before we rise up to defend ourselves?

The debate should not be whether Republican or Democrat, nor “left” or “right”, nor even”progressive” or “conservative”.  The debate now should be “liberty” or “government control”.  Regardless of the issue, freedom-loving people must start speaking up for liberty.  Every additional law, rule, regulation, tax or fee takes another bit of your liberty. The fact that California enacted 1,000 NEW laws on January 1 should scare the daylights out of every American.