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| New Clothing Restrictions | |
Sydney has long had a reputation as the prostitute and drive-by shooting
capital of our proud nation, and the reputation has been reinforced over the
last few weeks with a drive-by shooting spree in a bit of bikie-on-bikie
action. What a tragedy. But before joining the sheeple in chanting tired old humanist cliches like
"all humans are equal" and "all human life is sacred" and "all discrimination
is wrong" lets just step back and classify killings according to binary logic
and one appropriate discriminator:
- Criminal bikies killing other criminal bikies.
- Criminal bikies killing innocent bystanders.
- Innocent bystanders killing criminal bikies.
- Innocent bystanders killing other innocent bystanders.
Common sense says that we can eliminate 4), and we like to leave 3) to the
Charles Bronsons of the world, so that really leaves criminal bikies killing 1)
other bikies, and 2) innocent bystanders. Given that criminal bikies are regarded as bad people (hey, they go around
shooting people - that's pretty bad right?), what exactly is the problem with them being shot? If a rabid dog attacks and kills another rabid dog, is it really
so bad? It doesn't completely solve the problem, but it reduces it by one. So that brings to the only problem: bikies killing innocent bystanders. So
when is the last time that happened? Well, correct me if I'm wrong Dear Reader,
but I seem recall that was at the father's day massacre in 28 years ago - in
1984, in which a 14 year old girl got caught in the cross-fire in a shoot out
which also killed six bikies. This resulted in 63 murder convictions shared
among 25 bikies. A tragedy to be sure, but a rational cost benefit analysis suggests
that encouraging rather than discouraging bikies to shoot
each other has to be considered as an alternative to the current zero-tolerance-policy.
If we could avoid the crossfire killings, then this would be a win-win for both
common sense and for public safety. Unfortunately, a few stray bullets seem to be ending up in the wrong places
lately. People having their houses shot up because their house used to belong to a bikie. Nasty.
Getting bullets come through your picture window - bullets which were intended for the flat below you. That's just incompetence. But these problems can be solved. Police could publish lists of where the
bikies currently live. They could have a web-site, updated daily.
In fact, people could check the web-site (or older cached copies of it) before
buying or renting a home. An as for the bad shots, if the police had an informal arrangement to slow
down their response time to bikie-on-bikie action, then they would have more
time to aim better. A quiet word with the bikies that shooting involving stray
bullets would be investigated with greater zeal might also make them aim a
little more carefully. But no, the police have to continue to protect the worst elements of
society with the same zeal as the innocent bystanders, so innocent bystanders
continue to be placed at risk. And the government has reacted to the 'crisis' in a predictable way - passing
laws to ban 'bikie colors' in some suburbs (like Kings Cross). What a lovely
precedent for aspiring statists! Dictating what people can wear is a favorite
activity of socialist governments. Just look at the suits that Mao inflicted on
his women. Banning 'the kinds of "colors" that bad people wear' is pretty good
start. I just hope that when the government issues uniforms for us all that they
choose someting flattering. Red is not my color. Not even in straight jackets.
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